Estonia by Motorcycle, Day 3: Poland (2023)

No breakfast again as it’s another early start. I want to get out into rural East Germany before rush hour kicks off. When I parked my bike the previous evening it was in a building with around 6 car spaces so rather than take up one of those I parked in the corner by the empty cycle racks. They’re not empty now though so I have to move half a dozen bikes out of the way before I can leave and then I can’t work out how to open the garage door from the inside. Great start.

— Just starting? View Day 1 post of the roadtrip —

The German autobahns are terrifying places. My bike seems happy at between 110 and 120km/h. The people of Germany seem to prefer speeds around twice that. I approach trucks with nothing behind me, I indicate to pull out and check the mirror again to find it full of Volkswagen Passat or Skoda SUV. It’s always a Passat or a Skoda. And they don’t take any shit, they flash and tailgate until I get out of the way. It makes for quite nervy progress and I decide that 130 or 140 is probably safer. It’s fairly quiet on the roads though, certainly by UK standards and I get time to enjoy the landscape. It really is nice here, gentle rolling hills, lots of fields, forests and rivers.

Germany passes and soon I’m in Poland. I’m beyond excited, I’ve never been to Poland before.

I ride through the old border buildings, down a hill and into Poland. The signs that tell us the various speed limits have pictures of tanks on them. Petrol is 5.50pln a litre instead of €1.80. There are lots of Zs in place names. I’m heading for Szczecin, and I’m pleased that the German signs have shown it’s pronounced Stettin.

I was warned not to speed in Poland so I’m careful, but it seems I’m the only one as everyone zooms past me. I make good progress along a beautifully smooth and arrow straight highway until Google tells me to turn off.

I do, and I’m in a small, scruffy town.

This is where travelling in Poland stopped being a cruise along some of the nicest and easiest roads I’ve experienced into something more interesting but also more frustrating. Mindful of the advice to watch my speed, I pass signs that say 90, then 70, then 50, then 90 again, then 50, then 70, you get the idea. It’s a bit overwhelming so I settle in behind a van that seems to know what he’s doing and is going fast enough for me.

Poland away from the main highways feels very alien. The words on the signs look different to those that I’m used to, the letters are different. Small towns pass by, some seem lively and others seem deserted. There’s not really much variation in the countryside for a while, but then I start to enter forests, the roads sweep over small hills and into farmland. Some roads are like avenues proceeding between rows of trees. I’m starting to feel more familiar in this unfamiliar country. I even stop for fuel and have my first conversation in Polish. Jeden prosze. Dziekuje. Do widzenia. I googled it whilst looking at the drinks fridge.

Western Poland is very modern and efficient in it’s infrastructure. The roads are new, wide, smooth and fast. The further east I travel I get to see how it must have been before this new development. The pace is slower and I ride through frequent roadworks, large scale road construction projects that I skip back and forth over on temporary roads that twist and turn, rise and fall. It would be a lot of fun, but I’m doing 50km/h in a large procession of trucks. Then it starts to rain.

A wise man once said that when the rain starts, put your rainproof gear on. Don’t wait, because you’ll be wet inside the waterproofs and that is horrible. It’s also dirty because of the roadworks so I make the decision to stop as soon as possible. A petrol station and restaurant appear and I pull in. Just as I open my case to get my waxed jacket out the heavens open and I run under the canopy covering the fuel pumps to dress myself. I look at my still surprisingly clean bike through the rain, I watch as the white dust from the roadworks turns into streams of white water and form pools of white mud. I take a deep breath and stride out to mount up and press on.

Fortunately it’s not far before I turn off the dirty, under construction road and into the Polish countryside again. The rain stops shortly after but of course the roads are shiny and wet. I don’t know these roads so progress is slow, the excitement comes from the need to pass trucks and buses as they throw dirty spray over me. But it’s summer, the roads soon dry and I stop at an abandoned building for a drink, a little walk and to pack up my waterproofs.

Fortunately it’s not far before I turn off the dirty, under construction road and into the Polish countryside again. The rain stops shortly after but of course the roads are shiny and wet. I don’t know these roads so progress is slow, the excitement comes from the need to pass trucks and buses as they throw dirty spray over me. But it’s summer, the roads soon dry and I stop at an abandoned building for a drink, a little walk and to pack up my waterproofs. I have a little look around this mysterious, remote house with ‘Okartowo’ written on it, I discover that Google says this means ‘in card form’ and I can’t make any connection between this and the abandoned house on the edge of a forest so I carry on.

