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On Friday 14th of June, we left Berlin and travelled north into Poland to a little town called Niechorze on the Baltic Coast. This is was such a pretty area and obviously a Polish (and less busy) version of Noosa. There is sand on the beach (not rocks like on the Mediterranean) and bars and pretty houses that reminded us of Austrian architecture.
We were nicely surprised by the caravan park, the toilets and showers were all very new and clean, the pitches were separated by hedges and the owners were friendly and helpful.
We walked down to the beach and stopped on the way at a corner store, bought a beer each and drank them on the walk down to the beach. Cara played in the sand and we watched the John Deere tractor winch the fishing boats into the sea. There were only a couple of people swimming and when I felt the water, I understood why - it was quite cold. There are bars and restaurants along the beach and we stopped into one for a beer and an early dinner.
The following day we went for a drive west along the coast towards the German border. We found more pretty tourist villages.
On Monday 17 June we headed east to Gdansk. We arrived at the caravan park and I was told it would be 67 Polish Zolty for the night (about 22 Euro). After we set up, I went back to pay. After seeing the facilities (or lack of facilities) we decided we would only pay for one night and decide after that if we would stay longer. When I went to pay, the lady was telling me I had to pay city tax (which is common in the larger cities here) and a deposit for a sign to put in the caravan. I ended up having to hand over 100 Zolty for the night. Very confused I headed back to the caravan trying to make sense of the receipt but of course it's written in Polish. I didn't trust the lady at all and so Loche went and asked the security guard to translate the receipt (the security guard spoke good English). He told us we had been charged for a campervan as well as a caravan. So Loche got some money back from the lady - who was quite reluctant to hand it over!
Situations like this can cause quite a bit of stress because you can't speak/read the language or know what the local laws are. They can tell you anything and you wouldn't know if it's right or not. Considering the facilities - water was hard to get, there was no hot water in the washing up area, not enough showers etc - this park was not very good value for money.
That afternoon we went for a walk along the beach and then for a drive to Gdansk and saw the old town, which looked very pretty. We left the following day heading further east to the Polish Lakes District. This area has thousands of lakes, which are remnants of the glaciers that were here thousands of years ago. The lakes are connected to rivers and canals making this a big boating and water-sports area.
We stopped in this area for about 4 nights in two different caravan parks - both on lakes where we could take Cara for many swims and plays in the sand. The first place we stayed at was on a family farm with the pitches by the lake. The man running it was very easygoing and was extremely surprised to find we were all the way from Australia. The second day we went for a drive to one of the larger lakes in the area and a village called Mikolakji. There were quaint little eateries along the waterfront and we tried some local food that was a bit like a kebab, but with different flavours.
We had a little trouble finding the second caravan park and with nowhere else to turn around on the narrow country lane, we ended up having to turn around in a farmer's field. We were just joking about the farmer coming out and getting angry with us when 20 metres down the road, seemingly out of nowhere, appeared an angry farmer and his 50 year old tractor. We apologised and said we were lost, but he couldn't understand us and we couldn't understand him! We've found this a lot in Poland, we will see a dirt track off the main road and pull in to turn around and the next thing you have 3 cars coming at you from the dirt track….you would think there was no one down there…but there always is! The other thing we've seen standing on the dirt roads on the main truck routes through Poland is the working girls.
The lake at this next caravan park had a pool built around the edge of it - a bit like the ocean swimming pools you see in Australia. The water was murky and was segmented into sections by tape / rope (sort of like swimming lanes), but holding the tape / rope in place was metal poles dug into the water but below the water level, so you couldn't see where they were. You had be very careful not to kick your toes on them. Cara spent most of her time playing in the sand. We stayed here two nights and then headed to Lithuania on Saturday 22 June.
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