Tuesday 29 September
We get up and pack up before going in to pay for our stay. They tell us we can only pay with cash, but we don’t have very much and we are cranky they didn’t bother to tell us this when we arrived. So we get our bikes back out of the van and head down the road in search of an atm. Right beside where we found one is a bakery so maybe not so bad after all as we buy some bread for todays lunch and breakfasts. We head back to the camp, pay and then head out of Krakow. The Polish are nice people and more speak English (a little) than I thought would, but as it showed this morning, they may be able to speak a bit but don’t always understand what you are saying back to them – a bit like my French really.
It is a cold day and it takes a while to warm up this morning. The temp is only about 11 degrees as we head south. The last couple of nights have been much cooler – heading around 6 degrees. It doesn’t take us long before we are close to Zakopane. We stop at a McDonalds again for a coffee as the Polish ones all have a McCafe and their coffees are always good. Unfortunately there has been a bus load of teenagers pull up just before we did and it is crammed with them. We head away south – with only 20 or so minutes to go. The countryside here is interesting, obviously more mountainous than we have driven for a while and the houses are far larger and look more ski chalet type of places. It is obviously a very popular place to either live or stay as there are a lot of places along the road as we drive in. Poland has the most obtrusive advertising I have seen in any of all the countries we have been in so far. You are absolutely bombarded by billboards and advertising everywhere. There were quite a lot of countries where we never say any advertising at all, even McDonalds weren’t allowed to put up their big M showing where they were in a couple we were in. Not so here, the bigger and brighter the better.
We missed the campground on the way in so decided to park in the centre and have a look around before finding it on our way back out. We found a large carpark where the guy told us we could park all day for 15zlotys. We asked if we could stay all night for that too and he said yes. So we thought about what we would do as we strolled the town.
The Tatras behind Zakopane have a light smattering of snow on them at the moment which is why the temperature is very cool and on checking it is only about 8 degrees, but is getting down to 2 degrees tonight and 1 degree tomorrow night. We don’t really want to wild camp without electricity as this means not having the heater on (I don’t like it on gas) and it is way too cold for that here. The town reminds me a bit of Queenstown or maybe more of Arrowtown but is a much nicer place. Queenstown has gotten too chintzy and has far too much Asian influence and commercialism which destroys the Kiwi uniqueness of it. The town centre although still commercialised here with souvenirs all around and hiking shops a dime a dozen it still very cool and a great place to have a look around. A lot of the food places are selling mulled wine – my absolute favourite so we have to sit and have a couple of them to see how good they are. I think my Jamie Oliver recipe is better but it is still rather nice to have on such a cool afternoon. I manage to find a pair of inexpensive water proof hiking boots (I had to leave mine at home) which are made in Italy supposedly which I must check on and see if the truth prevailed. We decided that if we can get electricity then we will stay in the carpark we are in for the night and save a bit of money, and we find an electrical point outside a business, so this is it for the night. We just have to have our power out well before 9am and move the van over a bit so no one knows we camped here the night, not that I think anyone would care really.
Tomorrow the weather isn’t supposed to be good, but we will see. If it isn’t so good we may not go for the hike up the valley, but may stay an extra day and do it Thursday when it is supposed to be a very sunny day. At 10pm we were fortunate enough to time a quick call to Nedra & Kev in NZ as we have skype where we can call landlines for 3 cents a minute and it was early morning. . So as we can we will call family over the next few days but time difference and connectivity will have to be taken in to account. We were chatting to Gina our niece when somewhere in Zakopane there was a huge boom like a bomb going off but have no idea what it was and no sirens so we are still guessing. Even Gina heard it over the phone and said what the heck was that! Anyway we managed to get to sleep but as is usual sleeping in a non camping area you never truly settle.