I’m enjoying my ride across Northern Poland, I’m getting close in kilometres to my destination, but not in time so this means the roads are going to be smaller, twistier and more fun. Fate decides that there will be no fun for me though by introducing a new noise and a strange phenomenon to my now familiar and comfortable riding experience. There’s a strange sort of wet rattling sound coming from the bike and the throttle response is very jerky when I accelerate or lift off. I know what it is, my chain is loose. Not a problem, I assembled a tool kit with this sort of eventuality in mind. The sun is out, I’m on schedule, so I pull off the main road and find a nice bus stop with a weird but pretty stone bench monument thing to act as my temporary workshop. Coat off, tools out, rubber gloves on, I at least give the impression of a practical, competent man. I locate the massive socket I need to loosen my wheel, remove my short breaker bar as I couldn’t fit my big, golden one in the bike luggage and look through the tool box for the adaptor that connects the large socket to the small bar. It’s not in the box, so it must be in the small tool boxes attached to my pannier mounts, the ones that look like rocket boosters. I take everything out of those, it’s not in there. It must be in the tool box then, this won’t be the first time I’ve looked for something and not seen it. No, it’s not there. Whilst this went on, mild panic was rising within me. When I finally realise I don’t have it and I can’t fix this now, this mild panic turns into proper end of the world type panic. It’s not of course, that would be nonsense but for 5 minutes in that rural Polish bus stop the world was just about to explode.

I’ve been here before, a minor setback causing me to lose control of reality so I know what to do. That doesn’t mean it’s easy to do, but at least I know so I walk away, shake my hands, sit down, stand up, drink some water, shout at myself for being so stupid and careless, wave at a passing bus full of children, sit down, try to breathe normally, this sort of thing. I recover enough to try and repack my bike but of course things won’t go back in the way they came out. After a few minutes of packing, getting frustrated, walking away, packing, repeat, I get everything back on board and double check all the fastenings. I know I am liable to make a mistake in this state so I check everything again and we’re good to go. What I don’t check is the bench to see if I’ve left anything behind so a rather confused bus passenger is going to find a half used tube of chain lube.

I look at my map app and there’s a town 30km away. I search for motorbike repair shop and one comes up. Great. Off I go. I ride as smoothly and as gently as possible as in my mind the chain is falling apart and could jump off and kill me and everyone around me at any moment. It’s a rather tense ride into the next small town and I follow the satnav through a business park, past some old workshops, down a very small residential street and to a small house. Is this it? I can see a board covered by an overgrown hedge. It has a picture of a motorbike on it, some Polish words and I work out this guy must work from home.

There’s no-one in though. I try and find the Polish equivalent of Halfords on Google Maps and find three possible results. The first two are agricultural machinery stores, the final one is a car workshop.
This workshop looks very interesting, it has a graffiti style logo and a yard full of partially dismantled German saloons and a handful of little Polish Fiat 126s. I’m too anxious and stressed to appreciate this but fortunately the anxiety and stress has made me super brave as I park up and go in. A young lady holding a dog with a red ribbon tying back a sort of topknot approaches me looking rather confused. I take off my helmet and ask if she speaks English. She doesn’t. Great. But she knows someone who does. Genuinely great. She fetches a man and I ask him if he has a breaker bar to fit this socket and I proudly show him my huge, 34mm socket. He asks me to wait and goes to ask the other man who I can see laying underneath a red van. He has one, and he will let me use it. They ask if I need help, I thank them but decline as I can do this myself. It’s one of the small number of tasks I know I can complete. They go back to their van, I adjust my chain. When I’m done I take them their breaker bar back and thank them profusely. I want to give them something to show my gratitude, which is immense at this point, and they politely refuse but I pull out the only cash I have on me, a 10 euro note, and insist they take it. They refuse, I insist and eventually they give in and take it. I thank them again, wave goodbye and ride off into the late afternoon sunshine.

I’m feeling like that went very well, until I realise I’ve given them euros and they live in a country that uses zlotys.

