Dune

Today dawned fine and, as usual I was awake way before the rest of the Fords so I took the opportunity to finish my book as Chris has been moaning that he has run out and wants to read it. Eventually, being a bit bored of my own company, I woke everyone else and we decided to forgo showers and head straight for the beach. The kids were straight in the sea but Chris was still tired and needed a bit of coaxing/baiting from Alex before he ventured in. Knowing it would be freezing, I elected to stay by the bags.

No sooner had Chris had his dip the heavens opened and it pelted with rain. We rushed back to the camp to take in the washing and put all the bedding from the tent into the car. Needless to say, we were not chuffed. Chris particularly is getting really down about the weather (it may have come across in previous posts!). We decided to gear up with our waterproofs and walk into Nida to have lunch and decide what to do from here on in.

We sat down at a nice restaurant we had seen yesterday and perused the menu. It was a bit pricey for lunch but, what the hell, we needed cheering up. Chris had catch of the day with rice and salad and I had squid and mussels with rosemary roast potatoes – it was gorgeous and made us feel much better.

We have decided to continue with our itinerary, despite the crap weather, but our first step in Vilnius will be the camping shop to buy a new tent.

[chris/]

The morning saw a visitor to camp Ford, a cicada (or we think it is, it's a big cricket anyway) who's chirruping days were over as it had lost one of its back legs.

After lunch we decided to explore the dunes that lay south of the town and stretch beyond the border into Kaliningrad which is part of the Russian Federation. The dunes below Nida tower above the footpath that leads out of town, perhaps 20m high.

The area was granted UNESCO World Heritage status in 2000, and the authorities are keen to avoid erosion from tourism and climbing the dunes and straying from the paths is strictly prohibited. Vanessa had to return to camp to see to the drier and took Shannon with her. Alex and I continued along the path down to the lagoon shore which we followed around till we reached the border. Alex thought we could swim around to get past the post and chain link fence but I was a bit concerned with thoughts of mines and hidden border guards cradling their Kalashnikov's.

Around the headland beyond Alex is the border.

You can see the fence running in front of the clumps of trees.

Having worked up an appetite I settled down with a bottle of Arsenal beer.

And for pudding we shared a Swedish bar of Plopp which is a bit like a Caramel bar. 'Would you like a nugget of my plopp?' I asked, oh how we laughed.

Finally no camping trip in Europe would be complete without some story about the Germans. 'Das Rollende Hotel' pulled into camp, which I guess translates as The Rolling Hotel. The front is your normal coach that National Express use, but it pulls a coach sized trailer that contains 3 tiers of accommodation which must be like those coffin sized bunk rooms you get in Japan. Except in a tin trailer with a little tiny window. I may just wash in the bowl as there could be a run on the showers in the morning. And they laid out 3 bench rows of tables complete with plastic blue and white gingham check tablecloths and then barriered the area off with plastic warning tape in case anyone dared interrupt their Teutonic feast!