After another nice breakfast we set off for our next destination, another National Park area some 80 miles from here. However, we had one stop to make on the way, a sort of a zoo a few miles out of town where they had herds of bison together with animals such as lynx and wolves and so on. Unfortunately, by the time we got there it was pouring with rain and after about 15 minutes of dodging from shelter to shelter, we gave up and decided to head on up to our next destination, the town of Goniądz, situated close to the National Park of Biebrza, the largest park in Poland and covering 592 km². However, before we left, we did see some very wet looking bison, a pair of wolves looking sorry for themselves and a lynx looking bored , sheltering form the rain but they felt as sorry for themselves as we did, so it was definitely time to move on.

The drive up to Goniądz took a few hours, more than we anticipated because the road we were on for some of the time was undergoing major refurbishment, which meant that we were subjected to numerous traffic lights at regular intervals, all of which kept us waiting for several minutes at least. We, did however, finally get to our destination, a hotel complex called Bartlowizna Serce Biebrzy noclegi , on the banks of the river Biebrza. It is a peculiar place, the rooms are adequate but somewhat lacking in finesse but the area worthy of comment is the dining room, it is a peculiar mixture of kitsch and fascinating. More of that later.

Having settled in, we decided to go for a stroll along the river bank. It wasn’t warm, the temperature was only about 15°C and there was a bit of a breeze which made it feel colder. Here we weren’t actually in the park but we were on the edge and we could get a hint of what we would see tomorrow. What we did find was a shop and as the shop had a freezer and as the freezer contained ice and as our hotel didn’t have a fridge, we decided there and then to buy some and have G&T’s in our room prior to going to dinner in the extraordinary dining room.