05 & 06/07 Starigrad to Split to Dubrovnik
Now in Dubrovnik, 153 miles today from Split, a fabulous old city seemingly populated entirely by gorgeous women. Which was nice!
It seemed like I imagined Venice would be, lots of lovely old buildings and Piazzas. Amazing winding roads following the coastline up and down the landscape. One minute perched 500 feet above the Adriatic, next minute skirting the waters along a harbour village. Bikes behaving perfectly so far, save for the concrete seats.
Not seen much, or any of Dubrovnik yet bar our skirting manouevre trying to find camp. Back here in Dubrovnik old town now on the bus but in a proper thundery deluge. Probably not the best night for sight seeing.
Dropped my bike today. Stupid drop at that. Taking it off the centre stand after a fuel-up and chain lube and it just sort of got away from me. No damage done at all, thanks to the crash bars. Took 3 of us to pick it up though (thanks to the guy at the petrol station), Steve and I couldn’t get near it on our own.
Got into our “routine” now, up around 8 or 9 (well, I am, Steve’s up around 2 hours earlier and does a cracking job of brewing up the rocket fuel coffee which powers us for 5 or 6 hours at a time), ride to destination, get lost, find campsite as near to the sea as poss, make camp, and leg it into the sea as soon as we can for a much needed cool down. Does the job nicely and beats using the campsite showers. Lovely barbecued dinner tonight of spicy sausage, unidentified meat patties and sardines. Nom nom nom!
Getting back to our campsite, a good half an hours bus ride south of Dubrovnik, proved somewhat more difficult than getting there in the first place! Failing to find the return bus or to secure a cab for the return we set off walking – just as the heavens properly opened and lightning flicked through the heavy clouds overhead. After walking to the top of the hill we began down a slip road towards the main road.
With the rain pelting down and the thunder crashing around us the view down over the old town was little comfort. Just as we were beginning to give up hope of passage back to camp, an huge ancient Mercedes saloon hove in to view through the darkness, wallowing like a boat at anchor and ticking and clattering like an old steam train but, crucially, it had an illuminated Taxi sign on the roof! Almost before he’d actually stopped we had the doors open and we piled in to the back and in to the dry.
Back at camp we feared our clothes that we’d laundered and hung out to dry before heading in to Dubrovnik would be soaked again. However, on our return we discovered that not only had the kindly woman who ran the campsite zipped up our tents for us, she’d also taken in and folded up our washing and left it in the porches of our tents. Nice!
