Last month, I went on a trip to Hel to do orienteering. Hel is a Baltic seaside resort in Poland at the tip of a peninsula, with convenient public transport links, which attracted me to go.

The event

The event was called Grand Prix Pomerania, which consisted of FootO and TrailO races. There were a FootO and a TrailO race on each of Friday, Saturday and Sunday. The FootO races were middle, long and middle races, and the TrailO races were relay, PreO, and TempO races, with the PreO and TempO both World Ranking Events. As I wasn’t interested in doing forest orienteering, I didn’t sign up for any of the FootO races but I regretted because the first middle race was so flat with good runnability. The reason I don’t like doing forest orienteering is mainly because of the climbs involved.

The IOF Eventor only had the PreO and TempO entries, and the organiser provided a Google Form to enter the relay, with help in forming a team if not entering in a full team of 3. However, I didn’t make my registration in time so I missed out the relay.

Day 0 (2024-08-22)

I started the journey straight after work from Farringdon, using a train and an overpriced shuttle to Luton Airport, and took a flight to Gdansk. It was a late night flight so I booked an airport hotel and travelled to Hel in the next morning without interruption.

Day 1 (2024-08-23)

I travelled from the airport to Hel using regional trains (Polregio) only, changing at Gdynia. Train fares in Poland are distance-based, and it was 98 km from Gdansk Airport to Hel despite that the crow-flying distance was only 33 km, due to the need of going around Gdansk Bay. Despite the extreme distance, the fare was only 22.50 zł (£1 ≈ 5 zł, so about £4.50), with no peak / off-peak distinction, so it was much cheaper than trains in Great Britain for a similar distance. In addition, there was a chargeable bike compartment on the train as well, although not all train services could carry bikes (only those marked with a bike symbol in the timetable could).

In addition, old and new carriages were coupled together as well, something I had never seen elsewhere.

The line through Hel peninsula is a single line, and intercity trains run through onto the line in addition to the regional trains providing the main service shuttling between Hel and Gdynia, so it is extremely prone to delays.

Apart from trains and ferries, there is a single road through Hel peninsula where two bus routes, 653 and 669, run to Hel. 653 is the primary route, while 669 is a seasonal service. The 669 used to be called 666 but it was renamed in 2023 after conservative religious groups’ demand.

I arrived Hel at around noon, and waited for the event centre to open. I was shocked that my name was not in the start list of the relay. After a phone call with the organiser they confirmed that they hadn’t received my registration at all, and there were no vacant space in any team for me, so I couldn’t race. They told me to go to the start after the race to have a practice, which I did that and got all but one right after I checked my answers with the solutions.

As I couldn’t race, I went to the beach at the southern tip of the peninsula to have a swim, passing through the FootO start in the process. I immediately regretted after seeing the details of the FootO at the event centre because it was so flat and the distance for the M21S was well within my ability, but as I didn’t even have my cross-country shoes and long trousers, even a late registration wouldn’t help. I didn’t swim long, only for about an hour as I returned to the TrailO relay course afterwards.

I booked a hostel right at the pier in Gdynia, planning to commute daily by ferry to the race. However, it ended up to be a wrong choice. The ferry ticket was so expensive (85 zł single, 135 zł return) and there were so few departures (only 3 return journeys per day, with the first one from Gdynia at 10:00 and the last one from Hel at 19:00), so it was a poor value choice. I bought a return ticket and took the last ferry to Gdynia to my hostel.

Day 2 (2024-08-24)

I took the first ferry back to Hel. It was still a bit early for the race so I had a swim first, this time at the beach in the harbour. However, I didn’t feel safe at all. Initially I thought the buoys at the outer limit of the harbour marked the speed limit zones but it turned out that speed boats still operated within the area and I was told to go back. There was a roped area but it was extremely small and shallow, not good for actual swimming.

I did the PreO race and ranked 33rd / 76 WRE competitors, with 752 World Ranking points, which wasn’t a bad result for me. Afterwards I went to the exposed beach over the sand dunes for another swim, but it was a windy day and there were kitesurfers out so for safety reason I had to stick very close to shore, but the slope was gentle so it was uncomfortable for me with the bottom consistently in reach, until the kitesurfers were gone. I didn’t swim long, about 50 minutes only because it was already a bit late after I finished the race. Afterwards, the last ferry was already gone so I used the circuitous train back to Gdynia.

