LONG WAY HOME - 1st April 2005 Gizycko, Poland Sue: Any romantic thoughts I had about crossing Asia with the spring - forget it! We are too early - spring is about a month behind us - and it is to quote Mick's Irish pals 'feckin' cold! To be blunt its freezing, all the lakes are solid, not a sign of spring at all, even the nesting birds have their thermals on. Ah well - the best laid plans and all that. We are heading south towards Brest in a couple of days, and will cross the border into Belarus on April 4. We have only one day to cross Belarus and then into Russia. Hope to update you again then.
Mick: We are in a small town in the northern Polish lakes called Gizycko, weather cold but bright and sunny. Found a fantastic hotel at the side of Lake Buwelno so we are having 2 days here. What I thought originally was an oil leak from the water pump, turned out to be nothing more than a leaking oil pressure switch, this was fixed under warranty by a friendly BMW dealer in Germany. Border crossing into Poland no probs, other than an irate German motorist taking exception to us pushing in, so she rammed me. I stopped on the bike and after leaning on her car door taking her mirror off, her car came off worse than my slightly grazed pannier. Thanks for the updates on Kyrgyzstan - we would rather not know at the present time!