Packing swims

Our staying in Croatia is coming to an end. Sadly, we will have to say good-bye to the sea.

Come late September, Dora is up for sale.     If you or anyone you know is looking for a reasonably priced motorhome then please check out the following link; https://www.2wanderers.com/dora-for-sale/ or if you have any questions email us at; info@2wanderers.com Thanks

 

Over the years, I have changed a lot in the way I enjoy the sea . When I was young, I could sunbathe for hours, first one side, then the other, until I got the desired skin tone. These days, I still enjoy it but only for a few minutes. Also, I could stay in the water for the entire day, especially when I was a kid. Now, I dip in, swim a few lengths, do a bit of snorkelling and go. Is this an age related thing or is it that I don’t do as many beach holidays as I used to?

Anyway, even though I am no longer a heavy beach user, I am actually enjoying our swims in Croatia; we get up; we drive for a bit; when we feel a bit hot, we find a nice beach spot; we go for a swim for an hour; then we drive for another bit; when we feel again a bit hot, we find another beach and we go for a swim. With this pattern, we have been able to pack in up to five swims a day.

We have just a couple of days left in Croatia before we head off to Central Europe. So it means that we need to make the most of the sea and continue to fit in as many swims as we can.

So we left crazy Baska this morning and head off north towards the mainland. However, before we leave Krk island, we will stop in a couple of places; the first one Silo.

We drive down to the dock, where there is plenty of parking available for Dora. To our surprise, there isn’t any beach, so swimming in the dock will have to do us.

But, by exploring around a bit more, we find a rocky arch, we go underneath it and we come across a mysterious sign saying Towards the secret beach.

A secret beach that is not that secret. Other people have discovered it before us. It is a nice little bay with deep crystal waters and plenty of rocks and caves. The snorkelling here looks promising.

A group of divers have also chosen this corner for their teaching lessons. It is now that I remember I have never tried to dive in Croatia. Too late now, I will have to leave it for another holidays, maybe next year.

Gary manages to get this lovely video of the divers.

INSERT VIDEO

Freshened up, we continue to drive north, stop for a quick lunch and do a bit of IT. We have lots to catch up on the posts after being away for so long in Montenegro and Bosnia Herzegovina.

Time flies in front of the computer. It is already 17.00 and we have still an hours drive to the bridge’s car park which connects the Krk island to mainland. That is where we will spend the night.

The parking place is on a lovely spot above the beach. Unfortunately, it is now too late to go down for another swim. Although it is on the main road, this place place is very quiet. There is nobody here, except for another motorhome.

We settle in and wait for the sunset whilst doing a bit more IT.

There it is, the sunset, beautiful.

We get out

and stare at that beauty until it is gone.

The next morning, we drive along the bridge towards the mainland.

not without taking a few photos of this lovely piece of coast.

And the bridge. Gary fell in love with it when we entered the island, we didn’t take a photo then, we do it now. I will let Gary explain why he finds this bridge so interesting.

Forget about the coastline, it is human innovation which we should be looking at. OK not from up here.

But from here it looks absolutely magnificent, and what a way to enter the island.

They also have this incredible machine for maintenance of the bridge, which allows you to drop a cradle over the side, but still let the traffic drive underneath it, as long as you are lower than 5m that is! GDR

We are now back in the mainland and feeling quite hot. So we stop at Bakar, the next village along the road and have our first swim of the day. There is hardly anybody here, not surprising, it is only 9.30am. It is pretty windy and the sea looks quite choppy, a quick dip will do us to freshen up before we get to Rijeka, a big town north of Croatia, to do the laundry.

The laundry place is easy to find using Google maps. It is quite small, it has only three washing machines and three dryers. Three backpackers in their early twenties are also here. Luckily, they are almost done, they are just using the dryers. We have washed and dried our clothes in one and a half hours. The laundry in Croatia has also turn up to be quite affordable, three loads of washing, three loads of dryer, €16.

After laundry, we have a quick lunch and head off further north, we are planning to sleep by the Slovenian border tonight.

But not before we have our last swim in Croatia.

We come across several villages along the north coast, with opportunities for swimming, but there is not a parking space for Dora.

Just after Opatija, we find a spot for her by the road. A few metres up the road, a path goes down to the coast. A cute tiny pebble beach lays at the end of a steep path and then stairs. As it is hidden between boulders, it is quite shady.

That might be the reason why it is not that popular.

The water is colder here. Very unusual for me, I go straight in. I am so used to these every-two-hours swims that getting into the water is just a piece of cake.

Gary gets in after me. We have our longer swim, partly because it is the last one, party because the snorkelling is very interesting here. Shame I don’t have the GoPro with me, I am seeing a couple of anemones I had not seen before, one of them, spaghetti like, which I could not find in my seashore life book.

I am not sure if Gary has enjoyed his last swim. I notice he is bleeding from his left shoulder. Apparently, he has swum into a rock (didn’t quite see where he was going) and he has also got caught up in fishing line. A bit of a disaster, really for being the last one.

So 20 kms up the motorway, we get to Rupa, the border town with Slovenia. We find a convenient petrol station to sleep, it has water. We also need to spend the last Croatian kroners we have left, we top up with diesel.

Half an hour later, a what seems an army 4×4 parks next to us. A family of three get out. It is actually a motorhome   I would like so much to see how they manage to live there. It must be such a crammed space. For a start, they don’t seem to have a kitchen, as they have to go outside to cook. And what about sleeping??

They must become aware of our fascination for their home, they keep smiling at us.

Anyway, this is the end of our Croatia travels. Tomorrow we will move on to Central Europe, where lots of climbing await for us, stopping in Slovenia and Austria on the way.

SM