Into Poland to Cedynia

September 5, 2018

I think we have been spoilt cycling in Germany

Last night we were staying at an incredibly tiny place, Mescherin. This place is bilingual but that was no great help to us - German and Polish ! Not a single word of English spoken. Last evening we had another good meal, this time it was Ken's turn to have Leber but he did know he was getting liver. The hotel is lovely but considerable problems with the check in and check out times. We arrived around 2pm to find check in not till 4pm. This morning had our breakfast at the appointed hour of 8am just to find we couldn't check out till 9am and bikes our means of escape securely locked up in a shed. So here we are like our dog Bernie in the kennels just waiting waiting waiting

She did come at last and we were onto the perfect forest tracks we have become so accustomed to - this one was particularly special it was undulating and through the trees we could get the odd view of the Oder. We came to Gartz, too early for a coffee but we did find a supermarket there to buy supplies for lunch. We then came to the dreaded Umieitung but being Germany it was perfectly marked and completely bike friendly. back on the proper track we were in a National Park there was a Wildschul which I took to be an Outdoor Education place for schools.

Lots of activity in the park here. This spat us out over a bridge and along a canal. It looked navigatable but we were not sure until along came the first of several large commercial barges. It was also a surprise to us as that when we were approaching Schwedt suddenly along the canal was huge industry. It had no signage of any sort and we were at a loss to know what it was. Looking up google it tells me that they have a huge oil refinery and the biggest paper processing plant in Europe.

Two lucky dogs they had been to Latvia and were on their way home to Berlin

The other thing they have we found as we were about to cross the bridge into Poland was a very nice cafe with good coffee and cake. We crossed the bridge on the wrong side I think as I got a lot of abuse, don't know whether it was in Polish or German - it just washes over you when you cant understand what they are saying to you. Over the bridge there were lots of shops. No marking of the track of any sort. We knew we were looking for a small unsealed track going to the right. We saw one and took a gamble on it. It seemed the right shape and was as expected steeply uphill. The problem was that it was completely unridable being thick sand. After a bit over 2km we came onto a road. Ken spotted a man to show the map and ask - he was carrying a beer bottle and smelt strongly of booze not surprisingly he was no help at all. Then we saw a road sign to Cedynia and we knew we were on the right road. Unlike the little towns in Germany there were no cobbles - they had been replaced by pot holes. Now we bumped out way along going quite high at one point with the road saying it was 9%, I am lucky my bike is an electric one. There were signs indicating deer along the way and we saw them. At one point I counted 9 deer crossing in front of me, we can never get the camera out fast enough. One interesting thing we saw were clearings in the forest with high deer fencing, this baffles us till Ken took a look and saw they were planted with small oaks - the deer fencing of course to protect them from the deer. Cedynia when we arrived is a small town, we found the ATM to get some Zloties and found the hotel, dinner isn't until 9pm, far too late for us so we will get a Pizza

I had forgotten how Poles love fancy fences

Fenced off to protect new oaks from deer

Today's ride: 64 km (40 miles)
Total: 837 km (520 miles)

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