Miss Simpson and Miss Pigott go orienteering in the Polish countryside

I want you to think of rain - huge slabs of sheeting rain. Think of it thundering onto the roof of your third-world cabin which has come complete with bedbugs and mould and not much else, and getting up in the morning to stand under the drip line of the gazebo to spoon ersatzt muesli down your throat before mounting a sodden silver fox and retracing 6 kms of now muddy sandy wet puddly gravel back to the main road to make a left and head for another god-forsaken camp ground.

Well, that's the scene. Head down, rain jacket on, rain teeming all around, and I miss the first turn at the 14 km mark. Fortunately Katherine Pigott is with me, as it is more enjoyable I find to wander aimlessly round the Polish countryside sans map, sans compass, in company. Especially Miss Pigott, with whom I have been enjoying a Tour de France type commentary pretty much from day 1. As she pointed out when I forced half a Snickers bar and a plum down her throat, I was only keeping her alive so as I could beat her mercilessly in future stages.

We stopped motorists - oh, I forgot to mention, neither of us speaks Polish either apart from 'hello' and 'thankyou' - to ask for directions and pen in paper in hand, one man with perfectly odious halitosis wrote the name of every village in Poland it seemed in my notebook. It turned out he was on the money as some hours and villages later we were reunited with the distinctive orange flagging tape that is put out each morning as a navigational aid for us.

Not long after, we saw two bedraggled figures pedalling along. It was the older chaps - a Dutchman and a Canadian German (you can take the man out of Germany but you can't take the German out of the man, if you get my drift). Lost too, we decided to stick together and on turning a corner found a veritable oasis. A wedding reception cum banquet hall.

We parked the bikes,used the WCs and were graciously shown into a terrazzo tiled ballroom and to our table of white clothed chairs where we dined on hot hot soup, pigfat on bread with pickles - also delicious even though it sounds disgusting - Rudi said his mother used to make it when he was a kid - and baked trout with salad. The hi fi was playing 30s jazz, I couldn't resist a short waltz on the floor,then it was back on our bikes again to head for paradise in the form of a bush camp with a toilet block that had not been cleaned since it was erected some time in the early 1960s. Yellow painted plaster flaked off the walls, only one lightglobe worked, mosquitoes were so big that three pairs of my knickers that I hung out to dry were carried off in the night, dogs howled and barked and a screech owl kept screeching. Delightful, as you can imagine. I don't know which guide book TDA uses to source these perfectly horrible camping places, but when I find out I'm intending to purchase every copy and burn them so no other human has to suffer such indignity.

Our idyllic Soviet-style campground

There was a happy ending though: at 100km we phoned and at 110km the truck loomed into sight and picked us up. We were only meant to cycle 110 anyway, and the thought of a further 40 km in the driving head wind was more than I could countenance. On arrival in camp, George and Bill helped me put my tent up - lovely chaps, and we had a jolly good laugh about TDA and its ability to advertise three star accommodation yet provide places that even financially straitened asylum seekers would never use.

We're in Warsaw today and I think I will do the bus/walking tour as I know so little about this city and its people. Dinner in the old town last night - romantic setting and it is even getting dark now at a respectable hour.

Poverty seems to be grinding in rural Poland. Little villages dot the landscape with house cows, chooks and so on. No young people around -the villages are the province of the elderly and infirm it would seem. But churches - that is something money has been spent on. In even the muddiest and poorest of community, some well-constructed edifice to god rises on the skyline. I hope the people enjoy the space when they kneel on Sundays to pay homage. Also, huge statues of the Polish pope are dotted here and there - I thought there was only meant to be one god and no idols but I could have got that wrong.

We have ridden through many woods of pine, birch,oak and mixed trees where the gloom is palpable. One could half expect to see Little Red Riding Hood trotting along. The most I have seen though is another red squirrel which darted across the road in front of me then sat up to look at such a sight - drenched pink-clad bike rider. And of course we have had the talent concert - a hugely funny evening spent in a campground restaurant as the rain fell outside. I loved Professor Rick's take on erratic boulders which some how turned into erotic racks and as I have ridden in front of him on many occasions, I am not sure what to make of such a performance.

Three more days and then a double rest day in Krakow. I am tired. We are half way though today and I seem to have cycled 1787kms so far.

The measurements if you're interested:
26 July to Seirijai: 133 km, 6hr 22 min, 20.8 average - cool day, no head winds and once out of Vilnius a great day's cycling
27 July to Augustow: 88km, 4hr 19min, 20.3average - arrived into village and sat around as our camp was another out of the way place with nothing happening. When I did arrive after a torrential down pour I had to tell some Polish holiday makers to get fucked as they wanted to argue with me about where to put my tent!
28 July to Nowagrod: 131km, 6hr 50mins, 18.3 average, rough, gravel
29 July to Puttusk: lost day 110km, 5hr 30 min, 18.9 average - very damp
30 July to Warsaw: 69 km, 3hr 28 min, 19.6 average - very industrial last 16 kms with poor roads, even poorer footpaths along which we cycled most of the time, and busy busy traffic.