Wednesday
It was very cold when we woke up and probably near 0c. We moved the van away from our power source so we don’t upset any apple carts and head into the village after brekky. It only managed to reach 4c today so well and truly rugged up-gloves and beanies. Because of the inclement weather we decide to do the hike tomorrow but decide to ride the cable car up the mountain (but a small one) and then walk a couple of ks and come down the ski lift. After a satisfying coffee and cake at a very warm café we get some bread buns to make lunch for today and tomorrow and a couple of beers for later. The trip up the slope was quite quick and I suppose we could have walked it if we had known but we want to save our energy for tomorrow anyway. Out of the cable car and the temp seems to have dropped a bit so we walk down another road of vendors selling the same wares and food as in the village, bloody hell a hard sell today. The funny thing is we are noticing that though it is cold and coming on to winter they are all selling these pastry/doughnut/roll type thing that you eat cold and supposably don’t have any filling. There are literally dozens of the stalls but no one really eating them. The potato pancakes however in town are doing a roaring trade I had some in Stegna which were divine, these are ok but not as good) Boy what I would give for a Redcliffe Banjos meat pie!! Which reminds me that I haven’t had any lamb or beef for about 3 months you just cant get it. We were in a Tesco shopping mall, and remembering all the export lamb we sent there when I worked at the meat works, surely I could find a lamb chop? Nothing, not even a sausage. Oh well chicken and fish, thank god Vicki likes these. I live in hope but reckon I will just have to have more smallgoods which I must say Europeans excel at. Anyway as we were walking it started to lightly snow which was so cool especially for someone like me from Whanganui probably not so much for Vicki from Dunedin( even though adores the snow) but though light it was a wonderful experience. From up here the view was incredible and it really is a beautiful and natural valley so we can appreciate why it is very popular all year round. We stopped at what we thought was our ski lift down and had our bread rolls while mesmerised by the vista below us that had similarities with parts of the NZ south island. As the temp bit even though the sun came out it was time for a hot wine so went into a little kiosk and indulged. This has become a slight routine as cold beer or wine doesn’t quite cut it. We went to put our tickets to go on the ski lift down but told our one was a km up the road so off we went. There are lots of new buildings going up here, chalet types that are quite large so maybe business ventures and holiday homes most in the traditional log cabin style but far from rustic. We stopped and chatted to a few woolly local sheep (with horns) and tried to entice them with some luscious side road grass but maybe they suspected we were kiwis and our advances were suspicious. No you aussies I did not spot Baaaarbara!( though the funniest thing I saw a beer from Poland with an emu and kangaroo crest on it but didn’t buy it cos I figured it was a Fosters copy) Our ski lift happened to be the old style open chairs not the previous 4 berth covered Rolls Royce type so jumped on but surprisingly it was nice slow journey down the ‘mountain’ through and over people’s back yards which took probably 3 x longer than the ‘rich man’s lift’ so in the end it was great as we got to see for miles around. We trekked back into town via the main road in and turned off to find the old town but not quite what we were expecting to find so went back to the main area. We picked up some fresh tomatoes and raspberries ( they sell forest mushrooms which we are tempted to try them but look funny though probably ok we just cant get over the fear of ‘tripping off’ somewhere though they do sell them on the side of the road in the forests. Even when we were going through Birkenau there were mushrooms in the paddocks but at least they looked like the ones in NZ.) and took them back to the van as everything here is quite close then went in search of our favourite hot wine seller. Two hot wines each($2aud for 300ml) and the night air was approaching 0 so thought best to get the van warm and have some green curry for tea for a change. Funny though we add to it and it just gets tastier.
We arrived back to our van and as it is after 6 we backed the van back into last nite’s position and hook up the electricity. We tend to keep the lights low so as not to draw any attention to us till it settles down but tonite a large van parked right next to us. Fortunately I spot stickers in the side window its ok just another fellow traveller. We are neighbourly so say hello as safety & solidarity in numbers. They are Hungarians and speak a little English but they are off for some dinner so we will catch in the morning as they are off to Krakow so maybe we will be able to swap info if we can understand each other. Vicki is tallying receipts, seems you can take the accountant out of Australia but…. Haha. Will sleep easier tonite with our new neighbours flying shotgun.
Thursday 1 October
No strange happenings overnight but we need to get up earlyish so we can get to the bus to take us to Kiry and a day of hiking. The buses here are all private and they are mostly mini buses. You can take them wherever you need to go but you need to be careful because you never know exactly where they are going to take you in the town. Looking out of the van the cars around us have thick frost on them and it is really cold outside, but a beautiful clear sky. I check the temperature on the internet and it says it is -1 and it is 8 o’clock, so I figure it was probably -2 or -3 overnight. No wonder it got cold out of bed in the van. The Hungarian couple who parked up beside us came and said goodbye and I was quite humbled by Robert who gave us his phone number and that of his daughters in Budapest and said his was an open home and we were very welcome at any time. And they have a festival in his home town in a few weeks that he said we should come for. How lovely. We say it often about the lovely people we have met on our journey. I said to Scot I reckoned it was because I told him to go out and say hello and find out who our neighbours were when they pulled up, which a lot of people don’t do, but I like to know where they are from and chat to them about their country.
