A camel in the Silesian desert

August 11, 2019

Przemęt state park - Kębłów

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I had no further trouble with the local fauna, and slept well, despite the sounds of music drifting over from what I assumed was the lake many miles away- a little too well in fact, struggling to get out and up before 9am. The night had been cold, but by then the day was already warming up and a golden sunlight came down through the pines. I had a leisurely breakfast and disassembly of the camp - and tried not to giggle too much as I fulfilled the warm-weather ritual I had inaugurated last year: burying my English cheese somewhere in foreign fields. The heat was already getting to it, and unless I wanted to fill the pannier with melted stilton it had to be humanely disposed of.

It was almost 10am by the time I set off, but I made a good start. My aim was to get as far on the way due South to Legnica as possible - I knew there was an extant campsite near by. I would need to clear the wooded, hilly land of the state park, and then cross a largely flat expanse with the major barrier being my old friend the Oder, now in its Polish guise as the Odra. There were surprisingly few crossing points that weren't highways, but a minor road near Belcz Wielki looked promising. A long, straight, partially dotted route near Wschowa heading south east looked particularly promising.

I got back to the road and set off merrily towards Krzycko Wielkie. Passing through the village of Golanice, I scouted around the village hall/playground for a tap - the day was clearly going to be warm - but had no luck. From here, I would be on dotted routes - which had been cobbles or good packed dirt the previous day - for the next 15km or so, neatly bypassing Wschowa or so I thought before taking me onto a back-route to the Odra. Congratulating myself on my navigational genius, I found the road to the next village of Niechlod - which was indeed unsurfaces - and with a little check against the GPS, set off.

The morning off-roading begins. The routes at first were as pleasant as the day before, and some fluffy clouds broke up the heat.

A lot of the villages and towns have these brick tenements containing multiple houses. They usually date from the 1920s or before - a little like British terraces.

A pilgrimage route to Santiago! Now that's a long walk from here...

A deer was good enough to stand still long enough to be snapped. Don't try this when there are hunters about...

The surface was sandy, but I didn't have too much trouble and managed to keep pedaling even if there was sometimes a little wheel spin. So from Niechlod I plunged back onto the rough roads.

Now I started to suffer. The soil of this part of Poland part of the great sandy plain that slopes off into the Baltic sea - the sandy soil once could only be productively farmed by huge estates run by the Prussian Junkers. Modern agriculture makes intensive growing of crops here viable - as I could see from the maize growing taller than me in the surrounding fields - but the soil seemed to me desiccated and exhausted from this intensity. Crops grew out of sand dunes which I wouldn't have been surprised to see at the beach; and whenever the track emerged from the pine forests, which seem to do a good job in binding the soil together, windblown sand was piled up in ripples like a beach.

Riding on sand on tyres narrower than, say, your hand is nobody's idea of fun. Not only do you loose traction - the wheel spins, you pedal away furiously in low gear to try to move forward - but the sand is remarkably effectively at derailing the front wheel, taking all your forward momentum and sending you careening off in a direction you don't want to go (and usually towards a sand dune or bunker). I was constantly close to falling off - at least I was moving so slowly, and the landing would be so soft, that I had no fear of coming to harm.

The real problem was the exhaustion, and the building heat. It had to be above 30 now, and on the exposed stretched out the forest the sun beat down and radiated off the expanses of pale sand. There were hundred-meter sections which took me five minutes to cross: continually having to restart the heavy shift, riding for a few meters before bathetically slushing into another sand-dune. I was sweating, low on water, and starting to curse the route.

Deep sand on the routes through the countryside. You can see how wavering and painful my process is from the tyre-tracks

The damned sand and heat detracted somewhat from the prettiness and lack of traffic on the route

Eventually I emerged onto the main road into Wschowa. A few brief meters of tarmac, and then I was compelled to take the dirt roads again if I wanted to go south. At every point I reassured myself that they did indeed lead in the right direction, and went on blind optimism that the surfaces would be better.

They were not! I found myself seriously flagging. On the way to Legion, I started to become less careful following the tracks, and before I knew it they petered out, and I was left with a field of cows and a small stream between me, the farm and the road. So that meant some slow pushing the bike around the perimeter of the woods, some rather brazen riding through the farm before popping out on the road.

Very tired now, I realised I had made a tactical error: it was Sunday, the roads were very quiet - and there was no reason to ride off-road if the surfaces were bad. I had just vowed to stick to tarmac from here on in, when I realised that if I didn't want to take a 10km detour the wrong direction to Wschowa, the only way south was on another unsurfaced road, exactly as planned.

Fortunately the surface was rather better, and I could ride somewhat normally. A very long, straight sandy stretch almost finished me off - it was now noon, and the heat was intense, all shielding clouds having disappeared. I could see from the map that the remaining roads south should all be surfaced - and reaching them at a rather remote crossroads, was about to spin down in relief when I noticed that the fenced compound in the woods was in fact a graveyard. Water!

