72km + 400km on a bus
We screamed a lot this day. Not at each other of course, but at the wind and then some more at the rain. This was one of our hardest, most exhausting days yet. The morning views from our coastal campsite were really breathtaking. We knew the skies meant trouble for us ahead, but the drama of the clouds made it hard to blink. The colors on Pag, and especially with severe weather, are amazing but riding a fully loaded touring bike through the sand is a real bitch. Yes, we screamed at the sand too.
We drove hard into the coastal wind. We screamed; maybe felt like crying; stomachs always feeling hungry; and then it began raining and did not stop. Despite the strength of the wind, we moved pretty fast. We had been getting much earlier starts than we had been used to thanks to ever shortening days, our efficient German Friend, and the series of early ferries. Yesterday was no different. We woke and got on the road by 8 and rarely stopped. We even chose to forego a lunch break (who wants to stop once one is soaked to the bone and chilled from the wind?) We arrived to Zadar and went to the Information center to inquire about a place to sleep for the night. We were directed to a slum hostel that was too expensive. Combine this with a rainy forecast for the next couple days, and you get a trio of minds not keen on staying any longer than forced to in Zadar.
First plan, Train to Split, ride from Split to Debrovnic. (too long of a train ride for too short of distance but surely we could take our bicycles aboard the train)
Second plan, go to the bus station and try to convince a driver to let us pack our bikes on the underside us the bus to Split (risky but more frequent service and more likely to be able to bribe)
We chose the plan we didn’t make ahead of time (ride the bus all the way to Debrovnic.)
This decision would get us past the rain and give us minimum five days extra time to be spent elsewhere. Ultimately it was a good decision, however, the journeyman’s mind had to justify the appropriateness of the decision repeatedly along the way. It was, at times, really hard to sit on the bus for nearly 8 hours watching the same road we would have been riding for five days straight pass by so quickly. It felt as though we were robbing the heavens of time. Gobbling up kilometers in hours and minutes rather than days and nights. It tasted of betrayal. It made our kilometers feel somewhat insignificant. Today, we traveled one quarter of the toal distance of our trip to date, in one day.
We stared out the window of the bus, moving our eyes between the white line we would be riding and the coastal view we would be experiencing. Then we watched as the bus hits the collected water on the edge of the rode and the 3 meter high wave projected in its wake. We watched the traffic along the coastal road. We watched each curve and each and every time the bus dropped to sea level and raised back up into the mountain edge. Our eyes would return to the white line and picture us there as the bus passed, and we knew we made the right decision.
Today, we bought a week for 200 Kuna (less than 30 euro) each and we discovered that the computer is not broken!
Our disassembled campsite on Pag Island
Morning on Pag Island
Bike packed into the underside of a bus
175 Kuna per person buys five days time in Croatia and keeps one dry, out of the spray of the passing bus wheels
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