Eastern Europe - Day 17 and 18 - Aukstautija National Park.

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We left Vilnius at a frightfully civilised time today. 10:45. It was so civilised that MK and I had time to pop down the road and have another bowl of porridge for breakfast and after breakfast we had time for a wee stroll along the river. Luckily Andy took us on the local trams to get to the train station. We had walked to the train station the day before and none of us were relishing the concept of potentially having to do the 30 minute walk again with heavy backpacks on our backs.

Our train ride to the national park was pleasant and short. It only takes about 2 hours to get out to the national park from Vilnius. We were met at the train station in the local village by a man with a van and some kayaks on the back who took us to the teeny weeny little place that we would be spending the next two nights, Ginuicia. It is so small, but absolutley glorious. In Ginuicia we were staying in a local homestead as a home stay. The house was just lovely and MK and I had a delightul room at the top of the stairs with a lovely view out over the garden and the lake. But the best thing was that for 100 Litas the women of the homestead would provide us with all of our meals for the next two days. Home cooking! The homestead was also complete with its own dog, which was a gorgeous older dog that looked like a cross between a corgie and a collie. It was such a lovely little dog and obviously had the run of the town. As soon as it saw that someone was off for a walk it would run off in front of you and then bark at you to make sure that you were going to follow it and head in the right direction.

The plan for the afternoon was to head out onto the water in some kayaks. This was really lovely right up until the moment where it started raining. Then it got rather cold. The kayak ride was supposed to be for 3 or 4 hours, however before we were rather quicker than most other groups we did the kayak trip in only 2 hours. Which was rather lucky. At one point in time in the kayak we all got out and walked up a short, but very steep hill to get a lovely panoramic view of the surrounding lakes (there were 6 of them). MK and I did however discover that we were completly useless as kayakers. It was MK's first time and I had only done it either by myself or with a man undertaking the steering of the kayak. This meant that we spent most of our time going around in circles or running into things, like the river banks, wayward trees, other kayaks, bridges... you get the idea. At the end of the trip Tony said to us that he thought that we had paddled twice as far as everyone else as we zigzagged our entire way through the trip.

After the kayak ride we were all rather cold and hungry and luckily when we got back to the homestead where we were staying, dinner was ready. This consisted of a very hearty vegetable soup followed up by a totally delicious chicken and rice dish.

The following day the weather was glorious. And I do mean totally glorious. The plan of attack for the day was, after completing a hearty breakfast of home made pancakes, to head out for a 5 kilometre walk to the local bee keeping museum. This walk was obviously through the national park and was totally stunning. The national park is one of the most beautiful places that I have seen in a long time. Everywhere you looked it seemed as though you were looking at the picture on a box of swiss chocolates. We didn't end up going into the bee museum itself ( I mean once you have seen one bee musuem you have probably seen them all) but instead continued on the rest of the walk back to the homestead. When we got back to the house the most delicious smell met us. Homebacked apple tea cakes. They were just the best things in the world. Our long walk of the morning was followed up by a relaxing afternoon compelte with a couple more short walks in the afternoon, a bit of sun bathing and a lot of book reading and then an early night.

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