…. The most important social event of the rally is the ‘sweeps party’. The sweeps are special people. Some of the top mechanics in the world who come on the rally to pick up the stragglers. We would still be in Mongolia but for them. And not only can they fix cars but also they know how to party. The party is normally held at the tail end of the rally but car parking problems (the party has to be held in the sweeps’ area which is the car parks where they hold court) meant that it was held a week early.
That’s why there was no blog yesterday.
Fig 1 David Hockney could have a lot of fun with Poland’s country roads lined with trees…..
So I’m trying to catch up on two days’ events. On Monday we drove from Latvia through Lithuania and ended up in the Masurian Lakes in Poland.
Lithuania was notable for the fact that every village had speed bumps. ‘nuff said.
The Masurian Lakes are of course famous for the two WW1 battles and for their impact on WW2 where Hitler’s tanks had to be taken round the area rather than become bogged down. This scene of so much history is now relegated to being a rather pleasant resort area with the lakes linked by canals for easy sailing. Mikolajki, where we stayed, is world famous for its international contest for singing sea shanties….apparently…..
Figure 2 Don Quixote eat your heart out……
Poland is a much larger country than I think most of us in the UK realise. We spend part of Monday driving across, the whole of Tuesday and will spend Wednesday night in the country before reaching Germany.
The rally organisers have done us proud with beautiful tree lined roads and interesting fields with sights like windmills.
Today (Tuesday) we had lunch in a town called Kwidzyn, pronounced Quids In. We went into what looked like a pretty unpromising pub mainly because we saw the French contingent going there. These guys can be guaranteed to find the best food anywhere.
Three harassed ladies who had probably never managed to serve more than 15 customers at a time suddenly had to cope with a couple of hundred ralliers. The lady in charge was clearly at her wits end – she couldn’t remember who had ordered what or what she had given to us. Had she not been reminded she probably would have forgotten to charge. We took pity on her and asked her for whatever was easiest. She said chicken and chips so we said yes, both of us expecting the worst.
And we had some of the best chicken and chips we had ever had! The chicken was clearly free range and had been fed on something interesting. The chips were proper and crisp on the outside and fully cooked on the inside.
In the circumstances it was most impressive. And with a couple of soft drinks cost 50 zloties, equal to £10 – for two.
Tonight we are in Bydgoszcz. Awful car park and average hotel but a pretty decent feed as usual. According to the rally gossip, the event of the day was that the medics managed to run over someone. They haven’t had a lot to do on this year’s rally (they were partying late last night and claimed to have treaded only a quarter of the number they expected) so we presume they are trying to create extra business…..