Monday, August 5, 2013

Bike Trip in the Land of Lakes

After the refreshing week in Trakai, we had quite an intense tiresome week!
I took Monday off for some free time (the week in Trakai was fun, but still full of activities and included the weekend as well), but on that evening we went to bat monitoring in the park...
Finally our first nature monitoring! It was very nice to see the park at night, by a lake, and it was interesting to see those bats popping out in numbers at a certain time to feed on those so much hated mosquitoes! We stayed around till around 1 in the night.

Next day I had the last chance to go checking a route for my bike trip, which would take place on that weekend. It was the longest one, around 90 km, and good thing I went on checking it because I got lost again looking for some lost spring, which in the end I couldn't find! After more than 2 weeks without riding because of the weather, this long trip wasn't so easy, but it served as a training before the weekend.

On Wednesday it rained again so I could just rest in the office, and finish planning the trip. In the evening we welcomed the volunteers Giovanni and Lenka, coming to our park for the cleaning of Ginučiai Fort Hill.

So next day we went for this activity, meeting also Olesia, Marion and other 7 volunteers from Gražutes Regional Park. Our mentor, Linas, was our cheif and, after an exausting day cutting bushes, he treated us with a delicious vegetable stew.


We spent the night at a campsite in Ginučiai, so on Friday we were ready for working again, but we had to wait for the rain to stop. After another day of hard work we finally went home. It was very tiresome to work with such an hot weather alternating with some short rains, but it was also fun to learn how to use a brushcutter!


On Saturday, the Bike Trip we organized took place!


I met the cyclists at 8 by the train station in Ignalina - 13 of them - and we left for a loop to the southern park of the park.


We stopped at Lygumai View Tower, Nalšia Museum in Rėskutėnai and Kretuonys Ethnographic Village.


Being off schedule, we had to cut out some detours to Brukninė Watermill and Obelų Rago, but we could add a visit to a deer reserve near Šakarva the lady from the museum suggested us, which I didn't know about.


After 42 km, at 13 we were in Palūšė, where we had lunch and got ready for the second trip, a loop through the most popular places of the park meant for everyone, trained and unexperienced bikers.
The other volunteers joined us for this main tour, together with few other people and some  others who went with Blagovesta from the morning for a tour by feet in Palūšė and its Nature Trail.
It was a very mixed group, so for some it was easy, while for others (especially Olesia!) it was quite a task, especially some short parts on forest roads! But in the end everybody managed, and we enjoyed the ride and the stops at Gaveikėnai Watermill, Trainiškis Oak, Medžiukalnio Spring, Ginučiai Watermill, Šiliniškes View Tower, Ladakalnis Hill and Salos II Ethnographic Village on this 36 km route.


In the evening many participants stayed in Palūšė to enjoy the concerts for the Regata taking place in the same weekend, but I had to go straight home to get some rest before of the third long trip, on Sunday.
I went at the meeting point in Palūšė at 10 in the morning, and it turned out there were almost no survivors left! Some were too tired, and others too lazy to join this last tour, and only one man was there ready to start... He proposed to shorten the route, so instead of the 90 km planned, we had a more relaxing 52 km trip skipping Tauragnai Fort Hill, Mokas Stone and Minčia Watermill. But we could still enjoy stops at the Beekeeping Museum, Pakasas Watermill, Varniskės II, Vaišnoriskė, Strazdai and Šuminai Ethnographic Villages.

That ended this very busy week, and I think I totally deserved the next 2 days off to just rest and be lazy!

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