We didn't actually see anything big and fierce at last night's stopover but it's certainly the case that something big and fierce ambled by. On the track, only five metres from the lorry, were bear tracks: and these were imprinted in the dust on top of our own truck tracks!
Unfortunately we'd heard nothing, either; in spite of sleeping with the windows open (mozzy nets down). The trailcam had been set pointing away from the track and towards a ford: so that was a bust, too. Anyway, we'd clearly been within a few metres of a bear and will gratefully take that, for now...
We had a wander around the area post breakfast and though we saw nothing desperately unusual, did see a Scotch argus butterfly and heard a totally and utterly unfamiliar bird call. Unfortunately the call was short-lived and never to be repeated after the call-recognition app had been fired up.
The first part of today's drive meant we had to drop back into the Bieszczady National Park proper and, honestly, it was a claustrophobic and deeply unpleasant experience. It was absolutely thronged. All the (paid) car parks were rammed and people were queuing to get in; people were hiking in their hoards along narrow public roads, traffic was teeming, every shop and café was packed, tat stalls were omnipresent, the ubiquitous little tourist train was packed, and the police and park rangers were everywhere: it was just a morass of hideously seething awfulness.
It became starkly obvious why human movement in and around such otherwise untrammeled habitat was so important. Nearly every vehicle we saw was Polish registered, so it would seem this destination is insanely popular with nationals: quite why I just do not understand. It had a bit of a height-of-summer England's Lake District feel about it, but one in which no one was allowed to step outside of Ambleside, unless walking on the road to Hawkshead.
Thankfully, by lunchtime, we'd cleared the masses and headed for a convenient mountain pass on the Poland-Slovakia border. We did this for two reasons. The first was the cooler air that altitude brings, the second was that such mountain-pass borders often bring some no-man's land anonymity and a bit of peace and quiet.
The first thing worked out well. The second thing not so.
We'd been there about fifteen minutes and were well into our lunch when we heard a motorcyclist giving it some real welly coming up the heavily-chicaned mountain road from the Polish side. He reached the summit, turned his superbike quite close to the truck, and then whizzed off back down the mountain whence he came.
About three minutes later he did the very same thing. Then he did it again. By the time he'd done it for the sixteenth time we'd grown rather tired of it, so left. He was still doing it as we crossed him hammering up the pass. He may still be doing it now. I called him OCD, Emma called him a big swearword.
We didn't go much further after that and are now plonked for the night at a cracking little spot that overlooks some species-rich rough grassland. It's been great for insects and amongst the dozens I have no clue about have been: clouded yellow, large skipper, common blue, small pearl-bordered fritillary, and small heath butterflies; a couple of species of skimmer / chaser dragonflies, and rose chafer beetles. I also had an excellent sighting of a fox through the scope and watched it just basically chilling in the late evening sun before starting to look for breakfast.
The spot was pretty random but the general area purposeful. We hope to do a (very travel-weary) parkrun in a nearby town tomorrow.
Post composed at 22:00 on Friday 15th August from our intended overnighting spot N 49.43252°, E 21.90128° / http://maps.google.com/maps?q=loc:49.43252%2C21.90128