It costs 10zloty to get to Kiry – about $4 for the two of us. Before we left, I had asked a tourist office lady if the track was easy to follow (thinking of NZ or Aust wilderness hikes) and she said yes. I then wondered whether I should tell someone we are out hiking so if anything happens and we don’t return they will send out someone to look for us. I had thought of the guy at the car park where the van is, but in the end I don’t do anything about it. And I thought I was being reasonable. However when we get off the mini bus in Kiry, it is a major stop for those hiking and there are souvenir places all around and as we look down the path we are going on down the valley between the Tatras we see a couple of hundred people already heading down on the path. Also the path is not the track I had envisioned, it is a stony road wide enough for a good sized vehicle – so much for my theory on getting lost and the wilderness! There are horse and carts waiting to take those who feel that the 12-14km hike is too far for them to walk.
We head off passing a couple of large school student groups which we are pleased to leave behind so we may get a little bit of peace and quiet and the sound of the wilderness as we walk the track. The road takes us along the side of a river and it is very peaceful with only the odd couple of hikers passing us or us them from either direction. As we look up, the rocky faces of the outer Tatras loom out of the trees and they are a sight to behold. It is very cool though even though the sky is cloudless, it would be about 4 degrees in the shade. There is frost on the grass and the puddles are frozen along the side of the road. There are many different paths you can take along this route, but we have decided on the easier one that will take about 2 hours each way. Some of the paths take you up along the rocky ridges where you can look down along the valley which would be a beautiful sight but we will save that for another day perhaps.
I am disappointed (but my knee is probably grateful) that the path isn’t more rugged and not so civilised but that’s ok. It is probably the best day we have spent in Europe getting back to nature and we love it. It would be nice to do more of this when we get to Austria and Switzerland. We reach the half way point and it seems like it was a short walk. We had a few horse and carts trot past us. The second part has a bit of up hill and we are getting a little higher into the hills. We both joke about having a nice coffee at the end of the track but when we arrive there, there are already 30 odd people there and in the middle of nowhere there is a large café and a hostel kind of place. So a coffee it is – even if it is a primitive old fashioned one. I don’t know if I would like the job of any of the workers having to walk in and out each day but I guess it would keep you fit –unless they have a motorbike.
Next to arrive are the big groups of students and the little peace there was, is completely gone. The path heads away from this spot onto another 4hour hike and although we aren’t doing that one we walk a little way to see if we can see further into the valley. This track gets a little back to a wilderness style of track as I doubt many continue on this path.
We head back to Kiry, trying to stay away from the large groups so we can again capture that peaceful nature sound and stop occasionally along the river side. We stop for a seat at the halfway mark and eat our bread rolls Scot made that morning. As we sit there he sees some people partway up a rocky ridge quite high up. Looks like a bit of a harrowing pathway.
When we get back to Kiry we look for the bus we need to take. There are several there with Zakopane signs on and a couple that drive past. We have no idea which one to take so we just get on one of them. We know it is going somewhere near where we want to go, but we don’t know just exactly where. It drives via a different route we got there on and we start to wonder if it going where we want to go – and no its not. It is going to the other end of the town which is a 20 minute walk that we hadn’t intended to do. It’s not all bad as we now get to walk past the shop with the bread rolls and can buy some more and we walk past the better of the mulled wine cafes and stop for 2 drinks each. It was difficult to get up and leave as we were tired, but we have to find a camp for the night which we know is on the outskirts of town – or find a porta toilet to empty ours into and go back to the carpark. We had seen a sign in the town for a campsite closer in but when we investigated there was nothing there. I wish they would remove signs when they were no longer relevant. In Poland you are totally and completely bombarded with advertising billboards. They are just incredible and I am wondering whether they just get left up even when they are no longer applicable. We head out of town to the campsite we know is still open. It is about 4kms out and we were going to have tea in town but it will be too far now. We arrive at the camp and after we had paid a Dutch couple pull up. Its always funny when this happens and we get chatting and the owners of the camp are standing by patiently waiting for them to check in so they can get on with their business. It was very worthwhile talking to this couple though as it often is, since they are also driving into Slovakia tomorrow and on to Austria. We have asked them which way they are going as it is by the mountains and I think one way is good and the other not so good. They stop by in the morning before leaving and tell us the best way to go which is great. Now I am not so afraid of getting the bad mountainous road. We eat out as a treat at a nearby restaurant and have pizza and Greek salad. They don’t have wine which I am peeved about so I have to have a beer. After I am nearly falling asleep so it is a very early night for us – all that fresh air has tuckered both of us out. Tomorrow off to Slovakia our 15th country.
