Woke up this morning not actually remembering falling asleep last night. Couldn't find my glasses and eventually they turned up down the side of the bed. Worked out i must have gotten into bed and literally fallen asleep instantly. So needless to say I had a good sleep last night :)
A lavish breakfast was served in the elegant dining room with its amazing view out to sea. Huge choice of fruits, yoghurts and pastries so I tried not to go too overboard with my selection.
I was able to get myself a 30 minute massage for later in the morning as i decided to make the best use of the day and the fact that it was only going to cost 100sek. Well the massage turned out to one of those butterfly massages which never really got going, like somebody offering to scratch your back but missing the actual place that needed the scratch. Guess the best thing that came out of the massage was that the massaeur was a keen cyclist and told me the roads out of Leba are as bad as the ones coming in. So if i had followed the route it would have been hard going.
Taxi turned up at 1200 and we loaded the people carrier. The trip took 2.5 hours and we headed roughly the way i would have gone. It became very urban once we got away from the coast and hit the towns and cities built around the railway. Apparently Poland has 2500 railway stations but only 650 are in use, would explain why Leba has a railway but no train service. Looking at the map Poland is a big country. Traffic became very heavy once we got close to Gdansk and the driver joked (or was he hinting) it would be faster if i cycled :)
Got to the ferry terminal only to find it was closed and that PolLines had moved to a new terminal opposite. So the driver took us to the ferry crossing to get over the other side only to find it was closed. Couple of guys sitting next to the ferry (probably the crew) told him that it had been replaced by a tunnel. So off we went looking for the tunnel which we eventually found after having gone the wrong way for about 5km. Once we were the other side it was quite a drive out to the new ferry port.
Taking the taxi waas the best decision i could have made. The ride would have been very stressful and if i had made it to Gdansk in time it would have been a miracle unless i had made a 0600 start and missed breakfast. After the previous day I really didnt want a hard ride and more importantly didnt want to finish my ride stressed and knowing i had cut a corned of Poland off by going directly from Leba to Gdansk. I have made things a bit difficult for myself for next time because i will need to get back to Leba, but at least next time I will have a much healthier respect for the road quality of Poland (and probably all the other baltic states) so I will have a lower expectation of the distance i can cover
Had a couple of hours spare so bought some lunch in a quay side cafe and waited to board. Queued up with about 20 motorcyclists from Sweden, nice to talk to somebody other than hotel receptionists :) Poland doesnt really have English as a second language, its more likely to be German. Becomes obvious when you look at why, every town, village and city I have cycled through ever since crossing the border used to be part of Germany until 1945. Gdansk used to be Danzig, never knew that. I guess the rest of the Baltic will have Russian as a second language.
Once on board I put mu name down on the waiting list for a cabin. As i was one of the first on board I was hopeful, still i found a chair in a corner of the ship that would do in case I didn't get one. Couple of hours later I joined the throng around the reception desk and was allocated a bed in a shared room for 4 people. Suited me fine as i have ear plugs just for this eventuality :) Turned out my companions for the night were a couple of Swedish carpenters from Vallentuna who had decided at the spur of the moment not to stay in Gdansk and fly back but to take the ferry. They were already quite "merry" so i was doubly glad i had my plugs. Treated myself to a meal in the resteraunt before retiring at 2230. My carpenter friends rolled in at 0230 and tried to be as quiet only as drunks can :)
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