Touring on a Brompton, London to Poland.. and why I love cycle touring…

I took my Brompton folding bike on the train to Hamburg, then unfolded the bike and cycled to Poland, camping along the way. This film is the last leg of this bikepacking journey, along the Baltic coast. And I try to put into words why I love cycle touring… I wonder what you think… Anyway, I hope you enjoy the film!

Music courtesy of Epidemic Sound
Craig Reever feat. Nadja Alsén / We’re All Runners

LYRICS

And we’re all runners, and we race against time
And we’re all runners, we were born to chase the tide
No matter where we are, no matter what we face
We’re forever on our way
‘Cause we’re runners, yeah we’re runners
And so we go

I’ve been everywhere, I’ve seen so many things
I’ve loved, andnd I have lost, I felt the viper sting
I’ve died a hundred times but my heart is moving still
That is the journey that we’re on

And to that starlit sky
We gaze and question why

And we’re all runners, and we race against time
And we’re all runners, we were born to chase the tide
No matter where we are, no matter what we face
We’re forever on our way
‘Cause we’re runners, yeah we’re runners
And so we go
So we go

We climb ever higher, strive to catch the moon
No fear of falling down, for later must be soon

And we’re all runners, and we race against time
And we’re all runners, we were born to chase the tide
No matter where we are, no matter what we face
We’re forever on our way
‘Cause we’re runners, yeah we’re runners
And so we go

