Zagreb - Shkoder - 10 Days 620km

Hills, Islands and Hills

Zagreb, Mreznicki Brig, Selece, Lopar, Simuni, Zadar, Split, Dubrovnic, Monulat, Budva, Ulcinji, Shkoder

After resting up in Zagreb and more importantly having a plan I was ready to get back on the bike. I was to head out of Zagreb towards Duga Resa, Ogulin, Jasenak and onto Crikvenica and across the island of Krk. From there the plan was to bike down the islands of Croatia and onto Montenegro.

After a reasonably flay first day I know that from Ogulin to Crikvenica would involve some climbing.

Looking towards Ogulin

The road to Jasenak

There were 2 main climbs to get across to the coast. Though they were not that steep they were long and both got me near 1000m up. The first climb lasted an hour and the second nearly two hours.

I was biking in the clouds and the rain in the second climb

When I made it to the other side of the mountains it was sunny and this is what i had made it over.

This is what awaited me - a long downhill to the coast!

This is my first look at the Adriactic sea.

After the night camping I made my way to the island of Krk via the bridge.

There was not a lot of room for me and the bike to walk along side and it was a long way down.

I had been warned of the traffic on the coastal roads during peak tourist season and it was much worse than I had imagined. I counted 30 cars going past in 250m of biking. 
There is no room for cyclists on the Croatian roads and it was a little bit dangerous and with so many cars and so little room. I made it across Krk and took the ferry to Lopar.

At Lopar I stayed in a very large campground. The island was beautiful but there were tourists everywhere and all kinds of attractions that to me didn't make a lot of sense. 
I guess it what people want with their holidays on the beach but it wasn't what I had expected in Croatia. I had forgotten one of the golden rules of travelling - have no exportation's as you can only be disappointed if its not what you expect.

What was a beautiful place had been over run with tourist activities.

My neighbours in Lopar. They have put down artificial grass and lit it up with LED's. Classy.

I continued on the next day and arrived at Rab. From there it was a ferry ride to Lun.

Leaving Rab.

The ride from Lun to Novalja was spectacular. It started with a steep climb out of Lun and then for around 20k it was biking heaven. It was sunny, no cars, olive groves, hills and amazing views. I seriously considered going back to bike it again.

All good things must end and it was back to reality after Noralja. I camped at Simuni. This was the biggest campsite I have ever seen. This is the camp map and the map I was using to get around Croatia.

 The campsite was basically a car park. Not so nice. Then it was a climb the next morning and onto Pag.

The town of Pag

I have some work to do on getting the self timer working properly!

From Pag it was onto Zadar. Over the past few days I had been thinking about my planned route through Croatia and biking the Islands and I had decided that it wasn't really working. At any time I felt I could be knocked off the bike because the roads were so narrow and the traffic so great. I need to get to Africa and not a Croatian hospital so I decided to bike to Zadar and then catch a ferry to Dubrovnic where there was less traffic. It was a difficult decision but as beautiful as biking the coast was it was equally as dangerous. 

After a 70k ride to Zadar in 35 degree heat I get to the ferry terminal and find there is no ferry to Dubrovnic. I need to take a bus. I would rather be taking this very large boat.

When travelling things often don't go as planned so it was a bus ride to Split then the night bus that departed at 2am and arrived at 6.30am in Dubrovnic.

Waiting for a bus. 

After very little sleep on the bus I made my way out of Dubrovnic. 
It was hilly, hot and I was dirty after a 70k ride the day before and I had a number of hills to get over to get to the campsite at Monulat.

I had no idea there were turtles in Croatia. This one was around 3km from the ocean.

After a day off I made my way towards Montenegro. The traffic had reduced significantly and there was some more spectacular scenery.

The Croatia/Montenegro border.

Ferry crossing in Montenegro

I biked along the Montenegro Coast for 3 days. It was very similar to Croatia except cheaper. I could have stayed longer in Montenegro but it was peak season and so busy that it wasn't that appealing. I also wanted to get to Albania.
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Some interesting buildings in the town of Bar

I biked along the coastal motorway for the length of Montenegro. The speed limit was 80k and most of it was single lane. There were hills. Many hills.

It was around 35 degrees for all my time in Montenegro. Here I have just come out of a tunnel after a long climb.

I arrived in Ulcinj and made may way to the campsite on the beach I found this chicken place on the way. Half a chicken and half a litre of beer - the perfect dinner after a long ride.

Campsite in Ulcinj.

There was a 2km line of cars to get over the border into Albania. Being on the bike
I rode up the wrong side of the road to the front and was in Albania within 20 minutes.

Albania! Just a man out walking his cows.

I am now in the town of Shkoder and have been updating the blog and working out a route for Albania. The route part has been easier than I thought as I am just going to follow an existing route that takes out the traffic and let me see the highlights of Albania.  

Shkoder, Albania

Vienna to Zagreb - 7 Days 535km

Hills & Corn

Vienna, Seebensten, Burgau, Bad Rakersburg, Koprivinca, Vitrovica, Zagreb

The 2500k mark arrived just before Vienna and so it was too the hotel and dump the gear then have a look around Vienna. There was also a few beers too!

