Easy morning, no need to pack a lots of stuff. After saying goodbye to my hosts, I headed towards Silute. In Silute, some shopping for the lunch and a visit to the tourist info to fetch maps of the Lithuanian west coast.
I rode to the Nemunas delta area, where Nemunas reaches the Curonian lagoon. After Kintai, I continued along the gravel road close to the coast. I’ve ridden it before, and remember it was nice and pretty good condition, too. Now, it was more washboard than before, and I was wondering how much traffic there can be on such a small road.
The traffic is oil trucks. Yes, there is a small oil drilling field in Lithuania. There are three pumps, suddenly in most lovely Lithuanian forest. I had a lunch pause near to the oil field and I could hear the noise of drilling.
Later I encountered two Polish cyclists at a crossroads where there was a choice of three different routes to Klaipeda. Guys were determined to choose a small road along the channel. My map says it’s “off-road” and I had no clue what it means in Lithuania. I followed the Polish guys to the off-road. It turned out to be a narrow gravel road, quite washboard again. Partly a bit soft, too. But it was 7 km and I did ok. Other of the Polish was incredibly fast, but the other was struggling. He fell and he had some issues with his bike. They were travelling to Liepaja to attend to a Tango festival.
So, the outskirts of Klaipeda was reached. I did a bit of a navigation error, and ended up wondering in the middle of Soviet suburb. The main roads to the city were wide and busy, with poor bike lanes painted to the sidewalks. Even underpass in a roundabout. I chose the road.
For some reason, I wasn’t so happy to arrive in Klaipeda. Earlier visits have been pleasant and I’ve been enjoyed the charm of the old town. Now, I was just pushing through and felt a bit annoyed about all discomforts the cyclists face. I had decided to stay at some campsite north from Klaipeda, as there’re many of them in that area. After passing the center, I went to the Maxima to buy food for the dinner. Then, to the nice forest cycle path. I ended up choosing the same campsite as last year, because it had been nice. Small and cozy. This year, they had built up a new house where thery have a really nice cafe and some rooms upstairs. Also the toilets are renewed. The staff is nice.
So, a nice evening at the campsite. Having some grilled chicken, sallad, instant buckwheat. Unfortunately, I lost the lid of my age-old plastic container which is bought in a previous cycling trip to Russia. Not a huge loss, may I’ll buy a new one.
Kristiina Ullgren 