Overland with Kids

The Caravan

With our crumbling wreck of a caravan safely stored where we left it at the garage in L’viv, Ukraine, we decided our next steps would be that we had to get rid of it - somewhere and somehow - we couldn’t take it any further. The result was to donate it to a guy called Andrew who worked at the garage on-site there and who had been very helpful and kind to us. Apart from two jerry cans and the awning, all static equipment was left behind including 4 tyres (2 brand new on road and 2 off road). In the pouring rain with Andrew unwell and in pain from an ear infection, we begged some empty cardboard boxes, unloaded our stuff on the spot and then crammed our Land Rover full with all our belongings. Our legs were bent double from all the stuff stored in the footwells and in every nook and cranny including the roof. We resembled splatted rats on each door window, we were so squashed up. Driving was a determined skill just to reach the gear stick let alone operate it and this was pretty much our condition on exiting the Ukraine and approaching the Polish border.

We had no real issues with customs - more embarrassment than anything. That and having to find and identify the children for passport checks in the back of the car - they were so deeply buried among all of our stuff. Ukraine and Polish customs were very thorough and after explaining our plight we were lucky not to have to unload all of our stuff for the rigmarol of checks - we don’t think we would have got the stuff back in again!

The motorway on arrival to Poland was a real dream - proper road signs, lights and really smooth, clearly marked surfaces after seemingly weeks of whacky races in mostly potholes and gravel of the previous Eastern block countries we had visited. We felt thoroughly spoilt but felt strangely bored at the smoothness of the flat and uneventful surfaces - we hadn’t acclimatised yet - and as it was late - so with the children already asleep, it wasn’t long before we pulled up and slept rough in a petrol station among the lorry drivers till dawn.

It’s funny because AJ doesn’t think we’ve slept rough as yet since being on our trip but we have either travelled or slept this way for a total of two weeks out of three months so far - he falls asleep in the car and wakes up in daylight, often on the road again before he is awake again - hence thinking he has just had a short nap when he has in fact slept 10 - 12 hours. Both Jessica and AJ have never complained about sleeping in the car - we think because seating arrangements are comfortable and just right for them and because we have managed to spread rough sleeping to no longer than one night every so often, so far.

Krakow

We arrived to Krakow with the plan being to see the city, re-organise ourselves and vehicle, repack our stuff and send as much as we could back home to the UK. We also wanted to base ourselves somewhere within reasonable distance to Auschwitz and Birkenau. We found a campsite called Camping Smok with very nice grounds and facilities almost on our way out of the city and which also has a small guest hotel on-site. It was raining and Andrew was still unwell so we decided to take a room rather than risk staying in our emergency lightweight two-second pop-up tents, especially given all our load of belongings. We obtained some more empty boxes from a local Tesco (the children played at being homemade televisions from a couple of them), organised a Polish shipping agent to collect and transport 9 large boxes of our stuff from the campsite back to the UK (costing approx £290 GBP for approx 250 kilos).

We didn’t manage to see Krakow city but did visit Auchswitz and Birkenau as per our last update. AJ since commented regarding our visit about the camps:

“I don’t think Auschwitz should be known because it’s such a bad place. The Nazi’s killed so many people and left them to die on the ground”.

A good summary in our view from an almost 6-year old.

Unloading and repacking our stuff was a slow and painful process. We had spent 4 nights in Krakow already and needed to get Andrew and his worsening condition to a doctor or hospital and then hot foot it out of Poland and into Lithuania - so we reloaded, this time with space for legs and hit the road.

Onward Bound

We found a hospital on the outskirts of Poland for Andrew in the small hours before exiting but they couldn’t help. Luckily, Andrew was starting to feel better though he still wasn’t completely right. We continued with Andrew dosed up on painkillers and Anne doing most of the driving.

Diary (Blog)