I woke up early with the noisy vans going past what turned out to be a very busy t-junction but got everything packed away with no troubles at all.
As I continued along the wetlands and rivers towards Opuzen it really felt that I was in another country. The weather was a lot cooler today so that helped, but the green lush farmland seemed so far away from the arid rocky coastline. The road then took me back into the mountains where the terrain was getting tougher. My legs weren't ready for 11% inclines at half 8 in the morning but they all had to be done.
I got back to the coastline and noticed a toll booth up ahead. Mmm, bikes aren't normally allowed on toll roads but this is the only road I have! I best not have to turn around I thought. As I got closer I realised it wasn't a toll booth at all, it was a cheeky little border crossing to Bosnia that I didn't realise spread all the way to the coast. I got to the booth and the man asked me, "Do you have any weapons that you're trying to bring into the country?" Nigel has been a bit if a weapon recently i thought but even I know that clever comments don't go down well at border crossings. "Do you have any drugs or pain relief pills that you're trying to get into the country?" I said no again and then as always, the thought strikes through my brain, if I get done for smuggling diarrhoea tablets I'm not going to be happy! I have a habit of getting searched at patrols, the worst was when a practical joke on a lads holiday went completely wrong and back fired on me. But if he decided to go through my bags now then I'm..."ok you can go" Phew, I jumped on Nigel and bolted into the land of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Happy with adding another country to the list, I knew I didn't have long in Bosnia or Neum which was the only town on the coast pretty much so I decided to have breakfast in Bosnia. I thought it had a nice ring to it like "Sleepless in Seattle" it could maybe be an Eastern European love story where two people always meet in Bosnia during breakfast time but cross over to other sides of Croatia for example, just a thought anyway.
After being quite rudely spoken to by the lady at the Bakery in Bosnia who openly served the man standing behind me on the phone before me and then shook her head at me like she had no clue what I was on about, I was slightly put back. I sat and ate my jam croissant on the steps outside with some other cyclists from Croatia. There were 5 of them and they were cycling from Zagreb to Dubrovnik and back again just for a holiday and wild camping like myself. I told one of them that I had gone to a Solaris camping site and he laughed, "you probably went to the most expensive site in Croatia!" He said, typical again I thought.
They left north and I headed south towards Dubrovnik which I knew was still about 60 miles away. The wind was quite strong so I would battle through the headwind and then try to make the most of the tailwind as the road wrapped itself around the mountains. I was constantly looking for a flag of Bosnia as so far i have a picture of myself and the flag of every country I've been to along the way. I couldn't find one anywhere and i knew time was running out. There were even flags of Croatia but none of Bosnia in Bosnia, not until i got to the border crossing to get back into Croatia. I know that borders are "photography free" zones, I know this as the lady at the Slovenia-Croatia border told me but this was my last chance! I walked over, just me and the phone, took it but the first was blurry, as I went in for the second (even though I'm clearly about 20m away from the booths etc) a guard shouted over to me and if looks could kill... "It's ok, I got it the second time" I said. Lady shouldn't of served that man before me at the bakery I thought!
Back into Croatia and discovering the beautiful lakes county of Dubrovnik I was just thinking to myself how well Nigel had been doing these last 5 or so days considering the dodgy bumps then "snap!" I didn't even have to ask myself what it was I knew full well it was another spoke gone. At least this time I heard it straight away and so rolled to a spot just off the road. I would say a quiet spot but it wasn't. Sure enough I was greeted with a barking dog and no owner to shut him up! Luckily he was chained up so I just had to endure the constant barking from around 30m away for the half hour that it took me to fix the spoke.
I checked the wheel and not only found the broken spoke but found a very loose one which must've slipped past myself and Stefano way back in Italy. Maybe this was causing Nigel to make a noise for the last week or so? I tightened up the loose one and fixed the broken one and took a deep breath while I tested to see how straight it ran. I brushed the wheel around, closed one eye and... YES! Get in! Running straighter than Usain Bolt in a 100m sprint! To be honest, my self belief took a bit of a knock during the 6 hour marathon in the park in Italy when I couldn't fix the wheel myself. I felt pretty down that day but after I had fixed the wheel today I was absolutely buzzing. I had 1 bar of battery on my iPod that I had been saving all day. I chose to reward myself through music this time and put him on. First song: Ain't no mountain high enough! You beauty, my iPod has played a big roll in dictating some of my emotions by playing the right songs at the right time and this was definitely the right time.
Smiling from ear to ear I pushed hard up the remaining mountains and eventually arrived in Dubrovnik at around 5pm. I've been to Dubrovnik before but this time I arrived from a different side so got to see new town then old town. I sat in Old town for another hard fought beer and used the Internet to try and find a campsite. There wasn't really much to choose from for the way I wanted to go so it looked like it was going to be another late last minute job. I pushed Nigel around for a bit and for the first time had to crack open the lights. I got talking to a few people about my ride which delayed me but I had no problem with cycling in the dark.
I cycled up and out of Old town and could see instantly that the darkness combined with the ridiculous incline that I needed to find a place fast. As I got to the top of the mountain that overlooked Dubrovnik I found a grassy car park right on the edge. All the cars had gone and there were a few bushes in the car park by the edge of the mountain. Another night under the stars I thought but this time it had a proper view! Cooking in the dark overlooking the lights of Dubrovnik will have to be up there with a highlight so far. I could see a storm coming across the Adriatic sea so had my tent cover ready for a downpour during the night but until then, head down, thank you very much Croatia!
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