Day 9 2011

Tuesday 3 April 2011

Krakow – Brest

311 Miles
10 hrs 36 secs

It was 5:50am my alarm is ringing, yes an early start indeed but with all good intentions. After breakfast and with snaffling a couple of rolls and making a couple of sandwiches each for the intention of lunch at the anticipated long queue for the border from my previous experiences.

It was 7am when we left the very practical etap hotel. I would love to give you a long drawn out adventurous story of our last ride in Europe to the Belarus border but I cant!

The drive was long cold, colder for Simon on the bike as it was only 6c. We had around three stops to stretch our legs, empty our tanks and have a coffee type thing. We even had 5mins to chat to save us from the boredom. Here we are at the Poland / Belarus border, sum 6 hours 300 miles after leaving Krakow this morning.

I was amazed as we rolled up to the border…… NO QUEUE!!!

I have done a fair few border crossings last year with everyone sitting in long queues for hours on end.. Oh well time to get stuck in with all this tedious gruel of it that I have come to know so well after last years adventures. The first half where we were leaving Poland was very quick indeed, with the help of a very kind young border guard. She checked over the vehicles and processed our paper work all in the matter of about 20 mins.

The next step was to cross no mans land as we call it, about half a kilometer to the other side of the border, this is the half where we will be entering Belarus. This as you may well be able to imagine took quite a wile longer. This I had done before and all my memories came flooding back to me, with the numerous form filling with no English (always makes life fun) running between buildings and cabins etc, still its all part of the adventure and just something that has to be done.

This part as you can imagine took a little longer - but still we where in no great hurry. I’m sure when we finally get everything sorted and we left the border guards where glad to see the back of us as there were a few that helped us with nearly our every move but still they all seemed friendly enough, maybe because it was such a quiet border and they didn’t have to deal with people like us everyday.

We have arrived – finally we are in Belarus, for me the second time in under a year and Simon his first but with both of us feeling the excitement and the achievement of the day!

As we came into Breast and as I had stayed hear before I said I know of a hotel. So I led Simon the ummm scenic route to the hotel, my excuse being they’ve moved the f***king hotel.

Its an odd feeling of being back hear and in the same hotel as last year, a place I never thought I’d see again. We checked in and took our things to the room.
We put the landy and bike into the secure parking. It was as we did this there where two local guys taking pictures, keen to chat ask about ourselves and even take pictures of us…… I know who would have thought it!

Anyway a brief walk and to find a bar it was, a nice local place just around the corner. We even ended up eating hear. We had two good meals two deserts four beers and two coffees all for the equivalent of under £15.

Both exhausted from the days adventures and milestone border crossing its time to hit the hay.

Until tomorrow…… night night all.

Benjy