Month: September 2017

Dirty, frenetic, noisy, smelly, incredible twisting and narrow alley ways with surprises around every corner. A real mixture of fine art and filth. Kids letting off fire crackers, horns beeping, no road rules, a long intense history shown in the stunning plasterwork and intricate mosaics, boys beating drums, dead ends and dark corners, shops shops shops, friendly people, shifty characters, wealth and poverty. Religion everywhere.

What an education Fes was. Phew! A real cultural experience.

The riad we stayed in was full of amazing Berber art, all quite shabby around the edges, a few tiles missing out of the mosaics, dribbled paint and stuff. It had a brick of a bed and a grotty bathroom. But all still really impressive and so different to what you see anywhere else in the world. Unique.

After leaving that city we rose up the surrounding hill slopes with expansive views and drove through some amazing back country with dramatic mountains and sweeping valleys. Olive trees of incredible age dotted many of the hillsides. The fields of whacky baccy were not dissimilar to Tasmania’s poppy fields. There were old fellas puffing on kif pipes in backwoods cafes that we stopped in for a quick coffee.

One mountain town we travelled through was in the middle of a mad market day, muddy dirt potholes and people walking everywhere, criss crossing the road in groups. Cars and vans stopping just about anywhere and blocking traffic, donkeys and carts sauntering along. Beeping horns and the crowd on the side of the road calling out remarks and laughing. Crazy stuff. And weirdly enough, Rod thought it fun! Georgie relinquished her position from behind the wheel and allowed him to gleefully take over.

Then we arrived at the Blue City of Chefchaouen , the colour of sky and water. It looked pretty amazing from the ridge leading up to it with the impressive rocky mountain rearing up sharply behind all the pastel blue houses. Amazingly we found a parking space in a narrow alley and paid the bloke a few shekels for a couple of nights.

The hotel was clean and artistically put together in a traditional way. We stood on the blue roof top and looked admiringly out over the city, but then were driven downstairs by the cacophony of five different mosques blaring out their call to prayer over loudspeakers.

But much later, after the pre-dawn call to prayers, Rod ventured back up onto the blue roof to watch the morning unfold over the city, as it also dawned on him that he’d just turned a crusty old sixty! It was a city where chooks crow at first light, countless cats patrol the walls and a few women were out sweeping and cleaning the roof tops. The only vehicles you could hear were away over on the next approach ridge.

It’s a jumble of different levels, blue buildings just stacked together higgledy piggledy and melding into each other where they touch. They spread up the hillside unevenly, randomly and without any logical order, mazeways of narrow stairs and walking lanes snaking in between. They are fun to explore on foot, twisting and turning in unexpected ways, noisy and busy as kids play around you.

We spent a morning strolling about the Blue City, capturing its incredibly photogenic features in digital format before finding an artist’s cooperative where we opted to stop for lunch and listen to some live music. It was a relaxing atmosphere and most pleasant way indeed to spend an hour or so in the middle of the day. Following that we retired back to our attractive little hotel room to rest for a bit before embarking once again on an adventure to locate a suitable restaurant for dinner. Such are the trials of holidaying in foreign lands.

The ever present cats around the cities of Morocco are amazing, as you walk down the narrow lanes kittens are seen mewling from boxes as adult felines stalk the shadows, when you sit for dinner you are ringed by casually patient tabbies waiting for leftovers, They are an integral part of the city, you either have cats or you have rats and mice, which would otherwise breed up really well in that environment.

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We have documented the dry and arid landscapes of Morocco, but so far we have not really said much about the other side of that amazing country.

Apart from a cute little jumping spider Rod spotted in Marrakech and the countless scrawny tabby cats wandering everywhere there has been very little else in the way of animals except a bit of bird life. Large cranes will assemble untidy stick nests high on towers and mud walls, crows hang out mostly in pairs along side roads looking for road kill and sparrows will brave the cats and sometimes frequent places where humans drop crumbs. Pigeons were also present, but not in the large numbers we have seen elsewhere.

Occasionally we were pleased to see a solitary ant scampering nearly underfoot, or a couple of wasps who flew in to sample the sweet foods that we were trying to eat.

