400km trip: day 4+5

So it’s morning. All of our limbs are still in pain from yesterday, but we have the Baltic sea waiting for us, only 50km away.
Thats great, isn’t it!?

We set off, there wasn’t a lot going on that day, we got on the road, lucky for us, first time across the whole of lithuania, there was a bike path going alongside to the road. So we took it.
Eventually, around 20km later, we reached a smaller village where Paulius’ other grandparents lived. We stopped at theirs to say hello, and have a short rest.
Apparently they had no idea we were going to show up, even though Paulius’ dad stated otherwise. Funny.
Well, they still decided to prepare us something to eat. After a nice fulfilling lunch, we talked for a little. And had a little peaceful rest.

After that, we took off again, leaving us with only 20km to go. We continued on another bikepath and headed to Palanga. There really was nothing ahead of us, no amazing views, no cool roads. Just a regular path.
Eventually we reached one end of Palanga. 

Then we got lost. I’ve been to the city plenty of times, but this was a different end and it was confusing. So after wandering around, we finally reached the place were we were staying the night. Even though it was late and getting chilly, it didn’t take much hesitation before we both agreed to head to the sea, and take a swim. It was great!

Here’s the ever so famous bridge of Palanga. It’s quite a nice one in the evening, although quite a lot of people are always on it.
After the swim, we went to the pizzeria with the rest of my family, ate some delicious pizzas and headed for the bridge again. The views are amazing, as well as watching the sunset was pretty cool and rewarding.

After all of the nice walks and so, we headed for home, to our comfortable beds.

Day 5. Our last day.

This was our last day here and on our trip… It was nice to finally end our trip and the realization of having accomplished something this big at such a small age was truly great. Sure it wasn’t something impossible, but sure enough it was something big, something we both had talked about a few years back.

6am. Our alarm clocks again screaming for us to wake up. We both jump up and get dressed. Nope, not the biking clothes. The swimming trunks!
In the evening the day before, we both had decided that we want a morning swim. Our train was at around lunch time so we had to leave at around 9am latest. We got dressed pretty quickly and by 6.15 were both outside marching to the sea.
The main street, which heads to the bridge, normally is packed with people. This morning, presumably like every other morning at this time, it was almost a ghost town.. apart from the occasional drunk. Most of them were on the so called “walk of shame” heading home from the club. Swearing at their friends for what happened the night before. And as for us, it was just an early morning walk. Nothing too much out of the ordinary..

As we reached the beach, it was even quieter. The sea was calm, not a single wave. And the occasional jogger passed us.

That’s the first time I saw this bridge dead empty… Nice, huh?
So having little to no time, we headed for the beach, taking of our shirts and placing our feet in the water. It was freezing! Oh holy god how cold it was. But that didn’t stop us, we walked until knee-deep, swearing at each other for making each other do this. We decided to run for it. We both counted to five (why the hell he chose five is still a mystery…) And ran into it. Diving into the calm waters of the sea. Ohh it was cold for sure. But there was nothing more refreshing than the nice breezy water covering us, telling us to wake up.

We came back home around 7, had a nice breakfast sitting on the floor as my brother was still sleeping in the dining room.

We finally got ourselves ready for the last few kilometers on our bikes. As exhausted and tired from the trip we were, we both did NOT want it to end so soon. We wanted a few more days by the beach. A few more days on the bikes.
We hoped on, and hurried out as we had a train to catch.

We started from the streets, jumping into a gravel park. I was sure there was supposed to be a great curvy asphalt around here. Paulius was already annoyed at me for false promises but I did not ease down, and continued my way, looking for that single road.

Around 10km from our starting point of today, we saw this glorious road of ours. Oh the beauty. We were so amazed and distracted that no pictures were taken.

The road had everything. Peaceful nature surrounding us, flawless asphalt layed down, and no people other than the occassional cycler passing us. We sped up, these curves were too much to slow down, it got us awake, and really amazed at how greatly we end the trip! We continued the road for quite a while until it ended and we jumped on the road again.

We got to the station, changed to our casual clothing, and sat down waiting for the train.

Overall we had an amazing trip. It was one heck of an experience, we cycled a total of 450km plus some more back home to reach our homes from the train stations.
Both of us were tired but happy and proud.
We can’t wait for next year!

Thanks to everyone who supported us, and our bikes for making this possible!
Here’s a video of the trip highlights in case you haven’t seen it.

