Jelenia Gora/Move

DELAY IN POSTS DUE TO A PERIOD OF NO INTERNET.

Friday 27^th Jul: Still in the heat wave so we decided to have a mooch day and watch the world go by. Did another route check and found out that the flood damaged bridge has still not been reopened for heavy vehicles – but it is planned to close it completely this weekend and complete the repairs. Hopefully the totally repaired bridge will be open on Monday so we have decided to delay our departure as using the bridge will save us 70 miles and Neil’s ears from Linda’s ‘complementary’ comments about Poland’s B roads!  The day was a clear, sunny and hot (34C) day so it was a good job we had nothing too strenuous planned.

Saturday 28^th Jul: Had to rearrange the outline plan to accommodate the new departure date, site bookings and recalculate/organise toll charges. Lots of head scratching/splinters as the websites are as clear as mud and even our hosts could not make sense of the procedures, at least in Poland most tolls can be paid at the toll booths so we will just have to see. Still having hot, sunny weather (36C) but fortunately we had a thunder storm and rain later in the day which cleared the humidity and the air somewhat.

Sunday 29^th Jul: Awoke to a much fresher and cooler morning, terrible that we are now too hot at times but fortunately the AC is available for the really bad days. Another rest type day with a short walk around the local park area and completed ‘touch base’ with the normal (?) people in UK and Canada. Really nice that everybody is interested in our trip and wishing us the best. Cool (26C) day with more heavy rain later in the day – funny but very shortly after the rain storms the place is dry again very quickly.

Monday 30^th Jul: WAIT Day! We should have been moving by now but by waiting for the bridge we will suffer less physiological problems. With the past heat wave Neil decided to try a No 3 haircut – wow, too short. At least we know what he will look like when he is bald. Final Tesco shopping and took a trip to see if the bridge was on schedule (yes) then returned to finalise our pack up and ready for move preparations. Plan to move tomorrow so said our farewells and settled the bill, very reasonable so hopefully an early start tomorrow, a nice sunny 27C day.

Whoops! A bit too short, we can see the wood.

Tuesday 31^st Jul: Early start achieved and left at 0715hrs.

Those people with a delicate disposition should stop reading now – our first major crisis day and a half!!!

The emergency brake cable must have become snagged on one of the tow bar bolts and when we negotiated a tight turn applied the brakes. Of course ‘the beast’ did not even notice that the trailer was loaded and had its brakes on. Do not know how long we drove with the brakes on however after about an hour, whilst near Strzegom, the heat generated by the brakes burning out blew all 4 tyres - *!*!***! or better still SHIT! Managed to get off the road and onto a safe place to assess the damage – 4 tyres and a complete brake set required and we were miles from any major towns. Unloaded car and went in search of bits and after trawling Breslau returned to the mess and 5 hours later we were back on the road again to see if we could get a rest place for the night. Nice surprise (not) as one of the new tolls (Breslau to Gliwice) had just opened, so we got our ticket and was told to pay on our exit from the motorway/sector We were a bit late in stopping so all the good places were full and eventually we stopped at a big NOISY motorway service station/McDonalds some 16 hours after setting off. A bright, sunny and fairly hot day however the intensity of the days temperature was greatly exceeded by Neil’s temperament!

Wednesday 1^st Aug: Obviously we did not get a good night’s rest and had a slow start to the day – after final trailer checks we started off for our next site. Arrived at the Gliwice toll booth and paid our toll (16.20 zloty about £3.50 for 162 km). Exited the motorway onto what was shown as a major ‘A’ road – NOT! and had great fun negotiating the substandard ‘highway’. Crisis number 2 then struck!  Linda will someday explain about the road signage (or lack of it) over here and due to a road closure sign on a road that was not closed we had to do a very tight turn round, not helped by exhaustion, lack of concentration and being really p.....d off - so the R/H/R of the beast and R/H/F of the trailer was ‘dunched’! *!*!***! or better still SHIT again!  Finally got to the site at Makow Podhalanski, which did tend to raise moral a bit as whilst being a small old site it is beautifully located at the foot of the Carpathian mountain range and only has a few other occupants on it – down side though is no internet and challenge is no English speaking staff. The weather was nice, dry and sunny with about 28C. We of course was very down and needed all our inner reserves not to 'Endex' (army term for ending an event), our first real test of bad luck so cannot really complain after 66 days adventures. Nice lead up up to someones birthday! 

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