I think for the first time this morning I could hear no birds. I still woke up at 7 and turned on my phone to find I could get free wifi from a nearby caravan or hotspot. I stayed in bed for an extra hour until my hotspot drove away and the tent hot too got to handle. The sun was intense for 8 o'clock. Serge and I slowly got everything packed away, Serge more slowly than myself as he had a few batteries to charge and what not. Whilst packing my tent away I developed an absolute sweat on and so it became apparent very quickly that my decision to cycle across the mainland area of Slovenia into Croatia was going to be a very hot one. I said to Serge I would cycle with him a few kilometres to Koper and then I would head east to Rijeka and Serge was going to carry on around the coast. I waited a lot for Serge to finally sort himself out. I think the beer last night affected him and there was a lot of back and forth before he had eventually packed up his flying bicycle and got himself in gear. We didn't end up leaving the camp site till gone 10 which got me worried about when I would arrive in Rijeka. I knew the route was at least 55 miles and I knew it was going to be slow going in the heat and over a pretty mountainous area.
Cycling to Koper took no time at all and although I was a bit gutted to say goodbye to Serge, I thought it was best sooner rather than later. I would've loved to camp every night and take my time but I just can't and I think Serge had had enough of my wailing to Phil Collins or Robbie Williams as we rode along the roads. Also, camping for me especially in a campsite that we just stayed in makes me think of family holidays too much. As i walked back from the toilet block last night there were families doing my favourite thing to do whilst camping and that's sit outside with some snacks and beers and play cards. I think I would get too depressed if I chose to camp in a campsite every night! After a quick walk around Koper, we had a cereal bar each and said our goodbyes. As I left I felt another lease of life as if I was starting again and not as if I was leaving something I didn't want to leave so that was a good sign. I had a great time but now it was almost back to business. I decided to fully commit to not using a map today. Everybody was shocked that I haven't got a GPS when I left even though I can get help on my phone. So far my instincts have been decent (forgetting Zurich) so today I would have a little challenge to get across to Rijeka by using the sun. It was pretty easy to start off with, face that big yellow thing in the sky and cycle on the road towards it. Unfortunately when doing this you may end up on the roads that are maybe slightly more direct but that's because they choose to go over the mountains and not around them. I must've climbed the highest point in Slovenia as it was a 14% incline that went on forever. I did choose to take the steep route so I only had myself to blame but at least it was worth it for the view at the top.
Croatia arrived surprisingly quickly. Before I knew it I was at the border and it was a long downhill into Croatia for the first 8 miles or so. I was feeling pretty good, the sun was beating down on me to the tune of around 30 degrees but if its downhill all the way to the coast then ill be well chuffed I thought. I knew this wasn't the case though as I could see at least 3 very large hills in front of me and one them in the middle watched over me like Mount Doom for much of the day. The sun was the hottest I've experienced so far and days ago when I was pleading for black tarmac soon turned into hating the stuff as it seemed to hold in and reflect all the heat back onto me. I had to stop, Serge said its good to stop every hour or so for a little food so I did try to do that but northern Croatia has nowhere to stop. I saw about 4 cars for the first 2 hours of entering the country and the first two drivers were so overly kind about giving me space when they over took I thought briefly that the Croats drove on the left! Northern Croatia is very green with large areas of woodland so you can't see any houses even if they are there. Perfect terrain for wild camping but not for me to stop and take in a little food from a shop or restaurant etc. I eventually found a restaurant where I took one look at the menu and managed to work out that coke was 4 times more expensive than beer, chips were just over a quid and beer was around a quid. I could get used to this I thought! Having changed some money just over the border I had a plate of chips and relaxed for a bit. Chips were good, like scraps from the chippy so I didn't take long to finish them off and get back on Nigel. An hour or so later I came across a town called Buzet. It had a church and a museum with some relation to Stalingrad so I thought I may take another rest stop and be a bit cultured. To get to the church there was a very steep winding climb and then a bit of a push on the good old cobble streets. I didn't take any pictures because I didn't really know what I was looking at and where I was. I would like to say it was a worthwhile stop and helped me to recharge my batteries and filled me with a little bit of culture. In all honestly I was knackerd cycling up to the church, obviously hated the cobbles and then because it was one way, i had to come back on myself which I hate doing also so the whole "take extra stops" philosophy has not gone down too well today!
