We departed at 08h00 by mostly tarmac Eurovelo bike path 10 to the north along the Curonian Spit. The path is well clear of the road and winds continuously through pine trees. The small township of Joudkrante involved a climb over a steep dune where everyone walked up the last bit. The group does not make any calls "Bike Up" etc. and with 21 bikes in the group this can be very startling when a shirtless and helmetless Russian comes hurtling the other way on an ancient road bike. We saw many such characters. They usually had beer bellies and pasty yellow skin. One with a bright green mountain bike - no shirt - no helmet wore sandals and a necklace. After 30km C. misunderstood the mystery tour aspect of the programme and took to the bus. Berthold our Reiseleiter is not very good at explaining the plan for the day. The entire Curonian Spit is a hive of activity. The majority of the holidaymakers have cars with a LT (Lithuanian) registration or bikes. Teenaged girls wander around in pairs with telephones clamped to their ears. We stopped at every access to the Baltic and saw hundreds of beachgoers rather reminiscent of Bank Holiday Sunday at Brighton.
There are dozens of small wasps that at first I thought were simply colourful flies. They are attracted to our bright yellow shirts. Now I have been stung on the lip while riding and know better. Renate and Marianne have also been stung. When we reached the ferry I was exhausted by heat and maybe lack of cycling practice. I packed my bike in there at 65km. but a group of stalwarts continued on to our camping ground at Karkle after the ferry crossing. We shopped at a supermarket in Klaipeda then bussed on to the very basic camping ground at Karkle, 500 metres from the beach - 200 campers and two toilets. We had our evening meal crowded at a barely adequate table in the restaurant. Apparently the usual Rotel camp site at Palanga became unavailable at short notice.
I rose at 04h30 to use the toilet and bathe in the sea in the morning twilight. Wild campers are everywhere and private backyards are full of tents. We bicycled further along Eurovelo route10, through pine trees but frequently coming across acess to the beach for motor vehicles. People were swarming to the beach like lemmings. We increasingly had to pick our way on the bikes in and around groups of walkers and pram pushers sharing the bikepath. At every crossing icecream vendors and soft drink stands were being set up. We stopped at one point to view the statue of three virgins at Palanga, the long jetty and people packed on the beach like fish laid out to dry. At Sventoji we trailered the bikes and boarded the bus for the six hour ride to the Aukstatijas National Park.
The route was mostly flat, open arable land. Large fields of nearly ripe wheat,recently cropped hay fields and small ancient farmsteads at km. intervals or closer. The count of overhead powerlines is incredible. Huge grid lines with towers in various designs cross smaller lines at a lower level which are often parallel to one another by as closely as 500 metres. In addition all the telephone lines are above ground. It would be lovely gliding country except for the arial cables. Most of the trip was over wide, well marked motorway with two lanes each way and a dividing island in between carriageways.
We had a break during the early afternoon when the Rotel made a visit to the Hill of Crosses north of Panevezys, a symbol of the struggle of the Lithuanians for freedom and independence.
Shortly before reaching the National Park we encountered a deviation off the highway where it is being resurfaced. The deviation was at least 10 km in length over minor country roads.
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| breakfast time |
The park camping ground is uncrowded with super clean loos. After cake for breakfast (Sunday) we had a free day although Reiseleiter Berthold led a group of a dozen or so on bikes around the park. Camilla and I departed on our own for a round tour of the park marked on the map as a bike route. After going as far as the railway in Ignalina without seeing any sign of a signposted bike route we returned to ride west and north out of a rather uninteresting town. We stopped at a house 300 metres off the road and enquired. It was a lovely house - lake at the bottom of the garden. Owner Sergei spoke neither English nor German so called wife - lovely lady in her sixties. She confirmed the route and forecast good weather. We now realised that we were supposed to ride on the road and that there is no bike path. We have since learned that the only marked bike paths at this date in Lithuania are the Eurovelo 10 paths on the west coast. We came across the main group in a pub at Trainiskis. They took a dirt road to the southwest. C. and I followed the bitumen and stopped at lovely lake ez. Linkmenas to skinny dip from a pontoon near Papiliakalne. We met up with the others again at the road junction just west of ez. Alkanas where they took the direct route back. C. and I tried the 3km. gravel road to Linkmenys. Just after Linkmenys we stopped where a beautiful private house was being constructed of pine logs very skilfully morticed together. A russian gang of three had just about completed roofing the house with traditional birch shingles abt. 12mm. thick and 75mm. wide in an extremely neat pattern. We looked inside and found that the downstairs interior walls were also log construction.
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| New house being roofed at Linkmenys |
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| Our route around the park |
Further on we took a diversion via the village of Grikiapele where we spoke to a girl waiting for the local bottle shop to open. We stopped again to cool our ankles at Sakarva where a river flows under the road and into Lake Sakarvai. We spoke to a local rowing his tinny under the bridge. His outboard was tilted up and clogged with weed. He was very happy with the present government and said that there were many fish in the lake. We saw shoals of tiddlers to 80mm. From there it was only a short ride to our camping ground at Peluse Kempingas. There is an old wooden church next to the camping ground and this sits at the top of the ridge overlooking the lake. we sat on the grass and watched the sun set from here.
