It was a bit rainy and overcast in Gdansk when we woke up. We got breakfasted, tidied and washed up and Glenn and I said goodbye to Lisa and Sean for a few days.  We drove north to Slovinski National Park. Lisa and Sean are off to Poznan then going to Berlin 3 days before us where we will meet up. 

We stopped to pick up a well hunted down car trim removal kit and a replenishing shop at Lidl before driving off into the countryside. 

It had brightened up so we stopped for a quick van lunch and checked out the possible bird spots. We found one on Gardno Lake where 180 species of birds had been seen as reported eBird. We arrived and found a 5km circular walking route at the parking spot on the edge of the lake. The area has been conserved as a bird breeding area- all funded by a European project – we have seen many of these in Poland. 

It was now brilliant sunshine but still cool so we had jumpers and rain jackets on. 

We walked up the concrete road seeing a lot of small birds.

I then spotted 2 cranes towards the lake so Glenn got a few photos.

We then continued and saw a fox on the opposite side of the road. 

We came to an observatory tower and got a view over the lake. 

The route then went on a narrow raised area through the reeds in the marshes. 
There was a nice section with trees in the middle of the marsh – a bit unusual.

Turning a corner we saw 2 deer who stood there and it took them a while to see us – and then run.

It was very quiet- we had seen only a few people on bikes and the dam monitor in his car checking the water levels. No one else was out on the marsh. 

We completed the loop and then returned to the concrete path on the way back to the van. The sun was now going down.

On the way back we heard and saw many cranes flying into the area towards the lake. We eventually found an area we could see them from. There were aroubd 40. We have never seen so many gathering together like this. 

Continuing we found some apple trees so picked a few. 

We then walked quickly back to the van as we didn’t have much sunshine left. It was a good sunset though.

We drove around 3km to a ‘Surf campsite’ on the lake which is popular with windsurfers and kayakers. It was dark as we were pulling in and were met by a nice chap with no English . He found us a spot with electric and water and indicated we would sort everything out the next day. The other vans were all permanents and there were very few people staying there. 

We got settled and as it was so quiet we could hear more cranes not too far away. 

I then cooked up a quick thai red curry chicken and rice which we scoffed down pretty fast after our big walk. It was then 9.30 so we went off to bed. We could hear what Glenn said was a tawny owl hooting outside.