Good news everyone – our luck is changing. The day Jamie got his new FORT bike I found a very rare five leaf clover! Not kidding, I think this is a once in a lifetime find. And to my brothers: I do not need you writing to tell me that a five leaf clover is actually bad luck…I know you were thinking it!

After getting the new bike we set out for Adrspach-Teplice National Park. We camped near the park and spent two days hiking around exploring the gigantic rocks. The first day we’d cycled most of the day and did a short loop trail in the evening. The next day when we went back during the day we realized we were lucky to have visited the park outside of peak hours – it was packed full of Czech and Polish tourists and was an absolute madhouse. We did a longer hike through the park on the 2nd day. Many times the trail narrowed down to tiny staircases going up and down through the giant rocks. This was horrible because the trail was absolutely packed with hikers, so we’d all march along slowly in a long line. The BO problem we noticed in other parts of the Czech Republic was operating to full effect in the tight quarters of the stair-marches.

We found a nice campsite only a couple of kilometers from the park, but there were no picnic tables, so we spread everything out on the ground for each meal. I think we shocked the entire campground by doing this; people could not get enough of us. They walked past our site to stare at us, and then craned their necks to start some more. It feels like we blend in here because we don’t look very different from the Czech people, but we get started at a lot so there must be something very interesting about us… We just don’t know what it is.

After two days of hiking we left Adrspach-Teplice this morning and headed for Poland. We crossed the boarder at a “bicycle, pedestrian, and environmentally friendly wheelchair” crossing. There was no guard, no passport inspection, just a red and white painted pole that we walked past.

We cycled about 50km to the city of Swidnica where we spent over an hour searching for a campsite in the rain. We finally found what appeared to be the city’s campsite but it was deserted and locked up. It was getting too late to search much longer, and the countryside did not look promising for free camping – lots of open farm fields and fences. So we ended up in a way too expensive hotel. This is the first time we’ve tried to find camping and ended up in a hotel. We’re annoyed at the budget busting price, but we are also looking forward to the included breakfast smorgasbord!

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 16th, 2007 at 5:00 pm and is filed under Czech Republic, Europe, Poland. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.