After my stops I found myself still around 40km away from Rijeka and it being around half 3. I don't like to be riding past 6 and as Mount Doom was getting ever closer I had a bad feeling I would be stuck climbing up a hill again with the sun setting.
As I neared the foot of Mount Doom I could see all the cars going to the toll road. The toll road was a tunnel that ran straight through it but unfortunately if you were walking, on a moped or driving a horse and cart you couldn't enter it. Technically, cycling was not disallowed but with the notorious Croatian drivers and literally no line for cyclist to try and stick too, I wasn't going to risk it. Instead I had two choices. One road took me around Mount Doom through a national park and the other route went a little more direct up Mount Doom and then disappeared into the forest. Not looking too good on time I thought to myself surely the road won't go straight to the top, it's like the highest point in Croatia! It must tail off half way up I thought. So with my infinite wisdom and belief that no person or nation would ever think it was a good idea to build a road straight over a huge hill when they had already built one around it and I'm hoping, years later built a tunnel through it otherwise the road around it would've been pointless also I began to pedal up Mount Doom. The first 10 minutes of a mountain climb are always ok. They involve sussing out the gradient, looking to see if you can see the road further up etc. I began to weave as its easier on the legs. The gradient steepened somewhat and before I knew I had a 15% sign staring right at me and its not aiming downwards. I began to struggle but at least there have been no cars drive past in the last half hour. Due to this fact I started to think that I'm cycling up a one way street and I wouldn't actually realise if this was true until i reached the top! I trundled on regardless as I'm definitely not one for turning around on an assumption that the road is a dead end. The rocky theme tune then comes on in my ears and perks me up, I have a little boost and stand up on the pedals to ease the pain on Nigel. The song soon ends though so I play it again and again and again. Please believe me when I tell you this, I played it 8 times in a row and by the end of it I was still cycling up this beast of a hill and if anything it was only getting worse. The only good thing about increasing the altitude was that the temperature had dropped slightly from sitting in a sauna whist wearing a onesie to sat by a fire whilst wearing a woolly hat and slippers...not much of a change! With every turn came another steep gradient, and not even rocky could help me, I just had to painfully keep going and keep the belief that the misery and heavy breathing was going to ease up eventually and there best be an amazing ride back down the other side! Sweat was literally pouring off me, Nigel must've thought he was Peter Andre in a Mysterious Girl music video. This was by far the hardest cycling to date with all the factors included. It took me over an hour and a half to get to the top and after all of that I found out it was only 1300m. In the Alps i was 2200m up at one point how could this be i thought, only 1300m? The difference being this time, I believe the heat played a massive factor and I must've started from -1500m that's the only reasonable explanation I can come to.
The ride down the other side was exhilarating though although this time I do have to question if the climb was worth it. I could see Rijeka and even though it had turned 6 o'clock I was flying along pretty well and knew it would only be another 30 minutes but then I had to find somewhere to stay the night quickly. Towns are very tough to wild camp for obvious reason so my options were hostel, bus stops or derelict car park etc. As I neared Rijeka, the road soon changed to nice quiet road to roaring dual carriageway. The switch from calmness to chaos had been flipped and before I knew it I had lorries roaring past me. The Croats had kindly put reflective signs along the railing which stuck out an extra foot so not only was I being brushed by HGVs I had to watch my right side aswell. When I say brushed I mean physically brushed aswell. The wind blown against I would say is the equivalent of you standing at a busy bar and Mr Impatient weasels his way next to you. If you're ready and bracing the hit you could easily get knocked off balance.