Jastarnia has petrol stations, I checked, so all is good. I pass a huge manor house, the type I’ve seen before in Estonia so stop to do some touristing. I stop again in a lovely little village to buy some water and the lady in the cafe won’t let me pay when she discovers I’m English. This warms my heart, I feel that as an Englishman in Europe I carry a lot of baggage with me and not the good sort so it’s wonderful to discover that it’s not the barrier to good relations that I fear it was.

The next town passes by and its all very pretty and quiet until I get to the edge of town and see something quite incredible. Should you ever find yourself in the north east of Poland with some time on your hands, may I suggest you visit Swarsewo. More specifically the Labirynt w Poly Kukurydsy. Apparently this means ‘maze in the corn field’ which sounds fun but perhaps not worth the 1,000 mile trek, Swarsewo is admittedly a little remote.

I approached and saw a plane, interesting but not that unusual, there’s a fighter jet next to the M6 near Coventry, there’s an old prop plane next to GC1 in Gran Canaria. But then I saw there were two planes and one was a big old jet.

Then there was another, a biplane, and a bus upside down on top of another bus. And another biplane and some massive straw men.

Sadly this place was closed but it looks like the best maze in a corn field anywhere on earth. Hopefully one day I will go back and get to see this crazy place properly.

I’m not far from my destination now, a spit or a peninsula, whatever you prefer called Hel. I see signs for it and think I should stop and take a photo for Instagram, the road to Hel, how clever. The perfect stopping place fails to materialise and eventually I forget so it remains the greatest joke never told. There’s a town called Wladyslawowo to navigate, a pleasant, summery town, before I turn left onto the spit. For the first few hundred metres there’s nothing to suggest I’m anywhere special but soon the buildings disappear behind me and there’s forest on both sides. On my sat nav screen I can see the sea on both sides. I can see the narrow parts approaching on the screen so I’m forewarned and able to see sea all around me through the trees. I have to ride around 15km along this road and it was wonderful.

I arrive in Jastarnia, see a petrol station and fill up. The town has that holiday town feel about it, the cars have bikes and kayaks on their roofs or jet skis or boats on trailers behind. Everyone has that carefree, holiday spirit about them and I’ve already decided I like it here. I ride on to my hotel and decide to take the road through the main bit of town rather than the one that bypasses it. There are shops, restaurants, souvenir stalls, people, laugher, smells of doughnuts and hot dogs. I pass through this and join the bypass road, 200 meters to my hotel.

I’d seen pictures of this hotel but they didn’t really prepare me for what I found. The Hotel Posejdon looks like it was built in the 70s or 80s and is exactly what I imagined an Eastern European resort from that time to look like, only bigger. It’s huge. The rooms open out onto the outside like an old British holiday camp, there are landscaped gardens and a huge car park. I pull into the car park and notice a group of half a dozen fellow motorcyclists. I’ve found there to be a nice, friendly camaraderie between bikers in Europe regardless of what biking tribe they appear to belong to, so I wave and nod at my biking brothers before parking as far away from them as I can.

The reception of the Hotel Posejdon is as spectacular as the rest of the building.

I find my room, ground floor, half way back along the frontage. The room is basic and sparse and I imagine some people might find it disappointing. Not me, I’m far too excited to be here. I throw my bags onto one of the two single beds and go through my now familiar ritual of cleaning my helmet, gloves and jacket, having a cup of tea because I naturally brought my own tea with me, and having a shower and a lay down. Not for long though because this is one of the stops I was most excited by. I get changed and venture out, waving again to my biking brothers who I’m sure think I’m weird. Why does he wave and smile but never come close? Across the road there are big sand dunes that take me across a railway line to the beach. And what a beach. It’s huge and it’s empty. The sand is white and soft. It’s so fine that I can pick up a handful and watch it disappear through my fingers. It squeaks as I walk on it. The Baltic Sea is deep blue and the sun is hot, but the wind is cold. I hoped I would be able to see Kaliningrad from the easterly facing coast but it’s too far.

I walk along the beach to the town, past the windsurfers and kite surfers and hand gliders in search of something to eat. Google offers me some suggestions but it’s a brightly coloured wooden hut next to the street that catches my eye.

I walk back to the hotel along the west side of the peninsula and enter the hotel by the beach entrance, past the bar where the other guests are having a party and burning pallets. I have a beer and watch them dance and sing their karaoke then go to bed. It’s been quite a day.

429 miles, 8 hours 54 minutes riding time.