Are we in Italy? No, we are in
Croatia, it just seems very Italian. We start the morning with an early swim in
the Adriatic Sea, and put our bike gear over our wet cozzies to give us a cool
ride on this hot, hot day. We’re riding the 534kms Dalmatian coast from the
campsite at Rijeka in the north all the way South to Dubrovnik (
https://goo.gl/maps/nV7ingfscYC2).
It’s amazing. Sheer drops into
the bluest of seas on our right and steep rocky mountains spotted with scrubland
on our left. The road winds and twists, up and down, sometimes near the water,
sometimes inland. We saw people randomly bobbing around in the sea, virtually
at each curve
of the road, over the low stone wall that separated road from sea.
We whizz by, keeping cool and start looking for our own camper’s swimming
paradise. We also saw a big break in the
water a good distance away. As it appeared to travel with us we reckoned it was
either a whale or some dolphins. Other turbulences that we saw from high
vantage points were left behind as we rode, so we reckoned these may be
underwater rocks. The Italian waitress at the lunch restaurant in Senj assured
us there were no whales or dolphins in the bay. A little bit of research on t’internet
told us otherwise. The lunch was a very expensive Spaghetti Cabonara at
30euros, almost
a 3 days food budget. We need to rein in a bit and get back to
basics on the food store front. I keep a daily record of all costs and we
really are trying to stick to the smallest spend possible over this 2month
adventure. We’ve roughly estimated 15 euros fuel, 15 euros food and 15 euros accommodation,
rounding it up to 50 euros a day. So far, so good. I wandered around Senj,
searching for a sticker, and found the seaside town to be very interesting. New
constructions added to old and clearly a place that had been severely damaged
in WW2.
We found our camping/swimming paradise at
camp Sibuljina, where the bright
alert friendly receptionist locked the office and personally escorted us to ‘the
best site in the camp’. It certainly was! We could fall out of the tent into
the sea. We travel with two pairs of shoes each, boots for riding and our trusted
Keen Sandals for everything else. They are great for swimming as they help us
float and keep nasty things from stabbing our soles. The shallow waters of this
pebbled seaside were cluttered with large black sea urchins. Hopping carefully
from pebble to pebble, we cross the danger zone and flop into the perfectly temperatured
water. Our site faced the sea and the promenade, which encourage
friendly folk
to stop and chat, discuss bikes and what to see and where to go.
The next day’s ride was just as
glorious, stopping for a swim and picnic on the island of Rogoznica. The
coastline is stunning, the roads fabulous and very little traffic. Speed limits
are a bit restrictive, being 70kms most of the way, but occasionally 90kms/hour.
At one point on a straight stretch, which was 70kms hr, we had a big flashy car
‘pushing’ us, so B drifted to the right and let him overtake on the dotted
line, no problem. Unfortunately for him there was a copcar in the layby out of
sight around the corner who captured him with his radar. We rode on by
steadily
at 70kms/hr, feeling a bit bad that we had waved him on making it easy to
overtake (and speed). Feeling thankful it wasn’t us we started to look for campsites,
the first one too steep, second not near the sea, third one too expensive and
the fourth one at Sutikla, just right. We keep our cozzies on all day, so it’s
easy to park, pitch and swim. We join the throngs of ‘promenaders’ along the
beach front and restaurant area before settling in for another cosy camp.
There is a 9kms stretch of land
dividing north and south Croatia. It is where Bosnia-Herzegovina owns a bit of
coastline. Talk goes
that if we cannot get across on our bike, with our white ‘green
paper’ we then may need to catch a boat that transports vehicles across this little
break in the boundary. We’ve heard the queues are long and the guards are a bit
moody. Taking no chances, and because the border post is 150kms away, and we
have a site already booked a bit beyond Dubrovnik, a further 50kms, we want to
be there before 10 am. This means a very early pack up and push-off at 5.30 am.
It normally takes us one and half hours to get going so by 7am we are ready
tackle Bos-Herz. None of the stories were true, we got smiling border guard,
who just waved us through and we had a
fabulous breakfast in Bos-Herz for
3Euros. Yes, they take euros, but are not part of the EU.
Re-entering Croatia was just as
easy and we got to camp Kate way ahead of schedule, with enough time for a ride
around the city of Dubrovnik and a pre-lunch beer and chips, followed by an afternoon
swim and snooze. 24 years ago, when I moved from South Africa to the UK, I
teamed up with a work colleague. We are still in touch and with the help of
social media we have arranged to meet up in Dubrovnik square. Their ship-cruise
schedule and our bike-cruise schedule have coincided by about 3hours. We have a
wonderful hour
celebrating our 24 year friendship over another beer and plate
of chips, before their tour guide waves her flag and we say farewell.
Windy gusts blew the tarpaulin
and poles down in the night, even though we are tucked into a bank of bushes. Guy ropes seem to stretch when wet, flap in
the wind and then the pegs work their way loose. B improvised with a couple of
bungees, which did the job as they give more flexibility whilst at the same time
keeping the tension when the wind blows. We’re having a four day break from
touring as more friends are arriving by plane from the UK this afternoon. These
are friends from 37 years ago and for the
past 6 years we have spent some part
of the June holidays with them somewhere around Europe. We do the WALL in Dubrovnik
city, have a sunset supper beach picnic and get shaken up by an earthquake
registering 3.5! We swim and swim and walk and walk and talk and talk and laugh
and laugh.
Day 51 dawns with thunder and lightning,
but nevertheless we need to pack and go. Its June 29
th and we have 5
days to get back to France to fetch our grandchildren for their annual holiday
with Ouma and Oupa. We know it’s at least 750 kms to Trieste in north Italy, so
another early set
https://goo.gl/maps/grEWzuffBh42
off at 7am. We feel confident about the Bos-Herz crossing and
stop again at the cheap and tasty breakfast café. When we were there 4 days
ago, B had taken out his stylo-pen that he uses to type with on his android phone. He had written a
few messages/mails at breakfast, but when we got to Dubrovnik he could not find
his pen. A finger-pen, being not so easy, makes this e-pen rather valuable and it
is NEW, because he’d lost one in Thailand earlier in the year. They are not
cheap to replace. The lovely breakfast lady remembered us and produced the pen,
along with the breakfast. Whew!! B is so lucky. We take the
coastline/ mountain
road as far as Senj, where we find a charming camp site on the beach. More swimming,
splashing and a presentation of Slivovitz by a German neighbour and his South
African son-in-law both on 650’s ended a very pleasant 474km ride that day. We
branched off onto the highway the next day and rode in appalling cross winds
the 429 kms from Senj to Bologna in one go. But that’s another story.
https://goo.gl/maps/grEWzuffBh42
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