It’s a lovely day. So, today I’m going to ride to Poland, going to 
cross the border. Amazing. So, the idea on this trip was to cycle and camp through a new part of 
Europe on my way to Sweden to my husband’s place. It’s easy to take a folding bike on the train 
and the rail network puts a huge range of places within easy reach. I’d left London 6 days ago 
early in the morning with my Brompton and by late afternoon I was in Hamburg. I’d unfolded the 
bike and cycled 6 days through the former East Germany camping along the way. Now I was on 
the Baltic coast, and the end of my journey was in sight. On a trip like this, I take all 
my food with me to make it really efficient so that I don’t waste time looking for food and 
struggling to buy ingredients in small packets and things. I make dehydrated meals at home 
and I measure out and pack all the rest of the food too that I need for lunches, breakfast 
and snacks. Now, I was near the end of the trip and everything was nearly used up. Running 
really low on fuel. I’ve used a whole bottle, which is actually not very much. But the 
thing is because I’m using dehydrated food, you only need to slightly boil some water and 
then leave it to soak and then hot the food up and you’re done. There’s no kind of long cooking 
time of potatoes or frying onions and things like that. So you really economize on fuel, which 
is one of the reasons to do it. I’m going to see about this, whether I can have a pancake 
or not. I’ve got to be able to cook tonight and then breakfast the next morning. It’s getting 
really low in the bottle. I might just have one. I made some coffee first and then thought I 
would make a pancake with the little bit of fuel that was left in the burner, which 
I hoped would be just enough. The flame is dying. Oh no. The thing is you 
can’t refill the burner when it’s hot. So if the fuel runs out, that’s it. 
No nice pancake. It’s still cooking. Come on. Right. I think it’s perfect. Look at that. So, I sat and watched people 
in caravans wondering what life was like for them with so much more stuff. And then I packed up my tent and I rolled away. I just love how it’s so quiet. Like, I just 
left the campsite and nothing happened. I didn’t need to talk to anybody. I mean, I 
don’t mind talking to people, but there’s no booms having to go up and dropping things 
off, and… I don’t know what the caravan people do, but I’m sure it’s quite involved. And then 
I’m sure it’s nice listening to music and everything. In fact, they were playing 
a Bruce Springsteen song in the toilets. They play music in toilets in campsites in 
Germany, and showers. Mostly 80s stuff. Anyway, I really liked the Bruce Springsteen, so that 
was nice. But now I’m just perfectly happy with what I can hear, which is larks, and the 
wind, and my wheels just rolling along. I love that. I love how quiet and 
peaceful it is. Simple. So simple. So the plan today was to ride 
about 65 km along the coast, catch a ferry over to the island of 
Usedom, and then ride to the Polish border and camp in Poland. As you’ll 
see, a few things didn’t go as expected. It’s probably too far away to see, but that 
blue streak over there is the Baltic Sea. And I’m going to be going along the coast here. And 
uh I’m looking forward to see what it’s like. It was lovely here. Pretty villages, romantic 
architecture and signs explaining about how the region was popular with early German 
Romantic painters who came on happy honeymoon holidays here and things like that. But 
then everything changed. First, I got slightly lost in a wood when leaving a village 
called Lubmin. I’ve gone slightly wrong here. So, I’m going to see if I can go through the wood 
to get back to the main road. Might not work. Okay. Think we’re gonna take this. Yes. God, this is easy. And then strange things started to happen. I don’t I know what this is. There’s a weird 
smell, of like bacon and cheese. Quite nice, actually. Like that soft cheese that you get in Sweden. And I 
just saw a massive ferry. Honestly, a huge a ferry. So, there was a weird smell, a strange huge ship, and 
signs now for the federal police. And I was not in a pretty holiday resort at all, but at some 
kind of massive factory. Wonder what this is? Tricky on this little path here. 
There was a railway, abandoned. Doesn’t look used though, does it? It’s rusty. This isn’t what I expected at all. So, 
what I found out later was that this was the former Lubmin nuclear power station. 
It was built with help from Soviet Russia. In 1990, after the old East German regime 
collapsed, it was shut down because it didn’t meet safety standards, and now it’s one 
of the largest nuclear ruins in the world. So, there’s the huge abandoned nuclear power 
station. And actually, right next to it, the big white thing, which I’d seen through the 
trees earlier and thought was a giant ferry, was actually part of the controversial 
Nordstream gas pipeline from Russia to Europe, which is also now abandoned. The pipeline comes 
in here at the little village of Lubmin. I don’t know what the bacon and cheese smell was. I 
never found out. Anyway, what I was trying to do was cross from the mainland onto an 
island here. On the map, there seemed to be a ferry from a place called Freest. So, Freest 
turned out to be a lovely fishing village. People told me there was no ferry, however, at 
the moment, for some reason, which was a blow. Pommes, Burger, Bratwurst, and something 
else. It all sounds very good. But they were serving the German version of fish and 
chips, so I decided to make the most of that Not quite sure… I think that’s pickled 
herring.. Well, it looks great. I wasn’t entirely sure. I ordered Matjes and I thought it 
was going to be herring. And it is herring. So, great. A hot lunch meant no need to cook 
in the evening and that turned out to be a really good thing as you will 