When I arrived at the train station, there was an intercity train (the sleeper across the country) at the station departing soon, but I couldn’t make the ticket machine there issue me an intercity ticket. After great difficulty I obtained a ticket from PKP Intercity website, just before the train departed. It was much more expensive than the regional train (27 zł vs 19.20 zł) I usually take. On the intercity train, even the 2nd class seats were arranged in compartments, with the corridor on one side of the carriage, unlike the trains in Great Britain, as shown below. Note that the space above the seats was a mirror.

I had to pay the city tax for the hostel, however, the hostel only accepted cash so I had to obtain some from an ATM, and it was so difficult to find one which didn’t scam customers. A lot of ticket machines either charge a fee, or advertised no fee but with DCC, and once I refused DCC, it would charge a fee. Eventually I obtained cash from a Bank Pekao machine which spat out the cash without fee and without asking for DCC. Poland is a scam country where the majority of POS would ask for DCC when my Google Wallet was presented for payment. The hostel was also unsure of the tax to be charged, not helped by the fact that the tax rate changed a few times in recent years, and it took a while to work out the tax I had to pay.

Day 3 (2024-08-25)

As the race was a bit early, and a bit far away from the ferry terminal, I took the circuitous train back to Hel. I didn’t perform well in the TempO, 58th out of 74 WRE competitors with 631 World Ranking score. As the race was early, I finally hoped that I could have a long swim (around 3 hours) in the Baltic Sea, where the salinity is only 1/5 of the ocean.

However, once I stepped into the water, I felt so cold immediately that it induced pain, that shouldn’t happen in the season (in the previous days the sea was 21°C). As I swam on, the temperature reading on my watch dropped and dropped, from 14°C and eventually down to 10°C that I freaked out and returned to the beach after only 35 minutes in the sea, and I shivered like after a winter swim but without winter clothes with me. I got dressed and dared not getting back in again, and went to the train station afterwards.

Then, I was trapped by the ticketing. There was only one ticket machine at the station but there was a long queue, with the people in front having no idea how to operate it to obtain the ticket they wanted, because it showed a journey planner and the journey planner didn’t show the train at the station, which was a delayed train waiting for the single line to clear. I also tried to buy the ticket online but couldn’t (train tickets are valid for a set time after the selected departure) because it was already past the ticketing deadline (a few minutes before the scheduled departure – the train at the platform was already after the scheduled departure). I have read that it was possible to buy a ticket from the conductor so I decided to take a chance, but it attracted a hefty surcharge (8 zł) on top of the ticket price (19.20 zł).

Day 4 (2024-08-26)

It was a public holiday in England so I decided to stay over for one more day to visit Gdansk. I first took a suburban train from Gdynia to Gdansk (which runs 24/7 – something unheard of even in London where the longest service hour is only 24/6, with a gap on Saturday night / Sunday morning) and have lunch there. I saw an attractive restaurant but it was a Chinese restaurant, which I didn’t want to go as I was looking for Polish cuisine, and eventually went to a fast food restaurant serving Polish delicacy.

Afterwards, I decided to visit European Solidarity Centre. It is a museum to commemorate the Solidarity movement until 4 June 1989, when Communist rule ended in Poland. At the end of the visit, I left a note on the wall “Free Hong Kong, Glory to Hong Kong”, next to a Chinese note saying “Destroy Communist regime, give back people freedom”, and I wish that all the remaining Communist governments in the world will collapse like those in Eastern Europe.

I took a tram to the museum, and I got trapped again by the ticketing system. It was impossible to buy a ticket at the tram stop, and none of the mobile apps shown after scanning the QR code worked. Some required a Polish number, while others required me to top up a large amount of credit before I could buy a ticket. Eventually I used contactless payment on the tram, which was a new system in trial phase, but unfortunately 9.60 zł was deducted from my bank account where a fare should be 4.80 zł, and I couldn’t find out where I could check my journey history.

Finally, I took trains back to Gdansk Airport and flew back to Luton Airport, and took buses home to end this disappointing journey full of mistakes and traps.