20th Sept - Panevezys to Kaunas

Happy Birthday to ME!

Woke up at 7 and hurried to get ready as Vaida had to leave at 7.30 to go to work. She had very kindly cooked us breakfast of eggs and tomatoes and popper coffee :-) I really liked her company. She had wrapped a pot of honey for me for my birthday and attached a bow! My only birthday pressy. I was very happy with it as I had loved the honey last night.

It always takes a while to get the bike all ready to go and loaded up which I ended up doing in the hall so that she could rush to work. I felt bad because it always takes a while but that is just part of biking.


I had check how far I had to go today and knew that it was about 105-110km on the main roads to get to Kaunas where the next couch surfer was. By the look of it going on the back roads parallel to the main motorway would add about 10km extra. I had loads of time as I had set off by 8.30 so I decided to take only back roads. It was a miserable gray morning and was raining - but it was my birthday so I was happy (even with yet another headwind)!


I managed to find the first country road without too much problem (the GPS on my phone is not working as I have no internet connection and my phone will not charge at the moment after it got a little damp in the rain a couple of days ago - oops). I pottered along happily for about 10km until it just stopped at a sewage works. A dirt track went round the outside of the works and so I continued on that thinking it might turn back into a road again. The track was very hard work as it has been raining loads recently and so my bike sank into the sandy mud... When the track just turned into fields I then turned round and found some people to ask directions. They showed me which roads on my map were tarmac and which where mud. I thought I had got past this question now that I am in Europe - but apparently not. My European road atlas very clearly shows many of the roads - but just does not distinguish in anyway which ones are single tracks of mud and which are wide, good quality paved roads!


This is a picture of my two sets of tracks... One created on the way South and the other one created about 1 hour and a half later when I retraced my tracks...

It was about midday by the time I got back on the road I should have been on in the first place and I had only traveled 10km out of Valmeria. Oh well... The road was actually a lovely biking road. Not much traffic and nice scenery.


I managed to stay on this road for about 3 hours and stopped off to buy myself lunch as a treat. It was raining and it was good to stop and dry off and warm up. They had a wifi connection and it was good to check my emails and see that people had wished me happy birthday. I did not feel so far away from everyone then :-)


By the time I got back on my bike again the weather had improved and the sun was out. I put on some cheesy music and rocketed along. Unfortunately I once again tried to find a good country lane parallel to the main road. The country roads started out great but then just turned into tracks and I had to turn round several times. There was no difference between these different types of roads on my map! I ended up on a motorway for the last 30km to Kaunas.


My legs were shot after pushing for 160km yesterday and after biking in the mud today. I wanted to get to Kaunas by about 7 as I did not want to be rude to my CS hosts and I wanted to get there before dark. I was really pushing and not concentrating when I hit a pot hole and fell off my bike just outside of Kaunas. I was on a busy road at the time and very fortunate that there were no cars right behind me when I fell into the road. I picked myself up quickly and shaking managed to pick up all of my bags and belongings that had fallen into the road. My Go Pro camera lens was smashed unfortunately but I was OK. Just managed to tear a whole in my new cycling leggings and give myself some new scratches on my left leg to match the ones on my right leg which I obtained in Mongolia. At least now I match. I went over on my ankle too and that throbbed a bit but I knew that it would heal quickly. After stopping for 5 minutes and just centering myself again I got back on my bike and this time much slower and with greater concentration I pottered off.

It was very frustrating that my phone would not charge and so I did not have GPS. It meant that it took me a while to find the CS places and I kept on having to stop and open my laptop to check the map for where I was going. I managed to get there about 7.30/8. Neither Giedrius nor his wife were in and so his mother in-law (who did not speak any English) let me in to the flat. Giedrius is very involved in the CS community and has a flat for him and is family and a flat downstairs for Couch Surfers. It was this flat that I was staying in. His mother in-law did not know how to turn on the electricity and so just left me in the dark saying that they would be back in about 2 hours. From what I could see in the dark they were in the middle of decorating and doing up the flat and there was no bathroom.


So there I was sitting alone in the dark, cold and damp, my leg and ankle sore where I had fallen on them when I came off my bike and needing the loo (but not wanting to bother the lady upstairs). Fortunately, I could still see the funny side of it :-) I do have a very black sense of humour sometimes. I did contemplate leaving and checking into a hotel but I was too tired and cold by this point and I could not face packing up and finding anywhere.

I still had some charge left on my laptop and there was a open wifi connection available and so I skyped some family and friends and felt much happier once I had spoken to some people on my birthday.

When Giedrius wife arrived about 9, she turned on the electricity and it turned out that the door that I thought was a cupboard and that my bike had lent up against in the hallway was actually a bathroom! Yippy electricity and a warm bath :-)


Giedrius was not available that evening as he needed to spend time with his family and so I had the flat to myself. I was very tired and happy to have the chance to get warm in a bath and to talk online to those close to me. The internet is a great thing :-)

I was chatting till late and eventually managed to drag myself to bed... Interesting birthday. Rather than doing 110km today I ended up doing a really hard 140km!