Repairs and a Farewell Concert, Augustow, Poland

Zagan the motorhome is enjoying some free tunes in a huge free car park in the lakeside resort of Augustow, Poland (N53.85319, E22.98829).

Just through the trees is a huge lake and the concert

The beauty of being in a motorhome is that you get to see places just as they are opening or closing, when everyone else has gone for the day. This has worked out really well for us many times, the one that sticks in my memory the most was the Monastery at Rila. It was so crowded in the day, but as we camped in the car park we could nip in at dusk just before the door shut. There were no doors to close at the Wolf’s Lair, so Charlie’s evening walk, and his walk this morning, was taken amongst the blasted concrete structures. In places if you didn’t know any better you would think they are just boulders, until you see the rebar.

A quick inspection of Zagan yesterday confirmed he had two issues. One of his bulbs had gone and the noise we thought was his suspension was in fact a cover than had snapped and was vibrating as we drove. Jay was on the case fashioning a repair for the cover last night which didn’t set well overnight as our four year old fibreglass kit had gone off. Still a cable tie and a tupperware box (thanks Mum) should hold it for now. This morning we set about replacing the bulb, two and a half hours and some sore, dirty arms later it was done – they know these things need to be changed so why don’t they make it easy to get to?

It was now lunchtime and the camping area had become the overflow for the car park. It’s a long weekend here, having being Corpus Christi yesterday, so it was clearly going to be a busy one. We packed up and made room for more cars by leaving. We’re going East now as we need to fit through a gap between Kaliningrad (a Russian exclave) and Belarus in order to get to Lithuania. Circled on our map was Augustow, as it had been mentioned in a guide book as a nice lakeside resort, and we had GPS co-ordinates for a free car park.

How to find your tower block Poland style

Russia??!!

Spotting a sign for a BricoMarche we pulled in and treated Zagan to a new tin of fibreglass and a new spare bulb – he’s a lucky van. Then we nipped into InterMarche and treated ourselves – I got a new suduko book and Jay, well Jay chose his own treat.

Jay’s treat at the shops today – no really you can have them all!!

How excited were we when we saw this sign, shame we didn’t see any

A couple of hours winding our way through the lakes and forest and we arrived, and were pleasantly surprised. We’ve not even ventured into the town, as the lakeside is beautiful and full of people wandering around in the sunshine and shade of the trees. We parked up by the port initially, but found it was really busy, so tried the other free parking in our park4night database. This one would normally be a huge empty car park, but tonight there is a concert on so it’s heaving – good job we got in early.

Augustow

If we had a garden, we would need one of these – he’s stood on a platform at the back.

Tomorrow we’re heading into Lithuania, so tonight we’ve said goodbye to Poland with a free concert, which wasn’t just put on for us! The town is celebrating its 459th year with a gig by the band called Rav, Dwa, Trzy (one two three) at their open air ampitheatre by the lake. We joined the locals and treated ourselves to a farewell feast from the food stalls.

When we first got to Poland we had a bit of a downer on the place, it’s huge and we thought we had already seen at the best stuff, how wrong were we? OK, it is huge, but they are putting in loads of smooth, fast roads to help with that side of things. There is stacks to see here outside of Krakow and Wroclaw, we’ve hardly scratched the surface and would like to stay longer (especially as it is so cheap), but the north calls. Summer is almost upon us and we still have a lot of driving to do to reach the top of Norway. Bring it on!!

Have a wonderful long weekend back home.

Ju x

Final pics of the day – the cemeteries here in Poland are always full of flowers. They are colourful places and really nice to see.