There is an Australia Bar in Vienna. I walked in and yelled Aussie, Aussie, Aussie. There was no reply so clearly it wasn't that Australian. They did have every ones favourite beer VB but I don't drink it at home so I wasn't going to be drinking it in Austria.

Instead it was to the Art gallery for a bit of culture.

Biking around Vienna was very easy. Like most European city's it was easy, safe and fast to bike around. 

This is the beer section at a Spar shop.The cheapest was 80 cents euro Attakringer. Having biked across Austria I am now familiar with almost all of these.

And so it was the final evening with the 3 French.
We went to a beer house and worked our way through the 7 beers that they made. All

were good apart from the chili beer. It tasted fine then 5 seconds later it burnt your mouth. Pierre had a 1L stein of this and to his great credit finished it. He did have to remove clothing and was sweating profusely by the end but he finished it.

It was a good way end my time with Pierre, Margeaux and Vincent (joined here by Vincent's girlfriend Stephanie).

It was very difficult to say goodbye to them but we were going in different directions and all good things must come to an end. I wrote this on their facebook page to sum up our time together.


"It was an awesome experience to ride with the Pierre, Margeaux, and Vincent for nearly 4 weeks. The courage, commitment and teamwork they displayed in the time I was with them was truly outstanding.
It didn't matter how tough it got they always continued on, kept to their very tough schedule and it was always done in an incredibly positive way.
You, your family and your friends should be very proud of what you have achieved so far and I have no doubt that you will continue to the end of your journey no matter what it takes.
Take care, be safe and it was an honour to ride with the 3 French!"

So it was to the beginning of Eurovelo 9. This I thought would take me from Vienna to the Croatian coast but the reality was a little different.

The first day out of Vienna was flat until the bottom of what I thought would be the Alps. Now I don't spend a lot of time planning where I am actually going but I knew it was going to be hilly and I also knew at some stage that the lack of planning would become a problem.

After the first day there were many hills, large, and usually very step. 

This climb got me to over 1000m up. It was step and hot and there was more to come.

I found a flat place for lunch. It was bread, cheese and luncheon sausage. It was the only time I have eaten luncheon sausage and it will be the last.

This is what awaited me after lunch.

 

I was following the Thermanradweg (Eurovelo 9) to the border with Slovenia.

There were some parts steeper than others. Anything over 10% and it hurts.

After 3 days I reached Bad Radkesburgand the border with Slovenia. It had been 1 easy day and 2 very difficult days in the Austrian hills. It had been around 35 degrees for the last 3 days and I was happy to see the end of Austria.

Now my lack of planning had caused me to get geographically confused. Instead of going over the alps I had essentially gone around them. There were hills but nothing like the alps and I was both pleased that I didn't have to bike them and a little disappointed at the same time. I did meet some Polish people who were biking the alps and they had only 2 panniers so I had far too much gear for alp climbing anyway.

Having got to Slovenia I looked where I needed to go to next. The Eurovelo site has this section of EV9 being not yet realised. What that actually means is that there is no route and you are on your own. With a little more  planning I would have realised this and gone in a different direction.

There is a bike route that followed the Dura River so I decided to follow that. This lead back onto Eurovelo 6, then to Eurovelo 9 and down to Athens. 
I thought this would be a good plan as it meant I didn't have to think about a route, just follow the Eurovelo and everything would be fine. It wasn't in the direction I had intended to go but it didn't really matter as it went to Athens which is where I needed to get to.


It was a quick 35k across the top of Slovenia and then into Croatia. 
There was nothing to see really just farms and corn fields.

A map of the Dura river that I was following

The border into Croatia. I was really looking forward to seeing Croatia as I had heard many good things about it. I biked to Koprivinca and then onto Vitrovica and there was nothing to see. Nearly 300km from Slovenia to Vitrovica and I had seen corn fields, the odd interesting town hall and not a lot else. There was no camping grounds anywhere and the hotels were expensive. Without knowing it I had biked my way into the middle of nowhere with nothing to see, no where to stay and there was only more of it to come if I continued in the same direction.

The main square of Vitrovica

I stopped here for lunch. This is sign for the River Dura track. From here it was corn fields in every direction as far as the eye could see. I have no idea what happens to all the corn in Croatia but I had had enough of looking at it.

The 3000k mark somewhere in Northern Croatia.

The roads were fine to bike on but there wasn't much room for cyclists. 

I arrived at Vitrovica took an overpriced hotel, took a number of beers and looked up my options on the Internet. I realised that if I was going to continue in the same direction then I was going to have to get used to looking at corn. Coratian corn, then Serbian corn and finally Romainan corn. Its difficult enough biking every day but when there is nothing to see and nowhere to stay then its not a lot of fun.

So I decided to get to Zagreb as soon as possible and that meant the train. I just wanted out of the corn fields and this was the best way to do it.
 

The train took me back in the opposite direction to which I had biked over the last 2 days then to the South.

Zagreb was great. It gave me time to rest, to see just how wrong I had got my directions over the last few days and make a plan for the rest of Croatia.


Zagreb is a very nice city. Quite cheap, some sights to see and a very nice old town. It was great just to sit and work out a plan for the rest of my journey in Europe and relax in the sunshine.

 

Science

The main square in Zagreb. Later that day I had a little incident with a haircut.
There was a communication issue and I ended up with my hair 3mm long. It was a bit shorter than I had anticipated.