May 14th, 2022
As we prepared for bed last night, hoping for a good night’s sleep before today’s big climbs, we thought Friday the 13th was going to have one final say as the thunder rumbled overhead but before our heads hit the pillow all was quiet again.
We had set the alarm for 5:30 am to get in some miles before the day reached the forecast 30oC. When the alarm did go off, we didn’t jump out of bed but did manage to get out of bed. We packed everything last night apart from the wash kit and a small amount washing, so for once we were packing the bike within 20 mins of opening our eyes.
By the time the bike was packed the owner had kindly open the gate for us, so we rolled the Pino out and onto the main road. Today had a similar agenda to yesterday, which is to cycle down the main road following the road signs for Split.
The first thing we spotted within 100m of our accommodation, noting that Google had reported the nearest grocery store over 4 km away, was a grocery store on the right side of the road, followed by another on the left side of the road 50m further on. I’ll not share what we did eat last night, but let’s say it wasn’t a hearty meal to prepare us for the 1000 m of ascent that was in wait for us. Unfortunately both shops didn’t open for another hour so we pushed on hoping for another open shop further down the road.
About 8km further down the road our hopes were rewarded with an open grocery store. It wasn’t the biggest, but it had fresh bread, butter, and a few sweet and savoury snacks to keep us going through the day.
We knew we would be passing through a national park today, but had decided not to spend a day visiting it. It was tempting to spend another day sightseeing, but if we had a day off everytime we came across something interesting it would take us considerably longer than the planned two years to make it around the globe. Fortunately, without paying the park entry fee, we were gifted with beautiful scenery on both sides of the road.
As we approached Rostoke, we could hear the sound of a waterfall; then, as we came around a bend in the road, we would see the noise was not coming from one but countless waterfalls separated from each other by charming wooden houses. Initially, we cycled passed the car park that provided the perfect viewing platform but quickly backtracked. A few cars and a group of motorbikers had already parked up when we arrived and were welcomed to shouts of ‘bravo’ as we cycled past. We continue to receive honks and numerous other acknowledgements, but if there was a competition the passing bikers would have won on overall enthusiasm today.
The waterfalls were spectacular, and no amount of photographs would give them justice. Still, we took a few anyway, promised ourselves to return one day and spend a few days in the National Park when we have more time… Maybe in the campervan that we are designing in our heads while we are cycling along the boring bits.
For the remainder of the day we were surrounded by beautiful forest, but due to the amount and gradient of today’s continuous ascent I have to admit much of it was lost on us. As the morning became afternoon the temperature topped out at 30oC again, making the cycling less than comfortable.
We stopped for lunch in a small village, with only about 15 km still to ride, but in the knowledge that those final 15 km would be the toughest of the day. Luckily the small village had a small grocery store that sold big family-sized boxes of ice lollies, so all was good in the world.
The final uphill stretch lived up to expectations, so reaching the top of the last climb, which also coincided with the location of the last grocery store, we pulled over. Just as we did another cycle tourer pulled up behind us. I guess he was ready to pass us on the hill, so we probably dashed his hopes at notching up another overtake (I’m joking, I think it’s only us that do that as they are few and far between!).
At that very moment a couple of guys jumped out of their Italian plated car and headed over in our direction. We first chatted to our fellow cycle tourer, who we believe comes from Prague. We couldn’t make out exactly were he was heading tonight, but it was in Bosnia, so a little further than us. With a few kilometres still for him to do, we did a quick photo shoot and he was off.
We chatted to the two guys from Italy for a while, both keen cyclists of the Lycra-clad variety, before they too headed off in the direction of the park entrance.
We haven’t met as many cycle tourers on this trip as we thought we might. We had actually seen one earlier in the day. We had been cycling along reasonably quiet roads most of the day, then suddenly, just as we spotted a young lad on a fully loaded bike coming in the other direction, it was as if the local drive in movie had just ended, with tens of cars passing in both directions making any chance of a stop and a chat impossible. So a wave and a shout of hello across the passing cars was all we could manage.
We decided not to go to the grocery shop after all, so pushed on and arrived at our accommodation just before 4 pm.
We showered, we made a pasta dinner in front of the guest house and are settling down for another early night in the knowledge that tomorrow is still heading in a skyward direction for most of the day.
