The day finally dawned when the truck was ready for collection and by midday we had said goodbye to everyone at Camperspol and we drove the truck out of Poznań, heading south east.
We stopped for two nights at a family camp site by the lake. There was a slipway leading down to a sandy beach and a small harbour with a little tourist boat offering trips round the lake. The afternoon temperature was over 30° and we had planned to have a cooling swim in the lake but, when we passed the tavern at the top of the slipway, we chose to cool down with a pint of chilled lager whilst watching our fellow campers enjoying their water sports.
It was hot and thundery and we found welcome shade for the truck under some tall willow trees. That night there was a huge thunderstorm. We heard several ominous bangs during the night but we were still surprised in the morning to see we were surrounded by a thick carpet of leaves, twigs and branches. Fortunately there was no major damage although one large branch had missed our truck by inches. Another sizeable branch had snapped off but had been caught up in the branches and was hanging precariously over a small tent where a couple of canoeists had been sleeping. They hurriedly moved their tent to another area before an army of workers appeared with rakes and a chain saw to start clearing.
We heard there had been severe weather in central Europe causing flooding and loss of life. As we left the lake area a day or so later it was apparent that the road through the forest had been blocked by dozens of fallen trees, branches had been dragged to the roadside and tree trunks had been chain sawed and cleared to the edge of the road.