Anyway I make it into Rijeka by the skin of my teeth and its fair to say I wants to leave instantly. Run down, graffiti clad, horrible roads and lots of traffic my first impressions were not good. It was very industrial with lots of dockyards and I could see anything like of a park or posh area of town. After finding out the cheapest hostel was 20euros and meeting a man called John at some traffic lights that told me to go forward 5km and sleep down by the sea I decided to push on through the concrete jungle to where I felt a bit safer.
I got to the otherside of Rijeka and decided to get some food quickly at a Supermarket in a mall but to do this I had to cycle through a tunnel which was 1.4km long. Croatian drivers have terrible spacial awareness in daylight, I'm going on the public footpath through the tunnel I thought. The footpath was about 3 feet wide, loosely block pathed with no railing between myself and road, just cat eyes on the block paving. The noise was intense and so was my concentration. Every patching slab wobble for 1.4kms! I just kept focus and prayed for daylight. Another roadside drama completed I looked around for somewhere to lock up Nigel. As i thought there was nowhere, there aren't even ramps in this area let alone bicycle lock up areas, it is a very unfriendly place to anybody with wheels. I had no choice other than to give Nigel his first experience in a supermarket. At first he behaved himself, we established that the Croats are very secure about their cheese as all the good cheeses (the ones costing between £5 and £10) were plastic security boxed up as if they were Playstation games! Thought that was a bit weird but I carried on a got my regular loaf of bread, sausages and pasta sauce. I had it all balanced very safely on Nigel's handlebars but tried a tricky U-turn which caused the sausages to slip. In an attempt to save the sausages with one hand I lost control of Nigel in the middle of the aisle and like a spoilt 5 year old he wanted to make a scene. Before I knew it, Nigel had collapsed on his back, the handlebar bag flew across the aisle and i stumbled over Nigel and found myself starfished on my face and on Nigel in the middle of the supermarket. I thought a man had said something to help me up but he hasn't he was just talking on his mobile and continued to walk past. I picked myself up, brushed off Nigel and walk away cool as you like. Nigel will not be going in anymore supermarkets from now on however.
After all of this I still had to find a place to stay and by now it was dark. I saw 3 girls on bike from Australia looking for a place also. I told them I would just find a random place down by the docks or something. Then one girl piped up, Silver her name was, "yeah but I've heard a story... " As soon as I heard those words I immediately thought ditch the trio I haven't got time for this. I was short with them as I knew the urgency of finding a place in the little time I had left so I said "look I'm going" Silver gave the typical, "well you two will obviously want to go with him, you have my number you can ring me tomorrow" I wasn't having that and getting caught in a car trap so I told them all to stay together and stay safe and with that I shot down the hill and found a place almost immediately on my left. There was a massive car park with long rocky path down the side of it leading to absolutely nowhere other than where people like to dump the odd mattrice or wardrobe. I found a little extra section out of the way and decided it was time to do the first night under the stars. I didn't know the forecast but I was on a rocky path and couldn't be bothered to get the tent up.
As the darkness came in I utilised my red light on the head torch to full effect when cooking my pasta. I didn't know what it was used for before, I just thought you used it to pretend to be in the SAS but I'm thinking now it illuminates what you want without attracting the bird sized moths. I tucked Nigel away and settled down for the night. Looking up at the starry sky I dug into some chilli peanuts and finished off my last beer whilst trying to blank out the sounds of the nearby long grass. During the day I had seen a few crickets. At least I assume they were crickets, they were the same size as a small dog and hence had legs like violins so you could imagine the sound at 12 o'clock at night. When they landed on you in the dark aswell, they landed with the same force as a child's hand. So if you are scared of kid ghosts, last night would've been absolute living hell. Due to this I didn't get much sleep, I didn't mind then on my legs I just didn't want them in mouth as I slept catching flies. I did drop off eventually and everything turned out alright in the end as there was no rain and I was actually so hot I ended up naked in the sleeping bag.
A really tough day on and off the bike and I really hope Croatia doesn't turn out to be a concrete jungle as I don't think I will enjoy the next 5 days. Having been to Croatia before though, I think the worst is over with.
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