slovenia - split. 1700 miles

Day 30

We woke early in the slovenian vineyard we had pitched our tent and headed for the croatian border and the istrian peninsula. i noticed that the croatian border guard was looking at a photo of the national football team celebrating and i asked whether they had qualified for the world cup. he frowned at me and asked if i was from northern ireland. i told him i was english. he then muttered something to the other guards which im sure included an expletive and then told me that croatians had not qualified because of "f#cking rio ferdinand". i wasnt sure what this meant at the time but was glad to get my passport back in one piece. i later found out that croatia were out because england had lost to the ukraine, apparently due to a ferdinand mistake.

had a funny incident with a croatian man who had been a sailor and knew many british ports. he was trying to remember the name of the island next to britain. i suggested it might be ireland and he said "yes and island". i tried once more "do you mean ireland?" "i know its and island". after a while he was litterally shaking with confusion. he never quite worked it out but assured me he preffered wine to the black beer they drink there.

that afternoon we cut our lunch break short as we realised we had to race to catch a ferry to our first croatian island, cress. the port was over 25 miles away and beyond a big hill but feeling strong on the bikes after our alpine experience we nailed the distance in just over an hour and a half - just in time to see the ferry come in.

cres was amazing. the sun was setting beautifully over the peninsula beyond and we stopped early to camp and marvel at the skyline over a cup of camomile tea.

we were disturbed an hour later by another gun toting hunter. i had seen him coming but he looked rather shocked as he stuck his head over the wall of the field we were camped in.

Day 31

the next day we felt lothargic and slowly covered the miles we needed to get done on cress. we hit another port in the afternoon where the local fisherman were entertaining the people waiting for the ferry to krk by catching huge fish from the harbour walls.

we headed to krk to catch another ferry down to lopar on rab. whilst in the harbour our paths crossed with bill and gav, two lads from scotland who are riding their bikes down to athens. gav had just finished studdying in edinburgh and between that and cycle touring chat we struck up a firm friendship over beer on the hour long ferry south.

we arrived in lopar in the dark and were forced into our first stretch of night riding. all 4 of us camped together that night and we set off to our tent with a warning from the scots that they seem to attract alot of troble from cats.

at around 2am i was woken by the sound of a feline intruder attacking a rubbish bag which the scots had conveniently left at the foot of my tent. i got up and brought the rubbish into my tent.

at around 2.15am i was disturbed again and flashed my light into the porch of the tent to discover the shaddow of a cat trying to climb the outside of my EXPENSIVE tent. not wanting the cat to pierce the waterproof outer i got up and took the rubbish to the other end of the field.

2.30am. i was woken by the cat crawling into the porch.

2.31am. i hit a cat and as it scarpered i returned to my sleeping bag feeling fairly satisfied that it wouldnt be back.

at around 3am i woke to the smell of what i tought was cat poo. i lay there for a while and thought to myself that if that cat has done a shit in my porch then i will kill it. i got up to investigate the the stench that had invaded my nostrills and soon went back to bed concluding that ollie must have farted.

Day 32

all 4 of us rode south to the ferry port at the southern end of rab but as we hit the very bottom of the isalnd we were struck by winds that were so strong that we had to peddle hard downhill. the port was full of cars and coaches and when we went to buy our tickets we were told that no ships would be sailing today and that the road was closed on the mainland due to 150km per hour winds.

so trapped on the island we returned to the town of rab where we rented a very cheap appartment from a lovel family. in rab the sun shone and we were hidden from the wind so enjoyed a lovely afterrnoon walking around the old citadel and then sat down with a beer to watch a local football match. i really enjoyed the game and at the point at which we sat down the local team NK RAB were 2-0 down to Torbinna. they quickly stuck two in to bring things level and a third was added by the substitute striker with only ten minutes to go. he soon found himself burried beneath all 10 of his team mates which the 100 or so fans watching with delight. a fourth was added to finnish things at 4-2 to the local team and the shell suit wearing ciggerete smoking manager stepped on to the pitch to take his applause as the final whistle blew. it should be noted that this is the only place in croatia that ive not felt intimidated by tracksuit wearing men - indeed shellsuits in particular appear to be the uniform of local hard men.

day 33

we headed off again to the ferry port, although no one in town knew if it was sailing or felt optomistic that it would be. our efforts were not in vein though as the boat sailed much to our relief. we felt compelled to sneak on behind a lorry and out of sight from the police who we figured might be there to prevent cyclists using the roads on the mainland.

when on the mainland we were faced with exceptionally strong but also sporradic wind. the road was closed to buses and motorcylists but we pushed on undetected by the authorities. it felt pretty dangerous riding along and wind would often push us to the edge of the road where there were cliffs fell fatally bellow us.

we arrived at our next ferry port feeling a certain sense of achievement at having made it alive and on our way to Pag we met Yan, a german cycle tourist who was to join us for a while, building our ranks to 5.

Just off the ferry we startled 3 huge sea eagles who were eating something by the road. there wing span was huge!

Day 34

With the winds ebbing and 5 of us in the party the riding became fun again. we worked like a team in the tour de france switching lead riders, peddaling hard towards Zadar. on the way we passed our first minefields. the city of Zadar seemed to buyy though with plenty of students filling the bars and coffee houses at lunchtime.

The pace was too fast for me in the afternoon. a bit of a macho vibe struck us all and no one wanted to b e the one to slow the pace from the front. we did however cover 67 miles in four hours of riding that day!

We stopped that night to camp in a gorgeous olive grove. the owner was busy harvesting his olive. i tried one - it tasted terrible so i gave it a squeeze to see if oil would come out and it jettisoned into my eye! The floor of the olive grove was covered in wild rosemary and we spent the evening consumed by the scent.

Day 35

we took an inland road towards split that morning and found the interior to be less developed and full of more eastern european character.

we camped that night in an out of season campsite which was only 10m from the sea. Ollie, Yan and I took a dip and were pleased to find that the water was at least as warm as the brittish sea in summer.

Day 36

Day 36 was one that i am now glad that i can luagh about. the 5 of us rented an appartment on the black market only to find that it was riddled with hidden costs and a russian who had barricaded himself into the kitchen. we drove an exceptionally hard bargain to start with but after shaking on 100kn we set off to the appartment with our moustached host (he looked like wilson from home improvement). he stopped outside to tell us that to store the bike was going to cost an extra 100kn. we said no way and after pretending to walk off he let us in. we went upstairs to find that the appartment was to be unexpectedly shared with a paying austrailien and an unpaying russian who simply locked himself into the kitchen come bedroom. our host failed to reveal this issue until he had taken our money and charged us an extra 20kn for photocopying our passports. "it is a problem". he then both asked us and told us which time we would like to leave at the next morning - which was at 9am. i said that the only way we would be gone by then was if the russian was gone in 10 minutes. he said "ok ok, you leave at 11".

i began communicating with the russian in french and a freindship was struck. he let us in to cook some lunch. whilst enjoying our soup yan, ollie and i were confronted by the appartment owner who has just returned. "what" he raged. "You use kitchen, for 100kn this is not normall". feeling myself begin to boil i assured him that nothing was bloody normal about his flat.

Finally at 8 pm the russian left and we were left to enjoy our dinner that should "not normally" have been cooked in the kitchen.

off to vela luka now.

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