It was to be a bit of a travelling day today, but first, since we had
found another national park to sleep in - we'd better at least explore
it just a little bit. The park was Dzûkijos National Park - right in
the bottom corner of Lithuania, next to Belarus.
We chanced upon one walking track that took us through some forest,
then into a village of farm houses, at which point we lost our trail
markers. Preferring a round trip, we wandered aimlessly for a bit and
chanced upon some markers for a completely different trail that lead
us back to the van via some raspberries for Marea to pick!! Sweet :-)
Time then to spend the last of our Lithuanian money on gas (just less
than one pound per litre and the cheapest yet) and head for Poland.
Along the way, we picked up a hitchhiker who didn't speak any English
and seemed to either still be going from a night of celebrations, or
had started drinking for the day already!! It was very hard for all
of us to make sense of what each was saying, but we got him a couple
of towns along the road, so he was happy. Then undeterred by that
experience, 5 minutes down the road we picked up two more!! These
young Lithuanians could speak English and were planning on hitching
all the way to Italy to see a friend for a couple of weeks then hitch
all the way home. Crazy!! We dropped them off at the border, where
they hoped to catch a lift on a long distance truck or car heading
south. They were working on the theory that a Lithuanian car crossing
the border would be likely to be travelling a long way because they
wouldn't be crossing just to go shopping in the nearest town in Poland
as everything is cheaper in Lithuania - maybe they are not that crazy
after all... We couldn't really offer to take them further, cause we
weren't actually 100% sure what direction in Poland we were heading.
A little trick for anyone who doesn't want to show their passport at a
border - tell the customs official that your passports are locked away
in the van and it will take a couple of minutes to get out. He might
then just say don't worry and drive through?? At least thats what
happened to us today ;-)
After stopping off at Augustow for some late lunch and a walk around,
we headed south-west in the direction of Warsaw. I'm afraid Poland is
not really going to get a fair visit considering its size. Still - you
can't see everything... Talking about seeing stuff, tonight is the
first night since somewhere in the south of Scotland that it is
actually completely dark!!
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