Week 37: Wilting...
- May 17, 2022
- 5 min read
Our stops this week:
· 2 nights at Autokamp Marko (in Starigrad)
· 1 night at 53 Put Stanova in Zadar
· 4 nights at Camp Vransko Lake Crkvine (Near Pakostane)
Steve outlined that we stayed at Autokamp Marko for 1 night and walked around the National Park Paklenica in his last blog. However, the park was so beautiful that we decided to stay another 2 nights. Steve went for a long walk on his own the following day, as we didn’t want to push Bear too much. Two long walks in two days (we are still careful with his knee) and with the second route being far steeper, seemed a lot. Bear and I stayed in the van. He snored on the sofa and I completed a chunk of study. As the weather has started to get a lot hotter, Steve headed out early, leaving the van for 7am. Whilst we were in the area, there was thunderstorms and rain each afternoon, which was much appreciated for keeping the evenings cooler.
Pictures from Steve's walk
On Steve's walk, he came across some mountain goats that were fighting.
It was nice to find and chat to some English travellers and is only the second time we have found any since being in Croatia. As we were leaving, we met a couple who had been travelling through Turkey and who were very enthusiastic about how easy and enjoyable this had been. However, most important about this, was that I found a fellow ‘curly hair traveller’ and having just run out of the crème (I can’t find any of the brand in Croatia!!!) that ‘contains’ my hair and I have used every day for about 20 years, we swapped advice on other ‘containing’ methods… (Images of Monica in Friends when they visit Barbados may be coming to you! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sr7FO7gaOp4)
We then headed to Zadar. This is a city, and it has few campsites nearby. With the weather getting hotter and Bear not being great in busy places or on a lead, we were trying to find somewhere as close to the city as possible. This would hopefully mean we could walk in with him, without it being too traumatic. As it’s getting hotter we don’t want to leave him in the van. There was one campsite, but it was about an hour’s walk to the city and cost about 40 Euros a night! Steve however found a ‘Park for the night’ option. It was somebody’s house but he has 5 spaces you can park in overnight, with water, electricity, wi-fi and WC disposal. It was only 20 Euros a night and a 20-minute walk into town. Victor, the owner, was very friendly and told us how his son had suggested he set up as a ‘Park for the night’ as ‘Papa you have lots of parking space’. Victor said he was retired and didn’t want to be working but that it wasn’t lots of work and that he is really enjoying getting to meet different people. His son has moved to the USA and Victor is using the money to help set his son up over there and will also visit him in November.
We didn’t head into Zadar straight away as it was way too hot. 30 degrees! Too much for us pale and curly haired travellers-Bear and me. We headed in about 5pm and saw the Crkva sv. Donata (Roman Catholic church), the Sea Organ and The Greeting to the Sun.
(https://www.zadar.hr/en/experience/history-culture/sea-organ-sun-salutation ) Bear’s behaviour in the city would be described by some (Steve) as not great, quite poor and disappointing and others (me) as enthusiastic, jubilant and eager to explore and formally welcome all to Zadar! Whatever the interpretation was, we were both grateful that, for some reason, the noise from the Sea Organ really settled Bear. We then sat under a tree in the park to cool down a little further. We stayed in town for some dinner and had great burgers and dirty fries at a restaurant called Submarine, which is a chain. We hope to find the other restaurant as they make great burgers and fries!
Even though it had been nice to see a city and have easy access to shops and restaurants, we decided to head off the next day. We had seen enough and the combination of heat, busyness and a ‘parking space’ rather than a ‘camping space’ made it a little more difficult.
I tried to pull the curtain across the front to keep Bear cool and in the shade. Daft dog instead wrapped himself in it!
On the way out of Zadar we stopped off in the ‘out of town’ shops to do some food shopping and for me to try to do some ‘sneaky shopping’, as it was Steve’s birthday on the Sunday.
We arrived at Camp Vransko and it was instantly relaxing. The campsite had few campers, with big pitches, views of the lake and lots of shade from the pine trees. Being away from the city felt a lot less humid. Straight away we decided to stay until the Monday. We generally avoided the heat, read, walked, cycled, studied…and wondered why there was a strong tendency for the men to walk around in only their swim shorts-although shorts is a generic term-these were more like tight short shorts or Speedos. The older man taking his toilet cassette to be emptied particularly amused us, as he wore only very little Speedos but plastic gloves!
Bear's daily cooling swim
Bear confused as to how to sit on a step...
Views of the lake and from the nature reserve
We visited the local towns of Pakostane and Bio Grad and went to the Wetlands, which were just a short walk from the campsite. The fish in the nature reserve were nothing like we had seen before and kept seeming to ‘fight’ with each other and loudly splash and rise out of the water…
On Sunday, Steve’s birthday, we hired a canoe and were on the lake for 7.30am to avoid the heat of the day and to make it possible to leave Bear in the van. I have no oven, so couldn’t make a birthday cake but made a chocolate orange cheesecake-Steve loves Jaffa Cakes. Steve also had a Zoom call with his whole family-featuring a really unique: out of time, tune and unity version of ‘Happy Birthday’…I turned the volume down so as not to make the neighbours too jealous! My parents had also bought Steve a birthday present back in January, but it was too big to keep in the van, so my mum opened it for Steve on Face Time. He had lots of good presents with a hammock, flippers, new shorts, crepe maker and jar of Nutella.
Another good week exploring Croatia, but would like the temperature turned down a few degrees!
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