I don't know why, but in Poland it seems common to have graveyards completely separate from any churches. This makes them harder to anticipate for the thirsty cycle tourist - I certainly wouldn't have predicted this one in the middle of nowhere. Without a second thought I marched in, and found the tap. While I was drinking, a chap came over and shook me rather warmly by the hand. I don't know if he was a relative maintaining a grave, or the custodian and he didn't speak any English - but made it very clear it was ok to fill up, solemnly shaking my hand again as I went. I'd filled up my 1.5 litres of bottles, and another 1.5 litres in my water bladder - I figured I'd need it.

Relieved to be out of the backwoods, though rather appalled at my poor progress - I had covered little more than 30km, it was past noon and I was rather exhausted - I spun south through agricultural land towards the Odra and Barycz rivers. Near Dryzyna I crossed the "B" road to the local centre of Glogow - the complete absence of traffic really rubbing in my bad decision to ply the unsurfaced roads - and crossed the Barycz near Wyszanow. As I looked down at the banks, I noticed one of those perfect lunch spots that I've always regretted not stopping in the past: a long picnic table made of concrete blocks, in the shade by the river. My morning's progress wasn't good, but there was no sense depriving myself of lunch.

Finally back to metalled roads (I can only think this was the reason I took this otherwise wholly unremarkable photograph)

Lunch spot by the Barycz. The depth of the shadows indicates something of the intensity of the sun (the end of the bench, where I had lunch, was fortunately in shade).

Starting up again after a lunch of provisions bought the previous day I felt better, and made good progress over the flat and agricultural tongue of land between the two rivers. There are few bridges crossing both, and so this region felt rather cut off.

Slightly eerie effigies in an impressive garden

I reached Bielcz Wielki, and easily found the turn leading west that should cross the Odra (which I was yet to catch a glimpse of). But it was clearly marked with a no-through sign. Double checking on the GPS indicates that there was certainly no way over the Odra here! Cursing Mr. Michelin and his fat body - my map showed a confident and solid crossing here - I figured I would head to the south east, and cross on the B road. It was a bit of a tiresome diversion, but being on the larger roads increased my average speed and I covered a bit more distance.

The crossing over the Odra was in fact rather grand, with a separate bike path - though very little traffic. The borders of Silesia are rather ill-defined: but certainly crossing the Odra I could say it was all Silesian land before me.

The mighty Odra, in Polish guise - I was really in Silesia now

Seeing how little traffic there was, and having had just enough of this mountain-bike stuff thank you very much, I plumped for riding right along the B road. This was just fine and I peeled off in the evocatively-named village of Nieszczyce. Interestingly, this is pretty close Polish cognate of "Nietzsche" (I think) - Nietzsche, hating German nationalism, claimed to be a Polish nobleman (though he probably wasn't).

After staring so long into the abyss, I definitely did not feel like any sort of ubermensch

In the next village of Keblow I was starting to flag. I had less that 70km on the clock, but didn't think I would get to Legnica - forest cover was abundant, so figured another night of wild camping would likely be on the cards. It was late Sunday afternoon, and it was with pessimism that I tried the two skleps in the village - both closed and dark.

My route from here was off road again, but over a densely forested hill. As usual, getting some topography invigorated me somewhat, and I climbed without trouble. But reaching the top, I had an almost total evacuation of the desire to continue. I was hot, tired, and the further I went the more water I would need. It was easy to push the bike into a clearing that would be fine for camping.

After a rather tragic 73km, I was done. It was the heat that did it: I was getting flashbacks to last year's travels in the Rhine in the great heatwave: the obsession with water, the constant thirst, the need to drink 5-6 liters every day and the weight of carrying it around. I even thought I'd got badly sunburnt (I actually hadn't), and started to feel pretty bad about going through another tour where my brain would be boiled every day.

I had no beer, but I was happy to lie down and sip tepid water - I'd allowed myself to drink all of one bottle - on the pine needles. After an hour of torpor, I happened to look up and notice a rather magnificent deer, only 100m or so away from me, standing silently between the trees.

A shot with the flash makes it look even more sinister

I cooked up more pasta, saving the strained water for a chocolate drink (I often do this if I'm short of water - it actually works quite well, the starchiness of the pasta water giving real "body" to the hot drink - and it's more calories). I hadn't done too well on this day - I was far short of Legnica, but reassured myself that I had an extra day in the schedule due to my booking errors. Hopefully it would be cooler tomorrow.

I went to bed early, and heard a little more grunting as in the night before - boars on the loose, again.

Today's ride: 73 km (45 miles)
Total: 206 km (128 miles)

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