But it was on a dry desert road high in the mountains that we had our very best wild animal experience. We swerved to miss a chameleon that was slowly weaving its way across the road. The brakes were slammed on and Rod burst from the car door and raced back to rescue that most gorgeous of creatures from certain death under the wheels of crazy Moroccan drivers.

We hadn’t seen a chameleon since Madagascar and truly didn’t expect to see one there in the dry mountains of Northern Africa. The ensuing photo session was a great pleasure before we released that gentle and slow moving creature in a safe place well away from the road.

We drove through beautiful cultivated valleys surrounded by serrated mountains with scalloped sides. There were ancient orchards overflowing with apples as donkeys laden with produce ambled up the road sides. As there had not been rain for over a year some of the fields looked pretty water stressed, but there was still food aplenty.

It was high on a Northern mountain that we saw the biggest contrast so far. There were huge and ancient trees growing from some mountain sides, thick trunks that told stories of incredible age. In a National Park where the forests were protected we saw tailless monkeys being fed by tourists. These Barbary macaques had obviously become used to human contact and appeared quite tame. They were still, by definition, wild animals so we were very glad to see them.

Up the road further is Ifrane, something that is totally out of place in its own country. An alpine resort town in the middle of Morocco that looks almost like a slice of Europe with its green lawns (!) and tended gardens, neat houses with high sloping roofs and not a mud wall or rock anywhere to be seen. Imagine that, no rocks in Morocco for goodness’ sake!

Another thing we experienced which fits into the classification of something completely different were the ancient Roman ruins at Volubilis. Previously we had viewed countless old and eroded mud brick cities and fortresses of Arabic origins, but those 2000 year old stone ruins were absolutely fascinating. No doubt about them, the Romans sure did things differently, and despite the passage of such an incredible amount of time there were still fantastic things to see. We only popped in for a quick look and stayed for hours in the searing Sun, wandering around finding great photo angles and ogling the remaining murals.

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After travelling down the Sun scorched and sometimes very straight roads for seemingly ages, we finally approached the Sahara Desert and were greeted with our first view of the famous sand dunes. Shiny yellow with smooth curves arching up from the otherwise flat desert floor, they were totally different from other ragged rocky mountains and ridges that we had passed on our way.

We tootled around the tiny mud brick townships that border that huge desert, catching photo opportunities whenever and wherever we could. Rod even wandered off into the dunes for a bit of a poke around whilst Georgie sensibly locked herself in the car with the aircon going. He trudged up tall and crumbling sand dunes and revelled in the clean and shifting lines all around him. Those dunes were not nearly as tall as the Namibian ones he had struggled up all those long months ago, but they were totally devoid of signs of other humans, making them just that much more special for him.

So we decided to do the tourist thing and pay to go ‘glamping’ in the Sahara.

An hour’s camel ride in the afternoon through the sand, camera clicking madly, and we arrived at what was advertised as a luxury camp in the desert. There were four other guests there when we arrived, some young Chinese TV producers who spoke pretty good English. They were a fun and energetic crew.

As the Sun dropped toward the horizon we clambered up the large dunes to watch the sunset – along with lots of other people scattered about the place, each from different camp sites not too far away. It turns out that it is big business for Morocco, all this camels and sand dunes stuff, and multiple companies were offering similar trips to what we were taking. Unfortunately the desert area that we had chosen to visit may have had the largest dunes in the country but it was also just a relatively small sandy area. Big dunes little desert someone described it as.

The camp was comfortable enough, big bed, hot shower and private dunny. Rod managed to show them how to do Kelly Slater -style sand boarding, but not until he fell off a couple of times, and Georgie did a great job of clambering up those crumbly dunes.

We had to wait a while for dinner, with some trepidation because almost every meal we’d had thus far in Morocco had been cooked thoroughly with capsicum – Georgie’s nemesis. But everything turned out OK after all, even though we had to wait until 9 pm for the first course (Rod’s normal bedtime) the food was good and totally capsicum free. Plus there was only one set of veges with too much chilli and plenty of alternatives to partake in instead.

