CROATIA
The countdown of our time together starts ticking...
13th May - 15th May | 2022
After a nice breakfast, it was again time for some laundry! Whilst James stayed with the bikes at the laundry, Steffi did her visit to Decathlon as some bits & bobs are needed. After the laundry was sorted we headed to the monument of Skabrnja.
Today will be a hot day! Only during riding, it was bearable in our bike gear; guess we better get used to it again! We drove to the coastal road from Starigrad towards Karlobag. Halfway we had a nice lunch picnic directly at the sea. Steffi's first mission was to get her feet into the water to get refreshed!
It is a lovely coastal road, but lots of other motorbikes; and mostly driving too "sportive" in our opinion! In Karlobag we turned into the Velebit mountains as Steffi wanted to find Winnetou ;-), the hero of her childhood. It was a lovely road up into the mountains, still with the view down to the sea. Once up in the mountains, it was time to find a spot for the night. We found one on iOverlander, but that was far too commercial for us, so we turned around as we saw a small one just along the road.
What an amazing place! Kamp Velebit (www.kampvelebit.com), all in the theme of "Lord of the Ring" or "Hobbit". We loved it straight away! The beer was on a donation base and all super clean and well looked after. We really can recommend that spot here in the middle of the Velebit mountains. So, no Winnetou, but Gandalf we found in the end!
Later in the evening, we got talked to some of the clients, a lovely dutch couple that is travelling by car to the Balkans and on their way to Albania now. Of course, we exchanged some travel tips. Also, they gave Steffi the tip that there is a ferry existing from Rovinj to Venice. Oh, that is something to look into to tie in before heading off to Hungary ...
James started to look into travel tips (mountain passes in Austria) for his journey back to Portugal soon. Yes, soon comes the date we both will head in different directions. The last day together will be 22.05.22 then :-(( James will go via various mountain passes to the area of Freiburg to visit an old (biker) friend. After that, he wants to visit Mick (remember, in the beginning in France?) and then via the North of Portugal back home.
Steffi in the meantime will visit Venice (finally she found a solution fitting into the budget!) and then through Croatia over to Hungary and then continuing during the summer up to the Baltic states. BUT so far we are still travelling together :-D
The next morning we took it easy with our packing and leaving. We had breakfast in Gospic and then we went to the airbase Zeljava on the border between Croatia and BiH*. James visited the place on his Balkan tour with Rad Raven (watch the video on YT "Balkan´s venture EP10") in 2019. He noticed how much the landscape around the aeroplane has changed, and now it is full of stickers and graffiti! Of course, you will find also our stickers there ;-)
We lined up for our photoshoot at the plane as it is a popular place! After we were done, we had our lunch picnic just there and watched the others doing their photos; a good entertainment!
After that, it was time to visit the hidden hangars of the planes and the old runway. James noticed that there are no more signs of "explosive-danger" there, so the area seemed to have been cleaned after his visit in 2019. However, we were anyhow not planning to leave the road or tracks!
As petrol is much cheaper in BiH* we nipped over to fill up our bikes and spend our last BAMs on beer and water. We also looked into camping spots close to the Plitvicka Waterfalls as we bought online tickets for the next day. So crossing back into Croatia ... they are already puzzled about all the stamps of BiH* and Croatia in James' passport. We think we passed these borders about 7 times within a good week!
Today the hunt for camping (official) was really difficult: not anymore, closed or overpriced! In the end, Steffi booked a room close by for 2 nights. Like that we can leave all our luggage in our room and go early to the famous waterfalls in the Plitvicka Natural Park.
7am - early start today! By 9am we entered the Natural Park of Plitvicka (www.np-plitvicka-jezera.hr); on a Sunday. Recommendation: the earlier, the better! Here are some pictures, but they will never show the colours and definitely do not present the noise it makes! Whenever you get to the area, it is a must! We did tour "C" and it was a perfect combination of waterfalls, lakes, boat trip and walking. However, we have seen now sufficient waterfalls for now ;-)
The rest of the afternoon we were a bit lazy; Steffi caught up on the blog though as she was a bit out of routine the last few days! She also finally got the Venice hotel situation sorted; the solution is staying at Lido of Venice and going in by water taxi! And we booked a nice hotel in Rovinj for our last 2 days on this part of the trip together.
Now you can also relax a bit ;-) We soon will tell you how the 180km of TET Croatia has been!
* Bosnia i Herzegovina
Places | Cities:
Zadar, Velebit mountains, Gospic, Bihac (BiH*), Plitvicka Waterfalls
Driven km | Trip:
Total: 11515 km
Maintenance | Breakdown:
Rear wheel bearing of Yamaha SuperTenere 750 needs changing; ordered for the service in Germany soon.
Health issues:
./.
Special thanks to:
Kamp Velebit (www.kampvelebit.com) for being the best camping we have stayed so far!!
Waterfalls of Plitvicka (www.np-plitvicka-jezera.hr) to be so stunning!