Another hot and sunny day dawned very early for us due to noisy helicopter activity over and near the campsite.
At first we thought it was the Feds air patrolling Dogsthorpe until we remembered we were in Poland....
Turns out the helicopter was ferrying building materials up to the mountain huts in the Tatra's but they could have started their racket a bit later on....
The plan today is to carry on our traverse of the High Tatra starting in Zakopane, Poland and ending 50 or so miles later in Podbanske, Slovakia.
The eagle eyed may have spotted another border crossing and this will be our 7th country notched up on the tour.
Headed off into the bedlam that is Zakopane at 09:30 and stopped off for daily supplies from Tesco's (yeah we know, lack of imagination or what?). This included a significant supply of their fake Mars bars to get us over the big mothers to come.
Made short work of the 3 miles or so we had to backtrack to pick up Route 961 that would lead us into more trouble than we could imagine.....
The main benefit of our taking this particular route was a significant reduction in traffic as most of the roads are too steep or narrow for anything bigger than a car.
Just starting the first climb of the day, we heard a rather unfamiliar, for this trip, pfffffft noise from the back tire.
Our first puncture was mended by Miles at the roadside and involved replacing the inner tube as the valve stem had ripped away from the surrounding rubber.
Within a few hundred metres of taking the 961, we started climbing and that seemed to set the scene for the day.
The first climb was a couple of miles of 1:10 that had the sinews popping and veins on our temples standing out.
There followed a number of other very steep climbs, mostly long and happily often shaded. However we were still dripping with the effort and had to make frequent stops to take on liquids and calories in various forms.
The continued ups and all too short downs started to knock the bejesus out of our legs and even though this may not have been our longest day or one with the most climbing, it was certainly our hardest yet.
Around midday, the Polish/Slovakian border was crossed at a scabby little bridge with nary a murmur. No fan fare, no trumpets, nothing. Tsssk.
After passing into Slovakia, the surroundings became very Alpine and we rode through a number of lovely high villages not unlike those in the Western Alps in France or Switzerland.
This area is very popular with walkers and climbers both active and would be. Each village was bulging at the seams with day trippers out doing their thing.
We continued to grind the miles out crawling our way to our destination. Due to the hills, the average speed was very low and it was taking us hours to cover ground we would normally knock off much more quickly.
Approaching Stary Smokovec, about 15 miles from our destination we were both running on empty. Emergency CAKE and coffee was consumed in the town before we coaxed our quads into taking some more punishment.
After another 10 miles or so of hard effort, the road levelled out then swung steeply downhill. TFFT!
We dispatched the last 5 miles at an average speed of 30 mph almost without turning a pedal.
Presently we found ourselves stood in front of what purported to be Slovakia's equivalent of a 4* hotel....yeah right.
Despite all the hard miles, we couldn't resist cycling to the hotel door which involved riding up 500m of 1:10 ramp. That did for what was left of our legs and we dismounted like a pair of crippled John Waynes.
We checked into and checked out the facilities of the hotel. Nice in parts but no luxe fest. Dinner was eaten in the hotel restaurant which was doing a good impression of a Butlin's camp canteen but we had no legs left to carry us anywhere else.
Yesterday and today we have dispatched the High Tatra's, tomorrow, the Low Tatra's are on the cards. Lets just hope they are slightly less damaging to our poor beleaguered quads...
Today a massively hilly total of 58 miles and 1300m of ascent! Total trip 2128 miles.
More Southerly ramblings to follow.
Back soon. Miles & Tracey.