The entertainment didn’t begin until 10:30 which was well after Rod’s lights out, so he missed out. Georgie, however, hung in there for a bit, watching the drumming and singing.

Before first light Rod struggled up the largest dune to await the sunrise. Navigating his way up the shifting sands by starlight was interesting and added to the adventure of the situation. As the sky began to lighten in the East the dark folds of the desert began to slowly reveal themselves, gradually taking form as the light and shadows strengthened. The wind began to pick up, and as he was exposed on the highest point in the region the wind chill factor began to take its toll. He slid down the lee side to get away from the strongest gusts but instead was pelted by sand particles that had been blown over the ridge. As his pockets and hair began to fill with grains Rod resigned himself to perching atop the highest point and enduring the full brunt of the chill desert winds. But it was worth it.

We camel rode back after breakfast and continued on our journey North toward Fez where we were intending to return the hire car. Along the way we drove through Toudra Gorge, an amazing and meandering deep rocky furrow that cuts its way through the mountains. Dramatic scenes greeted us at every turn and heaps of photos were taken amid oohs and aahs. Then we came upon and travelled over an unexpected and breath-takingly spectacular mountain pass. We ended up staying in a high mountain mudbrick hotel that managed to find a room for us in a shed out the back in what they called the ‘salon’. It was a bit reminiscent of Joseph and Mary’s manger really. Every room in the region had been booked out for the ‘Marriage Festival’ in a nearby town, so we were lucky to even get that.

Travelling through all that parched and rocky country we learned to have fresh bottles of drinking water handy for the sake of random goat herders who stood with their flock in incredibly isolated places waving empty plastic bottles at any passing traffic. We always obliged these hard working folk who do it so tough, especially as a bottle of water is worth only tuppence ha’penny to us, but means life to them.

Despite our earlier misgivings about the sincerity of the Moroccan people, we found that everyone we met was actually very warm and helpful, all were so welcoming of visitors and very nice to us. Even multiple strangers at lookouts wished us a warm welcome to Morocco. We do understand that the widespread poverty means that people will often try to sell you something, but hey, they’ve gotta make a buck somehow.

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Moroccan Road Trip

Driving out of Marrakech was quite nerve-wracking for Georgie as almost every car in that city has multiple dents in the fenders, but Rod seemed to derive some sort of maniacal thrill from being behind the wheel again. We have, after all, survived driving in Italy and Albania where everyone needs to have their licences taken from them then be forced to do a defensive driving course, and we drove those places in a much larger vehicle than our titchy little hire car ‘Logan’.

As the Atlas mountains began to emerge from the haze of heat and dust we became more and more excited. The rural Moroccan landscape was unlike anywhere else we had been, date palms, olive trees, prickly pear and ochre-coloured mud brick buildings all melded into a landscape which paradoxically supported an air of both harshness and serenity. The multiple soil and rock colours created a kaleidoscope of earthen textures reaching up the surrounding hill sides.

The road was good, sealed and wide enough for two lanes, and the views just kept getting better and more impressive as we gradually gained altitude. After spending three days in the tight confines of the old city of Marrakech, to be out in the expanses of the desert mountains was exhilarating and relaxing, soaking in the huge distances and clear mountain air.

We wondered how some tiny communities could cling to survival in such an unforgiving environment, but people were indeed there, selling their wares beside the road to travellers, living out their lives in that parched and rocky landscape.

We were haled down by a chap who had the bonnet up on his car, saying he had broken down and could we give him a lift. So we cleared our junk from the back seat and allowed him in. He explained that he was a Berber who spent much of the year with his family crossing the Sahara with camel (sorry – dromedary) trains taking supplies to, and trading with, remote communities. When we dropped him some 60 kilometres down the road at his brother’s house we were welcomed in to meet the family, given a cup of tea and offered to be taken into the desert the next day with them. All very exciting!

After back-tracking about 30 kilometres to the hotel we had previously booked, which was a delightful jewel in the desert aptly called Paradise of Silence, we began chatting with some folks who ran motorcycle tours around Africa and Europe. They gave us some great tips on where to go and what to see. They also gave us food for thought about scams where ‘broken down’ cars were often used to lure unsuspecting tourists into feeling obliged to purchase carpets and other goods. Hmm. Interesting.

