04/07 Trieste to Starigrad(ish) Croatia
We left the campsite near Muggia just outside of Trieste, and I realised we’d camped only about 200m from the border with Slovenia! In a fit of uncharacteristic observation, Steve said he’s noticed the border sign the night before as we’d pulled in to camp but hadn’t said anything!
Crossing the border the landscape changed to a gorgeous, lush green, rolling landscape, with more winding roads perfect for the bikes. Sadly our coastal route cut across a northern peninsula and we blazed through in about 40 minutes – before we knew it were in some weird kind of no mans land between Slovenia and Croatia.
First time I had to show my passport on the trip so far!! (Accidentally missed the one at Dover…oops). The only thing being there was a little portacabin type shop and a Beaureau de Change where the chap kindly taught us 90% of the Croatian we now know.
Onwards into Croatia and the scenery changed from green rolling hills and forests into mountains to our left and cliffs to our right as we took the stunning road along the Dalmatian Coast. Low lying islands floated hazily in the Adriatic off to our right (West) all the way as we went with names like Rab, Krac and Pag.
After a slight wrong turn that almost had us on the ferry to Rab, and racing back up the hill to avoid the sudden deluge of traffic spilling off the incoming ferry, I lost Steve. I waited a minute or so after spotting that he was no longer behind me then, in the absence of any radio communication, I turned around and headed back down. Rounding a corner, there was Steve’s bike on its side in the scrub at the side of the road. Seemingly he’d been pinned under it and had only managed to extracate himself with the help of some passing motorists. He had a cut on his hand as his fall had been broken by a particularly thorny bush! However, aside from that there was little damage done so, after what became the customary photo-before-recovery scenario, we righted the bike, made sure everything was secure and carried on.
Eventually we pulled off the road, down a steep driveway and into a little campsite running right onto the beach. Most of the sites we’re finding now seem to be in the owners garden. This guy not only had a gorgeous sea front house with garage, but his own private harbour for his little motor boat too! Sweet. Camp was hastily made, and we legged it to the sea for our cooling swim. There was a ladder leading from the harbour wall into the crystal clear azure sea, fortunately just before we jumped off, I noticed an abundance of “Spiny Normans” (Sea Urchins) littering the sea floor and managed to stop Steve skewering himself on them.
However, the water itself was proper proper freezing! Heart stopping stuff, almost Ice Cream headache making. Weird, it had been so warm only 100 miles or so to the north. Nice though, if only for about 80 seconds. We chatted to a guy who pulled in on a BMW F650 GS, who it turned out was from Morningside in Edinburgh, about 3 miles from where I was brought up. He was 79 days in to a 4 month journey, and like most people (well, the very few people) we’ve chatted to was surprised how far we had come in such a short time.
That evening we rode 20km south to Starigrad, the nearest village, bought a few supplies and had a great meal and a few beers. Riding back however we were in absolute darkness and it slowly dawned on us that we were going to have real trouble fining our campsite again as there had only been a very small sign facing in the other direction! However, looking at my trip meter I was able to roughly judge the return distance and began looking out for anything familiar. There in the darkness of the Adriatic out to our left was a small white light and I remembered from our brief swim that there was a rock jutting out of the water in the channel between our campsite and one of the islands opposite – the light must be there to mark the rock I guessed. A few hundred yards later I spotted the entrance to the site and turned confidently in. Steve was a little amazed I think… who needs GPS?!
