Up and at em ready and raring to go at the very early time of 08:30. This was principally due to us skipping breakfast at the hotel and hitting the road without proper early morning fuel. We couldn't stand another altercation with the frosty bint at the hotel.
The plan today was for a 70 miler via Lublin, Poland ending in Sandomierz also Poland. The advantage of this, is it has us using secondary roads for the next couple of days which should help avoid some of the traffic.
Today, perfect cycling conditions; sun, roaring tail wind and few hills (to start with).
Dispatched the 10 or so miles into Lublin and battled through the rush hour and outskirts until we worked our way into the Old Town/town centre.
En route, we had our first altercation with Polish authority when we followed a bus through a no entry/buses only restriction to the Old Town.
Luckily this level of misdemeanour does not warrant 6 months in the Gulag and we were allowed on our way when we promised to walk the tandem through the pedestrian zone.
Breakfast was taken at a pavement café. This was somewhat unorthodox and involved large helpings of CAKE rather than any crappy cereal or whatever
Once complete we found our way to the IT (Tourist Info) bureau for details of accommodation on our planned route.
Horror of horrors, there was not just a lack of room at the stable but no blimmin stable(s) either!
OK, faced with a simple choice, we revised our plan to follow the bigger 'A' roads that we knew would have suitable digs somewhere along them. Unfortunately this also meant TRAFFIC though hopefully this will settle down over the coming weekend.
After spending far too long in Lublin, we hit the road again and battled our way out of the city.
The cycling was pretty straight forward and mostly with a really good tail wind. We stopped a couple of times in the heat for drinks and ice lollies whilst making steady progress towards our revised goal.
All was going well until around 14:30 when the heavens opened, again. There followed a violent thunder and lightning display accompanied by much wind and rain.
Fortunately, Tracey (Michael Fish) Goff, predicted the rain and we were (just about) safely in a bus shelter when the worst hit.
The wind was so bad, a number of trees lost limbs and we had a narrow squeak when a branch fell close to where we had just passed by.
After an hour or so, the rain eased and in full wets, we set off on our way again.
At this stage, we had about 25 miles to knock out before arriving in Opatow We were both feeling the effects of the heat, yesterday's high mileage and the reappearance of those pesky hills.
We dug in and damply dispatched the final miles before arriving at around 17:00.
On first pass, we didn't find any of the accommodation promised during our visit to Lublin IT and eventually we called into an open Pizza joint to track somewhere down.
A nice man 'kidnapped' Miles and drove him off in his car apparently to suitable digs. Tracey was left holding the tandem in the pizza restaurant car park.
In a jiffy, Miles was back and we cycled to the Motel and settled in. 'Luxurious' is not a word one would use, more like 'grim'.....
Dinner was taken in the aforementioned pizza joint and we walked back to our digs for a well earned early night.
Another significant milestone was reached during today's ride when we passed the halfway mark for our planned mileage. It's all down hill from here let's just hope the plan is accurate......!
Today again we put in a very respectable though damp total of 78 miles and 680m of ascent. Total trip 1891 miles.
More Southerly ramblings to follow.
Back soon. Miles & Tracey.
