Into Bosnia & Herzegovina
And we met another Overlander!
5th - 8th May | 2022
Welcome to Bosnia & Herzegovina - our country no. 7!
After a good breakfast in the sunshine, Steffi had a little recovery sleep as she felt rough in the morning. She suffered all night from a sore throat and this morning additional achy bones; hopefully, nothing nasty coming up, but the little sleep helped already a bit.
We opted not to drive the TET as there is some offroad involved and Steffi is still not 100% fit, so we went on a beautiful small mountain road to the border with Bosnia-and-Herzegovina. First time in ages we had to show our Covid-vaccina pass!
As Steffi felt her achy bones, we saw along the TET BiH* little huts, which we booked for the night. Steffi straight away crashed on the bed and slept for nearly 2 hours like a log, whilst James had a walk around the area to get something in the little tiny supermarket close by.
After a good night's sleep, Steffi felt much better, even though her throat was still a bit sore. After we had our breakfast next door we carried on doing the TET BiH*. It started well, but we had a bit of snow again at about 1400m altitude on the R434. So James scouted the track and whilst he started getting the bikes through, Steffi started already shovelling the track through the last bit of snow. Once James got both bikes through and we did another 500m there was another big patch of snow, so we had to backtrack about 5km, carrying on the R434 until the main road. We followed that nice road, along a river, until we met again the TET; ha, and a Croatian guy on his Honda Africa Twin. We had a quick chat to give him the information about the snow and then off we went again.
It was then a stoney offroad track along the bottom of a hill. Unfortunately, it started lightly raining, so we had to put our rain gear on at some point. Due to the weather, we already decided to not take the "dotted line" here on the TET BiH* over to Mostar, as the weather is not good and we didn’t want to encounter more snow patches. Reaching the turn on this part of the TET, it was anyhow blocked off. We followed the R435/A until Rujiste, which was a lovely wide offroad track.
In Mostar, we had a lovely room in a small private hotel (www.hotelpatriamostar.com), only a 7mins walk to the famous old bridge. As James was in contact over the last days with Giedrius (FB Giedrius Indri~unes) we finally met for some beers in the old town of Mostar. It turned out that he also wants to see the famous waterfalls close by and Dubrovnik the next day. Easy decision to go together then :-)
The next morning we met after breakfast at our hotel and after some top-up fuel we drove off to the first waterfall close by Blagaj. Very nice, but not a must in our opinion. The next one on our list was Kravica. Giedrius negotiated for us three that we could take our bikes down as we were not really keen on leaving them in the parking lot.
Wow, what a beautiful waterfall!! It falls down out from between the trees - looks like a mini Niagara or similar! It was just stunning! After all pictures were done, we finally headed off to Dubrovnik, Croatia (country no. 8). Closer to the coast, we had 3 border crossings within 50km: BiH* into Croatia, then back into BiH* and then after 20km again back into Croatia. The last one just waved us through ;-) We rode along a very beautiful coastal road, until we came close to the entrance of Dubrovnik. There we had to split up for the moment as we got different accommodations booked, but we will meet for dinner later :-)
We had a pretty nice room in a hostel in the marina, far away from the old town, as there the accommodation costs a fortune! Steffi was already a bit alerted by the prices in Croatia when she got some beer and a water at the petrol station.
Later the evening we met again Giedrius for dinner close by. As we forgot all day driving together to take a picture of us all with the bikes, we at least have to remember after dinner! We had each of us a beer and home made hamburger, but the bill was like €18 pp!!! That was the most expensive food on all our trip so far; especially the pint of beer with €6.60! We are really looking forward to be back in BiH* tomorrow!
During dinner we shared some information of our next routes as he is going now via Montenegro into Albania; and us roughly where he came from. We are looking forward to hear his adventures from the upcoming countries and Steffi is looking forward to meet Giedrius and his family in Lithuania later in the summer! Safe travels!
We were lucky staying in a hostel overnight as it was heavy raining and thunder during the night, but in the morning we had blue sky! As Steffi found out late in the night that the hotel provides a washing and drying facility we got our washing sorted first thing in the morning! Once the drying was done, we started packing our bikes and headed over to the old town of Dubrovnik. As it was so hot (in our biking gear) Steffi just whizzed through the main road for pictures whilst poor James was staying back with bikes in the scorching sun.
We drove up to the highest point at the mountains of Dubrovnik for some more pictures and then it was time to hit the road back into BiH*. Today James had planned the route with only one boarder crossing! Once back in BiH* we had some lunch and later on we filled up our bikes as the petrol is only €1.45 - Halleluja! It was a nice ride over some back roads along Lake Hutova Blato.
We booked via booking.com Motel Kiwi south of Grude, which was a lovely place, actually some kind of Agriturismo. And again it was a real bargain the place! We had dinner in the restaurant and the amount of food as a starter was unbelievable! James had to help Steffi with her food! It was also the first time after Italy we had red wine, which was homemade and very nice.
We hope you enjoyed so far BiH* and let’s take you through BiH* during the next days! See you soon :-D
Please note, some of the pictures are courtesy of Giedrius - thank you that we can use them!
*Bosnia-and-Herzegovina
Places | Cities:
BOSNIA-AND-HERZEGOVINA:
Foca, Popov Most, Gacko, Rujiste, Potoci, Mostar, Blagaj waterfall, Kravica waterfall, Neumes, Capljina, Ljubuski, Grude
CROATIA:
Vid, Dubrovnik
Driven km | Trip:
From home: 10550 km
Maintenance | Breakdown:
Yamaha Super Tenere starting with some squeaking noise coming from the head of the rear shock - could be the end of offroad for the rest of the trip.
Health issues:
Steffi real sore throat and achy bones for 24hrs.
Special thanks to:
Giedrius (FB Giedrius Indri~unes) joining us for a day! Looking forward to meet you again at your home in Lithuania!