We stumbled upon the beautiful stars of our weekend getaway - the forests of Nadleśnictwo Lipusz and Lake Sumino - completely by chance through a randomly suggested YouTube video. Even though we visited areas within a few kilometers of Lake Sumino quite regularly, it took this Saturday-Sunday trip for us to truly uncover the magic of the place.
We expected clean water and good weather. As a bonus, we got a starry night sky and a magnificent forest still tenaciously regenerating after the severe storms of 2017.
After arriving at the lakeshore and scouting out a spot for the night, we launched the kayaks without delay. Knowing that late April marks the nesting season for swans, we made sure not to disturb their territory, sticking to a fairly restricted section of the lake - I still vividly recall my “Battle of Gdańsk” last year with a territorial swan, where I had to wield my paddle like a halberd just to keep from being sunk into the waters of the Martwa Wisła.
With a cup of coffee, we celebrated the maiden voyage of our expanded kayak fleet and headed into the woods. Later, around the evening campfire, we talked through our plans for the relentlessly approaching big expedition - and just how thoroughly unprepared we were for it.
And so, with mindsets hovering between “it’ll sort itself out”, “we’ll see as we go”, and the classic developer philosophy of testing in production, we called it a night.