Cycling on a Brompton UK to Poland – #4 – stealth camping in a wood, and a ghost town in Pomerania

I took my Brompton on the train from London to Hamburg, then unfolded the bike and cycled to Poland. This is part 4 and at the start I am camping wild in a wood on the border of Pomerania. After I got out of the wood, I found myself in an empty landscape. I came to a ghost town, on my way to the Baltic coast. Pomerania was super interesting. An emotional place. Hope you enjoy the film.

Music courtesy of Epidemic Sound
Johannes Bornlöf – When in Doubt
Johannes Bornlöf – Mother of Light

The aim of this journey was to cycle and camp 
through a new part of Europe on my way to Sweden. I took my Brompton on the train from London to 
Hamburg and then unfolded the bike and headed for Poland from where I could take a ferry over 
the Baltic to Sweden. I’d had really wet weather at the start, but still enjoyed camping by 
lakes and riding through the landscape of the old duchy of Mecklenburg. And I’d seen 
cities and towns and the manor houses of the nobles that used to own a lot of the land. I 
had ridden a bit over 300 kilometers so far, and after six days I’d reached the border with 
the old duchy of Pomerania. I was camping wild here. It had been great but when I woke up 
I felt really tired. So, I was actually glad that it was raining again so that I had 
a good excuse to be lazy and stay in bed. Good morning! It’s only about 7:00 and by 10 it’s going to be clear. 
So, I think it’s slow start. Just wish someone would like 
give me a bowl of porridge cos the thought of making it for some 
reason seems like really hard work. I’m doing it. Sometimes you just feel tired Porridge, and coffee. So that’s good. Once I’d had 
a bowl of porridge and some coffee, I felt better and I thought about how different wild camping 
is from camping at a campsite. The most wonderful thing about wild camping for me is the chance to 
be out in nature. But there are other aspects too. I do prefer wild camping to camping in campsites. 
I really do because in fact it’s easier. Sounds funny, doesn’t it? But it is easier because you’re 
literally living on one spot. You don’t have to walk around to do things in different places. 
Going to the shower block, going to fetch water. And you literally just take your shoes off 
and then you are home in your little tent, and everything is around you that you need. And if you want to have a shower 
in your little washing bowl, which I did last night, you just 
do it because there’s nobody here. And if you want to pee in the middle of the 
night, you just get up and you pee. Right, I’m going to wipe down the tent. It’s sopping 
wet. And do the washing up, clear up, and go. It’s raining again. Oh well It’s nice to sit and read in the tent. I take a paper book partly because I 
can’t waste my phone battery. Right, so the tent is dry, which 
is brilliant. The bike is dry, which is also great. The bags are packed. So… nearly done. It’s actually 
really nice weather now. So I was camping right at the border of 
Pomerania about which I knew pretty much nothing. But it turned out to be really 
different from Mecklenburg that I had passed through. Anyway, first I had to 
get out of the wood. And this part of the way I do wild camping, the whole forging 
through woodlands bit, isn’t always easy. Nearly there! Done it, nearly. That way I think. Brilliant. Well done. I feel a little bit like I’ve been dragged through a hedge
backwards. Which I have. Right. Back to the road. Don’t know why, but that 
breeze just feels so lovely. It’s a perfect temperature. So Mecklenburg that I’d ridden 
through had been, in history, a fairly stable place ruled in just two chunks. 
Pomerania had been a patchwork of small separate duchies ruled by various dukes of Slavic 
origin called the House of Griffin, which is a great name. But in the 1600s the last Griffin 
died childless and Pomerania was sliced up and ruled by different countries. These days part of 
Pomerania is in Germany and part is in Poland. And some really sad bad things have 
happened here. I had reached Demmin, a little town. At the end of the Second World War 
here, around a thousand people killed themselves, mainly women and children, after the Soviet 
Red Army had marched in. It was a terrible thing and one of the worst mass suicides in 
German history. And what’s made it even more difficult has been that under the old East 
German regime, no one could talk about it. Now I had been on the road a week. I loved 
watching the new leaves coming out. I feel like the lime trees have been kind of, well, 
