We started our tour of the UNESCO protected forest at 8am with our tour guide Mila. 

We walked between the 2 lakes at the beginning of the national park. 

First was the entrance gate to the kings mansion – the second one . This is the only bit left after Nazis and communists knocked it down.

We then entered the less strictly controlled part of the protected park. You can only enter with a guide. It is mowed occasionally here to provide an environment for the lesser spotted eagle to hunt. We didn’t see them but we did see kestrels fighting a buzzard by swooping and pecking it.

We walked about 1km seeing wolf poo that Mila examined. Apparently the wolves had been eating deer and fruit for dessert.

Then we arrived at the big gate – created Zakopane style. Apparently the Jurassic Park movie copied the design. There are cameras here to check everyone entering. In summer there is a guard.
One chap came up as we were entering abd he was sent out of the park.

Then it was into the only remaining part of primeval forest in Europe.

We got lots of good information from Mila. She is studying Environmental Protection at Warsaw University.

Everyone must stay on the paths and nothing can be added to or removed from the forest. Trees are allowed to rot away. Mila gave us lots of information on how fungi digest cellulose and leave behind dark, crumbly, oxidized lignin.

As this has been a wet summer there are lots of fungi of different forms.

There were quite a few birds.Glenn wanted to see a black woodpecker – then one appeared and did a lot of tree drilling.

One tree is particularly well liked by the woodpeckers. Sean quite liked it too.

Unfortunately we didn’t see any animals – particularly the  European bison who died out here but breeding in the reserve replaced them. 

We walked for many kilometers- we would get lost if we didn’t have the guide. 

Towards the end there was a memorial to victims of Nazis who were shot in the forest. The Nazis used this as a prototype on how to kill more people. 

They planned to turn the forest into their hunting zone after they had won the war.

We were pretty exhausted as we had been walking for 4 hours when we came back to the big gate. We saw a few interesting things on the walk back to the vans.

We then had lunch. Later there was more clothes washing.

I cycled to the only supermarket and did a shop to make dinner – halloumi, local klobasa sausages, mashed sweet potato and Zuchinni . We are using the camp kitchen for cooking as it has a stove and lots of implements.

After dinner Glenn and  I got on our bikes to get into the park in the dark. We first got a bit lost in the dark but managed to find our way to the edge of the first park. It was pitch black. 

We could hear deer roaring as they are rutting and wolves howling. 

We didn’t stay too long as it was a bit freaky standing there in the dark not knowing if the animals were near us. It didn’t take us long to cycle back to the van. We enjoyed a welcome peppermint tea and dark chocolate before bed.