August 2017 - this Park was on my must see List for a long time. Finally we had the Chance to visit. We spent the night in a hotel in Białystok before entering the park. The weather was way better today. From polish news we heard about Protests against the timberindustry, cutting Down parts of the bufferzone. Fist thing we saw passing Hajnowka was Trucks with wood. Great! One of Europes oldest forests is not getting 100% protection?

We found a campground in the Main village of Bialowieza and visited the NP house, the village, the historic trainstation. And had some good kotlet schabowy.in the afternoon we drove on the Zebry Zubra, a hiking Trail to the Bisons, which leads through dense forest.

For the next day we were thinking about taking a guided Tour to the corezone. However we decided to take advantage of the free visa for the belarusan side. What an adventure! We arrived at the border with our bikes, the polish Guardians were friendly and told us not to bring back produce from Belarus. But going through the customs of BR was a bit intimidating, reminding of Soviet spy movies. I had some number wrong in the passport, so they didnt want to let us through. But finally he ca,us back the passport and we could Enter the Park.

Being with bike, we spend 6-7 hours driving on pathes through the quiet forest but only got to see Birds, foxes and a few Tourists, that had the same idea. There is a hut of the orthodox father christmas, which we visited. We had tea and Pelmeni,  great experience. The Major town Kamenuki has some animals in captivity, but the rest of the day we where on our own. Us and the Forest.

Afternoon we arrived at the border again, and  honestly we were happy when we got out of Europes last remaining dictatorship. It was a nice experience although we didnt meet Bisons

There are no options to change or withdraw belarussian cash in Poland nor at the border. But you can pay everywhere with visacard. We were charged 5% interest but the lunch was anyhow only 2€