Bike Trip: Day 3

So it’s day three. We are awoken by our alarm clocks, screaming for some more adventure. As I open the door, we see my cousins puppy jump right at me, into our room. What a nice way to start the day.

So after a few minutes of playing around with the puppy, I set off to make some tea, as I reached the kitchen, I see my cousins grandfather (my godmothers father). He’s there, eating his breakfast. As we exchange in small-talk, he tells me all about the recent book awards he won for his books, and other interesting stories. He’s lived his part of the life, and has so much to share, I enjoyed listening to it even more.
After some tea with Paulius, we set off to the lake for the last swim. Gorgeous water, great weather, and noone else around. Nothing better than a relaxing, quiet swim.

As the day went on, we were already late for leaving the house… It was already 11.30, and we weren’t even ready to leave.
As I packed our bags, noticed paulius doing some DIY work on his pants. Apparently, his chair was too hard to ride on, so he needed a softening pad. Here’s what he made.

He made it from some old cloth and a sponge, he found in the garage. As funny as it may have looked, it was worth the effort, and made the ride comfortable for our next few days.

So after being 2 hours late for leaving, we finally set off.
We’re both upset about the distance we have to ride. 121km is not what we were planning to do today. And even though we are able to do it, it kinda caught us off guard. And the wind isn’t being any nicer either.
But with good company, it’s not long, till we leave our troubles behind, and power through everything.

Today, we made many stops, basically because we were getting really exhausted from the wind. Every hour, we stopped, whether to change water bottles, or eat a Lion bar (oh sweet jesus, the amount of lion bars we ate… Out of all available chocolste bars, we found them to be the richest in the needed nutrition.) We made some more stops, to take pictures like these.

The golden color of the fields was amazing to us, and made our days ride even more worth it! Even with the goal still 90km away,all those views, was initially what kept us going, we had reasons to take breaks, and take pictures.

Empty roads were a big advantage for us, since we had the road all to ourself, letting us ride calmer. It was an interesting ride, to the first planned stop. A small town, we headed into the nearest shop. While locking up our bikes, we had some teenage guys walk up to us ask a little about our bikes. It was nice to find someone interested in us. We stocked up on lion bars, some water, and set out to the village square, for a nice lunch. We had sandwiches packed from today, and we ate those with big smiles on our faces. It felt rewarding, and we knew we deserved them.

We ate, and set off again, next city is in 26km, thats fine. We’ll make it! As we were leaving the city, there were a motorcycle group going the opposite way. Paulius, and I are big fans of motocycles, so being the nice people we are, we gave them a thumbs up. And got a few waves back. Even when it’s for a second, it’s a nice exchange to get between fellow motorists, or cyclists. Wether its a car, bike, or a tank, it’s always nice to see that.
So we cycled, we went, and went, we rode and rode, and it never ended. We were reaching the stage where out of exhaustion we were laughing at the smallest things, and the most ridiculous things started happening. We decided to make a stop, and check how much more to ride. It was around 7 pm, and we were afraid we won’t reach our destination till dark. Our GPS gave us different readings than the paper maps. Also the signs were even different.. thats odd. We knew we were going the right way, but we didn’t know how much more. So we kept going and we finally did reach the city of Rietavas. Now that’s great! Except that it was only a stopping point for us, we still had 30km to go. That’s slightly deppressing. It was 9 o’clock, and the sun was going down. If you watch the video, this is when we filmed that sunset ride. We had again restocked on water, and lion bars, and headed for the last road of the day, it was a long way straight. With the views being beautiful, road ahead being empty, and the wind being annoying. 

Great views, aren’t they? So after a long ride, we finally reached Plunge. At aproximately 10 pm we had reached our destination. More tired than ever, and hoping to just sit down on a couch and drift off to bed.

We were staying at Paulius’ grandmas place, she made us soup for dinner, with some pork ribs (I think… the memories of that day are blurry). We ate it all, we were starving, and headed off to bed straight after that. It was a long day, luckily, only 50km were left tomorrow, and 30 the day after. We were very pleased with ourselves.

So I’ve been busy…

Alright, so I know I’ve had promised some more content for and missed the deadline. My computer broke down, and I had trouble getting anything up.. then, I was sitting editing a highlight video, of our trip! here it is! I hope you enjoy. I will write up the rest of the trip as soon as I can!