see. So then, as there was no ferry, I headed south down the mainland to find 
the bridge, which was about 12 km away. Right. So, I just turned over the page, and 
this is the last part of the journey! So, the bridge must be there. Fingers crossed 
it’s all okay for bikes. Things always get a bit more nerve-wracking when you get to the 
end of a trip, and when there’s a deadline. I had already now bought a ferry ticket from 
Poland to Sweden for the following day, and I didn’t have time now to make mistakes. 
I’ve bought a ticket now. So, I mean it’s not far left. Maybe gosh how much is it? 25, 30, actually about 40k left to do. I 
was still nervous about getting onto the island. On some big bridges, you’re forbidden to ride 
a bike. And I saw this warning sign about what looked like very limited opening times. Right. 
So this is Wolgast, and apparently the bridge is fine. Although there was a sign then saying 
you could only do it at certain times of day, but I’m just going to do it. I think it’s down 
there. I found that riding over the bridge was actually easy. I had misunderstood the warning 
sign completely. It had shown the times not when the bridge is open for road traffic, but when 
it opens as a drawbridge to let boats through. So that is mainland Germany, and this is 
the Baltic island of Usedom. So the island of Usedom was connected by rail to Berlin 
in the late 1800s and the German Kaiser made Usedom his favourite summer destination. 
So, it was a sort of posh resort island. I just came along a little path 
here and it’s lovely beach. Wow. Wow. It’s so empty. I was tired and struggling a bit here. It was already 4 p.m. and I still had about 
30 km to do. I didn’t ride much of the cycle path along the shore because I was worried 
it would be rough surfaces and fiddly. And I took mainly the cycle path along the road 
hoping that that would be easy and fast. But actually it involved a lot of unpaved 
sections anyway and I was tired. Actually, it’s just not been that easy on the 
island. It’s a big main road and then sometimes the bikes are sent off on tracks 
and things like that. It’s fine, but um 30k still to go. Quite a long way, but coffee. 
Oh gosh. So nice. So the coffee perked me up, but I was puzzled actually by Usedom. I ended up not 
really seeing it properly. It was out of season, and the old hotels and things that I 
did see felt kind of folorn and strange. It’s all slightly weird. I think. To me anyway. I guess it looks better when it’s all in full 
swing. It’s a little bit weird at the moment. Anyway, I’m really close to the border now. 
I don’t know, less than 10k. Yeah. Exciting. It was about half 5 now and I was 
feeling pretty uncertain about everything. I was aiming for the port city of Świnoujście. 
The plan is to camp in the town. Actually, there’s apparently a campsite. I wrote an email 
to them, but they haven’t replied. Uh, so I’m just going to go and see about that. I’m not used 
to camping in towns and I had no idea how things worked in Poland. But here I was, finally at the 
border. Tada! I’m in Poland. Now I had to work out what to do. I checked the weather. It’s going to 
be a massive thunderstorm at 6:00 and it’s kind of half past 5 or something now. There is a sudden, 
like the wind suddenly like blew really hard, from a different direction then, from behind me. Uh-oh. 
I think I can feel rain drops. So I don’t know what to do actually, at all. Uh camp? or get 
the night boat? The thing is, I’ve already paid for the boat tomorrow. It’s only 50 quid. So, I 
was going to get the ferry to Sweden from the port here, and I had planned to do it the next day. 
That was silly of me. I was being all efficient. Let’s see what the campsite looks like. I don’t really know where the… I 
have no idea. Feeling my way… So, I just rang the ferry company. 
Polferries, they’re called. I just thought maybe I can change my ticket. 
A lovely guy called David in their help centre said yes, no problem. So, I’ve booked 
myself onto the 10:30 ferry tonight. So, now it’s coming up to 6:00. So, I’m just going to 
cruise through town, and go to the ferry terminal and it’ll be all nice and warm and lovely! I mean, 
it’s even perfect cos I had that hot lunch. So, I’ve had a proper meal. So, I can just eat up some 
more of the oat cakes and things I normally have for basic lunches, with butter and so on. 
So it’s perfect. Oh, it’s just it’s going to rain. Really windy. Look, it’s lovely It was really lucky that I had lots of time 
actually, because it turned out that to get to the international ferry terminal, you had to 
cross over the Świna River to another island. Gosh good job I wasn’t in a rush, cos that takes ages. So, now I’ve got to find the 
ferry terminal. Lucky it’s not dark Windy! Actually, though, the weather 
hasn’t been as shockingly bad as they said. Uh, it hasn’t rained – yet, 
and I’m kind of fine now, cos I think I’m probably there. Okay, let’s work 
this out now. Terminal… Looks hopeful… And I caught the night boat Sweden. So, I 
had wanted to go from the UK to Sweden to my husband’s place. And I chose to go partly by 
bike because on a bike you move at human pace. So, you can hear and see what’s around. You can 
easily talk with people. You breathe the air, you smell the seasons changing, and you feel 
the contours of the land. Travelling by bike, you cannot help but be fully present in the moment 
you’re in. Going simply from A to B , anywhere, and just finding out what’s there, you discover 
so much. With minimal stuff, you feel so free and can still enjoy comfort and luxury. Whether 
it’s a short commute to work on familiar roads, or a longer journey in places new, to 
me time on a bike is never wasted time, because rain or wind or sun, the 
journey is always interesting, a precious thing not to endure, but to enjoy. One 
week after I left London, I arrived in Sweden.