Before I fell asleep last night I checked the nights sky. To reduce the chance of getting bit by anything, i just stuck my head out a tiny gap in the tent door as if i was awaiting the dreaded camping guillotine. Now I've been to some distant places with not much light pollution, Utah salt flats, Yosemite National Park and Mount Cook National Park to name a few so I think I have an idea what a decent starry sky looks like. Last night was up there without a shadow of a doubt. Trying to pick out the regular constellations was impossible for me as there were so many stars, it was like trying to pick out your friend in a packed stadium, but all 30,000 or so are looking in your direction with their phone to their ear and waving. I wish my camera was working so i could capture it but i'm sure you can imagine. During the night I had a few incidents, it was about time i guess, I haven't had a night time incident since the hound from hell in France. As a security thing for Nigel I tie a line of parachord around him if I'm in an area I think has the potential to be a bit dodgy. I tie the other end around my tent post. I used to tie it around my wrist but I wriggle so much in my sleep I wake up in a spiders web or one of those finger crib things the girls used to play in school. The parachord works brilliant if somebody is trying to take your bike as you can wake up and boom, you've caught them. If there isn't someone there though and maybe an animal has just walked past and tripped over the parachord, it'll wake you up and completely freak you out! This happened to me last night not once but twice. Fast asleep and all of a sudden the tent shakes and the noise vibrates through my ear drums. "Hello?" why do we always say "Hello?" as if they're going to reply, "Oh hello, was just trying to steal your bike but blast you've caught me! well played old chap, night night!" I got out my torch and had a check around, nothing. Went back to sleep for an hour or so and the same thing happened again, TWAAANG! I checked around Nigel again but nothing was chewing away at his tyres so i was happy. I laid back down and wondered what it could've been. The twang was quite heavy so it must've been bigger than a rat unless the rat what running at full speed. To be honest i wasn't too fussed about it after the first time, i just laid and laughed and only wished whatever it was, that i had it on camera. Im a massive lover of "You've been framed" as i find people tripping over quite funny, so to see a cat or rabbit trip over and then give it the old look back, look down etc made me chuckle back to sleep again.
So after being rudely woken up during the night I was again rudely woken up in the morning. This time though it was the sound of a van driving up the stoney road towards me that made me shoot bolt up right and put a top on. Here we go I thought, what should I say now. The white van drove up to me, reversed backwards then drove away, just turning around he was. After that I thought I better get the gear back on and get cycling again. The sun was up but it hadn't hit me yet as there were large mountains to my left but I could see the sun on the islands on my right. Roads are pretty quiet I thought, not that hot either. It was only until I checked my speedo then subtracted 5 hours and 20 minutes because the clock is wrong and I don't want to reset it, that I realised it was half 6 in the morning! Half 6! There's only one half 6 in my day unless I'm waking up early to drive to Gatwick on a cheap lads holiday! Ah well I thought, could be a day to get some serious mileage in then or at least a decent rest when the temperature is at its hottest. After an hour and half when the clock showed a more reasonable hour I decided to get some breakfast and refill my water. I'm a bit picky when it comes to stopping and I can find myself cycling 10 maybe 20 miles more if the shop is a bit too far off my route or if something doesn't feel right. I found an ideal little shop/market right next to a tiny bar which already had about 5 locals sucking down a bottle of beer. I locked up Nigel, walked across the car park to the bar, filled up my bottle then chucked my evenings rubbish away as i never leave a dirty campground and went to see what breakfast I could find in the shop. I was buying for lunch as well so got a loaf as standard and some party mix pretzels etc. I looked in the glass cabinet and they had some cold pizza...yes thankyou, and something that look liked a quarter of a double decker omelette...yes thankyou again. I was looking forward to cycling down to the coast and enjoying my pizza and weird omelette thing but I had one slight issue. Nigel was safely locked up but I didn't have the key. I'm normally very good with keys etc and having no pockets on cycling shorts means the key goes in one spot in my handlebar bag and that's where it always goes. Unfortunately for me, it wasn't there and it wasn't anywhere else. What did i do after i locked up Nigel? I retraced my steps across the car park to the bar, nope. Walked from there to the shop and all around the shop back to Nigel, no sign of it at all. Not too gutted but still annoyed, i knew i had a spare tucked away somewhere in a secret pocket on the pannier. Lucky guess where it was, I got it out and Nigel was free from the railings. Then i remembered, the bin! I dashed over to the bin as the man was just changing the bags and sure enough there was my key sat on top of a pasta packet! Another little danger averted and with this I smiled my way to a bench on the coast to enjoy my breakfast. The pizza went down a treat because I knew what it was. The first bite of the omelette thing though made it certain to me that it was no omelette. It was more like a massive cold wedge of lardy cake. Luckily I love lardy cake but I never have it cold and I never have a piece which is the equivalent to the quarter of two medium deep pan pizzas stacked on top of each other. Either way I knew I needed the calories so i struggled through it and washed it down with a can of Orangina. Not your typical long distance cycler breakfast but I didn't care, I had just found my lost key in a bin so I was a happy/relieved man.
