Croatia Part 1
Trip Start
Jul 20, 2007
1
7
43
Trip End
Ongoing
Novalja,
Croatia
Friday, August 24, 2007
I've added photos onto the last entry about Syiget. Apologies but the videos files are too big to load so you will have to take our word for how good it was.
After 7 days there the 21 hour journey to Krk was particularly pleasant. We munched through 3 kebabs to kill some time in Ljubljana where we waited between 2 and 6am. At a posh cafe in Rijeka we made a single glass of orange juice last 2hours so we could lounge on padded seats waiting for our connection to the island of Krk and the fishing town of Baska. 3 days here were followed by 3 in Lopar on Rab and 4 in Novalja on Pag. Krk, Rab and Pag? Sound as exotic as Black-pool.
When my parents traveled here many many years ago they survived on a diet of homemade fig jam so I found us a fig tree to camp under
Moving shells
. Unfortunately the figs fell from the tree and split all over our tent which alerted a huge colony of ants. However, in Rab we had more luck, camping next to 2 German girls who were staying in a huge 6 man tent. They asked us to look after their 'home' for 2 days in between them leaving and their sister arriving. Inside was a giant fridge stocked with ham, cheese, salami, and wine, a huge inflatable double bed, some much needed cleaning products, and the whole tinned food isle from a local supermarket. They said we could use their 'facilities' and even gave us a bottle of wine. We ate like kings!The island of Pag was attractive but clearly suffering from the effects of mass tourism. Sandy beaches were littered with tampons and fag ends while secluded coves were packed with Europe's elite showing off their speedboats. Krk was less touristy and the narrow winding back streets of Baska were particularly pleasant and aided our recovery from the festival. We took a day trip to Vela Luka where the snorkeling was amazing. I returned from the water with a pocket full of shells from the sea floor as a present for Kerry. Romantic, eh? It was until Kerry screamed because the shells had sprouted legs and were trying to escape!
Novalja in Pag had a completely different atmosphere, less screaming shits (sorry kids) and more young people lying about visibly suffering from a heavy night out
Vela Luka
. Completely by chance we were at Croatia's version of Playa D'en Bossa in Ibiza. A stretch of beach with 4 bars/clubs that stayed open 20 hours a day, and a crowd aim to get completely smashed as quickly as possible. Our choice of poison was home made Croatian wine bought from the old men standing on the streets who sell it in 1.5l plastic water bottles for 20k (2quid). It resembles cooking oil but is in fact battery acid. It tasted that nice we were unperturbed by the vendor informing us that he refused to drink it. Armed with our wine we spent the night stumbling around with 2 German guys who shared our passion for acting like complete woppers. On the way home we were engulfed by the most horrendous thunderstorm, your meant to see the lightening then counts the seconds till the thunder to judge how close a storm is - this bad boy was directly above us. The security guard at the campsite entrance had bunked off so Floh suggested we steal his giant parasol to keep us dry. So we walked around the campsite singing (shouting) "we've got the whole umbrella in our hands" (to the tune of he's got the whole world in his hands).
Karma kicked our arse for that little stunt. The battery acid had dissolved and was wreaking havoc in our stomach, our gas ran out halfway through cooking tea (and the biggest campsite in Croatia didn't sell gas), the dryers had broke so our clean clothes began to smell, and it didn't stop raining for 3 days
Baska
. The island had seen 3 days of rain in 2 months and it rained everyday we were there. Everything was damp, smells and 5 weeks of living in a tiny tent is getting a little frustrating. Kerry went on a massive rant for a couple of hours and we almost forgot how good the past 10 days had been. The sea is crystal clear and shallow (so shallow that we walked, yes walked to another island 1km away), we've been eating from bbq's in the sand, and both went horse riding. Kerry went on a cross country trek through the woods and along the beach and i went to riding school. I made the mistake of admitting to the young girl teaching me that i was shit scared, having never been on a horse before. Being probably the only student over 10 years old she had seen for a long time she was a great sport and if i did anything wrong threatened to make the horse jump a fence.Yesterday we traveled to the island of Hvar for the simple reason that, apparently, they guarantee the weather. If it rains your accommodation is free, so we will either be dry, or warm and dry. Hope everyones okay, inabit, Bailey and Kerry
Comments
Camping in Rab
So the German girl who turns up at Bailey and Kerry's neighbours tent is:
a) Sister of the owners, or
b) Some random girl who happened to read this blog
Vote now!