Round the Baltic - the other way!

We woke to sunshine and already rising temperature, even at 7.30am. Our 'al fresco' breakfast was enlivened by the sounds of the Czech couple next door trying to free their large rented Adria motorhome from the muddy hole they had dug the front wheels into on their arrival. Lots of advice and muscle was being offered from Sweden and Poland and a few pieces of wood had been found but the wheels just kept spinning. Eventually, I remembered that I  have two small spare 'waffle boards' in Helga's locker. So I took them over and, together with the wood and some more muscle, we managed to free him. A victory for international co-operation despite Brexit! Once the excitement was over, we set off to walk down to the beach and into the centre of Sopot. If our previous night in the forest had shown us one side of the holidaying Polish style, Sopot certainly shows the other side, especially on a hot sunny day.. It is a very smart and upmarket Spa town and there do se...

Wifi has been either very poor or none existent  recently so this is the first opportunity to catch up and add some pictures into the earlier posts. We left the Stellplatz site on Friday morning heading east and crossing into Poland very close to the Baltic coast, over a river estuary (the Oder I think) which involved bridges and eventually taking a ferry.  We failed to find a farm site we were looking for and instead checked into Camping Tramp in Swinoujscie, another "resort camp" for families but this time for Polish families, who are probably rather more cash strapped than the nice middle class Germans at the first site we stayed on. No fancy water ski devices here just a rather chaotic collection of tents and caravans in the forest beside the sea, several bars and home grown live music. An interesting experience . . . . for one night! After a six hour drive today we have arrived in Sopot, a more upmarket seaside resort, next door to the city of Gdansk. This site has e...

Tuesday 25th July We finally got away from Giggleswick around lunchtime on Monday, after topping up the tyre pressures and then a final check at the weighbridge. Fortunately the gross weight came to exactly the maximum permissible - 3500kg and that was evenly distributed between both axles, so we just got away with that! We made it to Hull in time for the ferry, after a last minute stop at Ferrybridge Services for rice, sugar and tomato ketchup!! The sailing was calm . . .. . . . and the food delicious! . . . . . and we arrived at Rotterdam, on Tuesday morning, full of enthusiasm which is only slightly diminished as we now sit on a campsite near Osnabruck listening to the heavy rain on Helga's roof. But it's early days and there's lots of time for the heatwave to start. . . tomorrow would be good!! "Tomorrow" (Wednesday) dawned bright and clear with no rain ( and no heatwave either, but pleasantly warm)  Helga looking comfortable on "home groun...

Provisions are being collected together, whilst Helga waits patiently to get on her way! A little bit of background:- Incredibly, a whole decade has  already passed since we made our first circuit of the Baltic Sea. Back then, in 2007, it was planned as the maiden trip for our newly converted ex-RAF Land Rover Defender ambulance, which we named the "Liberator". On that occasion, we followed a clockwise route, starting with the DFDS ferry crossing from Harwich to Esbjerg, in Denmark, and then passing through Sweden, Finland, Russia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, Poland and Germany, before returning to Denmark and back via the same ferry route to Harwich. The whole route, including a few days in St Petersburg and the excursion into Belarus, took us just 6 weeks. The "Liberator" has now moved on to new owners and new adventures and we have become the owners of "Helga", a 1996 Hymer B544 motorhome. Helga is a little bit wider, a little bit longe...

I gave Helga (the Hymer) a good clean today in preparation for setting out next Monday on our trip round the Baltic. The first step will be to drive from Giggleswick to Hull and take the ferry to Rotterdam.  From Rotterdam the plan is to spend the next 7 weeks traveling around the Baltic Sea in an anticlockwise direction passing through Germany, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia. Then another brief ferry crossing to Finland then back through Sweden and Denmark and returning to Rotterdam for the return ferry to Hull on 11th September. I hope to use this blog to post pictures as we go and also a brief daily journal to record our progress.