May 16th, 2022
Another 6 am alarm call after a great night’s sleep for me but a restless night’s sleep for Deborah. Apparently, a combination of barking dogs, cuckoos and humming aliens kept Deborah awake much of the night, providing the reader with insight into what I have to put up with 7×24 these days.
Although it was a rain-free night, the heavy dew presented us with the soggiest tent we have had since the start of the tour. Adding a kilogram of water weight to the load, we unceremoniously bundled the tent away without attempting to dry it in an effort to get on the road as quickly as possible.
At 7.30 am, we cycled out of the campsite, a 90-minute record for us packing up after camping. That time also included breakfast, although it didn’t take long to consume a slice of dew-soaked leftover pizza.
Another day on the main road, the non-motorway road from Zagreb to Spilt was the order of the day. We knew there was a big climb at the start of the day, which lived up to all expectations. Thankfully the road was quiet, and the road branched out into a dual carriageway for the ascent, giving us a whole wobble lane to ourselves. We selected our 8% gradient gear, which is 4th (out of 14 on the Rohloff Speedhub) and grinded our way in a skyward direction for about 7km.
We were pretty chuffed with ourselves for making it to the top without stopping and immediately rewarded with a long and scary downhill.
After the big hill was done, the day fell back into the same pattern as the previous two days, with a rollercoaster of ascents and descents through spectacular scenery under a blisteringly hot sun.
We stopped in the largest town we passed through today, Knin, as it was the only town that had any chance of a supermarket. Surprisingly we weren’t feeling very hungry after such big climbs, so we settled down under a tree in the town square with a family size box of ice lollies and a bottle of fatty Coke (the one with the sugar in it).
From Knin, it was another 23 km to our accommodation, the only guest house in the area, an area without any campsites, which we booked up last night. The first 13 km was little more than a ripple of ups and downs on the road, but at 10 km to the end, we had one more big climb with a couple of switchbacks to make sure we sleep tonight. Taking the final climb in our stride while in granny gear, we enjoyed the final descent into the town of Drniš, noting the location of the supermarket just 500m from our accommodation.
At first, we thought the guest house was unmanned, but we eventually were greeted by an old chap and were directed to our room.
A quick shower, and we were headed back up to the supermarket to buy dinner. The shop was relatively small, so the choice was not great, so not wishing to open up a debate on our appalling eating habits, I’ll just say we bought enough calories to get us to Split tomorrow.
We enjoyed our new food purchases, together with yesterday’s leftover pizza and veggie lasagne, and are now chilling out before taking another look at tomorrow’s route options to Split and the Croatian coast.