Cycling today started slowly as my legs were quite tired but eventually got going and then had reason to get going when out of nowhere a crazy dog came running after me barking viciously. I don't know the exact breed but it had a bulldog face and was the size of a healthy Labrador. I don't know who he didn't like, myself or Nigel (probably Nigel) but either way, neither of us saw him coming out of the front garden and both of us let out a little squeak! What do you say to a foreign dog? They don't understand English!!! He was barking so loud, I could only think to bark back! In hindsight this maybe antagonised him more but I thought maybe my RaRaRa's would confuse him into submission. By the way, when I say "RaRaRa" I don't mean it in a posh way like, "where did you go on your gap year with daddy's credit card rarara?" I mean it like, "i like dogs but don't you dare bite me or I'll kick you in the snout RARARA!" Luckily I was going quite quickly downhill at the time so I coasted by but had my left leg up and poised like a baseball pitcher to either avoid a bite or fire down with a punt to the face. The dog followed me for about 20m and then must've got bored and walked back to his house chuffed with the fact that he had made a man act like a dog, and that same man now needed to change his underwear.
I cycled for about 45 miles before stopping for lunch in a place called Stalingrad P. I forget what the "P" stands for but it was also the name of the National Park I had just cycled through. A National Park that was filled with the most beautiful little coves you have ever seen. Every mile for around 20 miles I would turn right to overlook the calm blue Adriatic Sea then left into a little cove with one story apartments built into the rocks with boats at their jetties ready to go fishing or explore the other Croatian islands. The houses were a mixture of local and holiday homes but all hidden away in these tiny little pockets of quiet townships that made this mornings ride and absolute dream. Croatia was blossoming today under the cloudless sky and if it wasn't for the islands I would never of known where the sea finished and the sky began. I stopped for lunch on a high and ready to go jump in the sea. I wanted to all day yesterday but just couldn't find the right spot. I locked Nigel away, set my lunch up in the shade and dove in. Absolutely beautiful, wasn't too cold, just refreshing to the skin. After having 3 days of sweat dried to your body my face was starting to feel and look like an Easter Island statue. I washed through my clothes as well, I know the salt water won't help much but at least they'll be cooler when I put them on again I thought. I had a bit of a sunbathe but the sun was so intense I had to get in the shade, so I walked over to the bar and had a beer whilst making the most of another free hotspot. Another place I could've easily stayed all day but I was also looking forward to getting back on the bike and continuing down the coast. After a good feed, a cold beer, the sun was cooling, flat tarmac road along a stunning coast, could this day get any better? What's that tailwind? You want to give me helping push as well? Oh go on then you cheeky little monkey! I coasted the next couple of miles but I had decided I wanted to take a slight detour west to Zadar as otherwise the road would take me more inland and I wouldn't be able to get back on the coastal route tomorrow so my ride tomorrow would not be as good. The slight detour ended up a lot further than I thought and at one point I found myself with a slight problem. The main road to Zadar is a toll road that bikes are not allowed on. I found myself on a road heading towards Zadar but it seemed that meant the road that I was on would soon stop and the next stage was motorway, which meant I would have to turn around and take the road inland which I didn't want to do. I stopped the bike before I went too far. I could see west over the water an island. At least I thought it was an island. That must be why it's a toll road because its a bridge and that's the only way across I thought. I walked down through a couple of houses to the coast to see if I could look around to see if it actually was a toll bridge that I was cycling towards, I couldn't tell. A bit gutted but not wanting to make a huge mistake I decided to cycle back inland. But surely a toll isn't the ONLY way you can get there I thought, and what if you only have a bike? I must be able to get there I thought. With this, the superman theme tune came on (why do have the superman theme tune? I hear you say, for situations like this! That's why) I turned the bike back around, I don't care if i get stopped ill just bung Nigel in someone's motor home I thought. Wait! My map could help. I hadn't used my average £5.99 map in a fews days because I've been using other navigation devices like Serge, the sun and my instincts. I checked the map, it showed that it wasn't an island (which I knew anyway, just doubted myself) but it did show there was only one major route to get to Zadar from where I was. That made it official, I'm doing it anyway! If my rubbish map doesn't show another route across to Zadar then there must be one I thought! So I pedalled on toward the motorway signs. I knew this day couldn't of gone any better I thought so it could turn into another story to tell at least if all goes wrong. Then all of a sudden the motorway signs turned into motorway and minor road signs. I knew I could get there! This is where the detour turned out to be really rather large and I eventually got to Zadar at 6pm. It was a lively town and reminded me a lot of Miami with its major stores as you arrived then its big wide roads in the centre. The beaches are almost sandy beaches and even though everyone was packing away, the beach football and volleyball areas looked awesome and I would probably go back and give it a once over with a few nights backpacking if I get the chance later in life. Today though, I needed to find somewhere to camp so just outside of the town I came across a medium sized woods. I walked along a stony road that appeared to be another dumping ground for rubbish. I kept walking past little areas of rubbish until I got to the end of the road that seemed to stop un the middle of the wood. Exhausted after what ended up a good 80 mile day I positioned my tent so when you look out you can't actually notice any rubbish, it just looks like a nice country lane. This is apart from the piece of hose that I've placed across the road by my tent from one bush to another. Its not going to stop anything but its just nice to have.
So on a whole, a near perfect day which was slightly dulled by shear exhaustion at the end and slight dehydration I think. The meal I cooked was decent so I'm happy with that as the pasta and hunters soup combination didn't even need me to add any Lea Perins to it! Tomorrow I think I will try and get a campsite so I can sit out and overlook the coast with a beer. Croatia is so beautiful with literally hundreds of campsites on the coast. Its only right i use at least one of them to enjoy a few beers without worrying about anything!
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