Białowieża, Podlaskie Voivodeship, PolandIt was time to move on today.
Our plans are to spend 4
nights in the wilder parts of Poland, near the border with Belarus. Here there
are forested areas that have never been substantially interfered with by man
and we wanted to explore the area. Our destination for the first 2 nights was
the small town of Bialowieża,
where the National Park office is located and through whom we had booked the services
of an official guide.
Firstly however, we had to get there. That meant
extricating the car out of the nearby underground car park, literally across
the road from us. Now what little information we got when the apartment was
booked said that public parking was available nearby. In Poznań we’d used a
similar car park quite successfully at the cost of something like £8.00 for 24
hours. In this one, no prices were advertised but we assumed that the cost
would be roughly the same, perhaps a little more expensive as we were now in
the capital city but nothing, nothing could have prepared us for the shock of
the bill when we presented the ticket to the machine – in English, at the
current exchange rate, £194.
00!!!!!!!!
This did not bode well for the rest of the day. Our
next challenge was to get the car as close as we could to the exit of our
apartment in order to load it with all our luggage. Now the exit was in an
inner courtyard area and this was closed off by means of electric gates.
However, we noticed a couple of young lads chatting and smoking outside and
they kindly worked the opening mechanism for us, both to allow us in and then
out with our loaded car. Given the astronomic and ludicrous size of the parking
bill, we were definitely of a mind to be glad to see the back of this place!
The trouble is with Bialowieża is that it is small
and when we entered the name into the integrated sat nav in the car, it found
it but it added an extra few words, which of course we didn’t recognise.
Anyway, we set it off to work out the route and I remember thinking that the
distance was a little greater than I’d thought it was but we set off. After 20
minutes or so, when we were on the excellent motorway bowling along at
140Km/hr, Julie said ‘I don’t think we’re going the right way’, which echoed a
suspicion that I was having, giving that the signs were saying Gdansk, amongst
other places and I knew that that was to the NW and we were intended going to
the SE.
Anyway, after some checking we decided that we were in error and we
pulled into a convenient rest area,
whence we confirmed our suspicions by keying in another location, a town 50 km
short of our destination but one that the sat Nav seemed certain about and sure
enough, it meant our turning around and heading back towards Warsaw before
getting onto the right road. The good news was that this meant that we had a
shorter distance to cover than before,so at least our e.t.a. was still quite
reasonable.
We arrived in Bialowieża around 16:00 and without further incident.
I anticipated the scenery to be rather different as we approached the Belarus
border but it wasn’t markedly so. Poland seems to be one large, flat arable
mass of land. The fields are truly vast and whilst there are some trees around
to help with variety of scene, in truth it didn’t make the journey the most
interesting we’ve ever been on. What was fun to see was the presence of storks,
either in the fields or on their vast nests on top of electricity pylons and so
on.
Fabulous birds.
Back in Bialowieża,
the first thing we needed to do was to confirm with the friendly young woman at
the Park Office that we had arrived and that we would be ready for our first
guided walk at 18:00, when, we were told, that Joanna would be our Guide and
that she would come to pick us up at our rooms,
situated close by in a building called Gawra. Our rooms there were fine,
if a little dark, with wooden ceilings. Rosemary had one with a large sitting
area and two single beds whilst ours was a little smaller but with a double
bed. We decided to have some time relaxing and dozing before our date with
Joanna as we would be with her until 22:00, as the walk was entitled ‘Twilight
Walk’.
Just before six, Joanna arrived, carrying 3 sets of
binoculars as we’d arranged to hire them. Joanna turned out to be a pleasant,
smiley individual who spoke excellent English and with some 15 years’
experience so she was an excellent choice. Moreover, she was also going to be
our guide again tomorrow night when we planned to do a night walk and we were
very pleased.
The format for the next few hours was that we drove a little to
get us out of Bialowieża,
then we parked the car and walked into the meadows and woods around about.
Joanna was hoping to show us some bison, there are some 750 in the area and we
did find traces such as hoof-marks and droppings, but sadly no bison. Sometime
later, Joanna received a call from her husband, who is also a Guide and his
party, some 10km from us, had been lucky enough to see a wolf, a member of one
of the 3 packs that are in the area of Bialowieża. We were not to be so lucky, our whole
considerable walking and driving episode drew a blank, pretty much. That is not
to say that it wasn’t an enjoyable experience, it was lovely being out with an
enthusiast and she really is one. We did see some interesting things, for
instance a large area of marsh ground that used to be water-filled as a result
of the damming efforts of beavers. The evidence of their presence and
activities was everywhere, with the skeletons of dead, drowned trees as
testament to their having passed this way. Joanna thought that the dam might
have broken sometime so the family had left to start again elsewhere. As night
approached, some of the prey animals such as deer become more active and we were
able to just make out some Roe deer in the murk. More excitingly for me, was
the presence of large numbers of sizeable bats, one of the 17 species recorded
hereabouts and Joanna was certain that they were Common Noctule bats, owing to
their size. I also spotted a tawny owl on a telegraph line and just as we were
leaving, Rosemary pointed out a fox and that was the conclusion of our
evening’s wildlife activities. Speaking of Rosemary, I’m happy to say that her
head wound is healing well and that it didn’t prevent her from participating
fully in the day’s activities.
It was around 22:10 when Joanna left us. We hadn’t had
any dinner but by now we were pretty tired and anyway, all restaurants were
closed. We therefore made do with the remnants of our sandwich- making lunch
things, bits of bread, a small piece of cheese, some fruit and half a bag of
crisps – not haute cuisine but it sufficed.
2025-05-23