obviously they have been, coming out whilst I’ve been riding. These ones are quite full out. So 
today I’m going to arrive at the Baltic. I’ve been inland from the Baltic by 100 km and I’m going 
to now go to the sea and I’m going to camp there. Seems quite poor round here to me. Mecklenburg had seemed 
prosperous to me, but here in Pomerania, the villages did not seem prosperous at all. So, we’re going to Loitz. Loitz at first looked good. It’s on the Peene 
River and I was really looking forward to sit at a cafe and have coffee and cake as a 
treat. But as soon as I entered the town, I realized there was something wrong. My god. And it turned out that the town had 
been prosperous with various factories, a starch factory and a dowel rod factory. But 
after reunification of East and West Germany, the businesses here collapsed and the shops 
and cafes closed and people moved away. And nowadays there’s hardly a single shop in the whole 
town. And I saw no people and it felt so weird. This was the only shop I saw that looked like 
it might still be in business just about. The town square seemed to have been renovated, 
but there were still no businesses, no cafes, no people. It was so sad. I found 
the whole place really troubling. I was going to have a coffee to sort of cheer myself up here. Felt a bit.. I feel a bit flat. So I was going to have a really nice coffee 
and a cake here, but it’s not really going on. But I’ve got a bread roll and 
cheese, so I’ll have that. Where are the people? God, how nice. I’ve hardly had any proper treats, 
like bought. So, mmh! Wow straight out of the oven. Mmh. So, a very weird thing was that 
actually this part of Pomerania had actually been part of Sweden for 
about 200 years. And Greifswald, the the university town that I came to next 
felt so different, felt affluent. It felt a bit like a Swedish city. People seem to 
be living their sort of normal westernised urban life with bookshops and cafes and what 
have you. It was really nice. I really liked it. That is the Baltic Sea. Let’s stop and have a look. Such a busy road. So, I had reached the coast here, and I 
was aiming to camp right by the beach and really looking forward to it. I 
think it’s about 10 -15k to go now. Beautiful evening. I was thinking today 
maybe I’ll get a sunset. Be really nice. I’ve not really had anything like 
sunrises or sunsets. Too much rain. On the map, I had seen a Pomeranian royal 
palace called Ludwigsburg. So I went to see it, imagining a huge place like the ones I’d 
seen in Mecklenburg. But it turned out to be just this sad, little dilapidated 
house that had been the home of Sophia, Duchess of Pomerania, a gift from her husband, 
who was one of the last ever Dukes of Pomerania. As I reached the coast, the sun disappeared. 
Oh no! It’s really cold suddenly. And look what I’m going into – cold, sea mist. So much for my 
sunset. Wont be able to see where I’m going. It’s really chilly. The previous night, my hoped-for campsite 
had been shut. Well, the door’s open. I wondered if I could camp with a sea view. Wow. It is literally on the beach. Gosh, super. Gosh, it’s a cold wind blowing here. 
Really cold from the from the east. I pitched just back from the beach. I was the only 
tent. Oh, much better. The sun’s come through. Ah, that’s lovely. Now it’s time to choose dinner. 
So, there’s a choice of two. Mushroom and soy stroganoff, or spinach and chickpea curry. 
I’m going to have the spinach and chickpea because this takes a little bit longer 
to rehydrate and I’m kind of okay today. So I can let that sit a bit longer. I’m not 
going to like fade away with hunger. Whereas tomorrow I don’t know how I’ll be. So tomorrow 
we can have the mushrooms which are much quicker. So okay, let’s get cracking with that. 
So spinach and curry will be with rice, won’t it? Yeah, we’ll have rice. So 
that’s the spinach and chickpea mix. So, I left the food to soak while I went to look at 
the beach. The sun had burned through the mist. This is really promising actually. The 
chickpeas are perfect. Mmh, really nice. Smells absolutely brilliant actually. Kind of 
really rich and creamy. It’s got milk powder in and various spices. Good. Quite hungry 
now. So, I had ridden from Hamburg through Mecklenburg and then Pomerania and I’d reached 
the Baltic Sea. Now, I had one day left before I would arrive in Poland and get the ferry to 
Sweden. As darkness fell, I went down to the beach to look at the Baltic Sea, which in a 
day’s time I would cross to my journey’s end.