The next day we decided to press on without taking up the Berbers’ offer and continued on across that dramatically dry and rocky landscape. We came around one steep corner and had to quickly slam on the brakes to miss a bloke who leapt out onto the road waving an empty water bottle. Initially he just wanted some water, which of course we obliged him with, but then he said he was having vehicle problems and could we drive him to the next town? A bit of deja vu there. We did give him a lift and when we arrived at the drop off he practically begged us to come in with him to meet his family and have a cup of tea.

We politely and adamantly declined, despite his dogged persistence, and eventually got him out of the car and continued on our way. The question we then asked ourselves was would we give a lift to the next person with ‘vehicle troubles’? We were not sure about that. But in a dusty little town not much more than 100 kilometres down the road a frail little old lady asked us for a lift up around the corner. How could we refuse that? As Rod was helping her out of the car at her destination a very large and rather vicious-looking serrated knife fell out of the voluminous folds of her clothing. Gulp! But we survived that, although our nostrils took a bit of a battering and we had to drive with the windows down for a bit to clear the air.

In that harsh and dry environment we purely by chance stumbled upon an oasis where we had a cooked lunch in a green garden surrounded by peacocks and wild birds feasting on the dates in the trees above us. It was lovely.

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After saying a final goodbye to Ebenezer in Frankfurt (with some sadness but also lots of relief) we wandered around a series of art galleries in that huge and modern city. Many happy hours were spent looking at fantastic works from so many of the Greats (Matisse, Renoir, Monet, Manet, Picasso, Rodin Cezanne, to name a few), plus lots of weird, eccentric and totally outrageous works from a variety of modern artists. Then as time began to run out it was off to the airport.

We flew on a red-eye to Casablanca, arriving in the wee hours and caught a taxi into the city. We asked the driver to find us a ‘not expensive’ hotel to spend the next few hours sleeping off our bleary eyes. Big mistake. Instead he took us to a pricey and slightly shabby hotel in a grotty part of the town. But at that hour we were beyond doing battle so we just paid up and crashed out.

The next day we decided to catch a train to Marrakech to get closer to the fabulous Atlas Mountains and further from the somewhat less than salubrious aspects of modern Casablanca. The rubbish in those streets and the multiple mangy stray cats wandering through that unimaginatively square block concrete jungle had not left a very good first impression on Rod. The hotel’s reputedly ‘excellent’ breakfast turned out to be eggs and bread with very little else to inspire the taste buds.

So we were happy to change our environment. Waiting for the half-hour-late train we struck up a conversation with a local bloke on the platform who provided us some clues on where to go in Marrakech. He also gave us a number of a mate of his who would drive us for cheaper than the other taxis, who he said would charge us 400 dirham a day. His mate would do the same for only 250 dirham he reckoned. Then on the train we met a different bloke who claimed to be from the Moroccan Tourist Bureau who advised us to be wary of scalpers and to use only the their official drivers who would get us about for even cheaper. They, he said, would only charge us 150 dirham a day! Crikey!

Our brains all agog with different possibilities we got off the train at modern Marrakech to be greeted by a beautiful city full of clean streets, gardens, sculptures and attractive buildings all painted the same pleasant traditional ochre colour. Then we drove through the gates of the ancient 11^th century walled city and became absorbed in the amazing twisting and winding narrow bustling streets of that truly stunning place.

What a difference from Casablanca!

Our hotel in the Old City was a delight, a traditional riad. The room may have been a titch on the small side (although much larger than Ebenezer’s cramped innards) but it was exquisitely set out and furnished, and we were greeted with a big smile from our host and a pot of traditional minted tea. We did feel we needed a little bit of a lie down first, but were very keen to get out and explore the alleys and markets just outside the front door.

It was like a scene from an old movie as we meandered through the varied market stalls, dodging unsteady cobble stones, children kicking footballs, bicycles and beeping motorbikes whizzing past. There were more locals than tourists so it really had a genuine feel to it. We were eventually sucked in by the most fabulously Arabic decorated restaurant, entertained by traditional musicians and ate lamb cooked in a tajine. It was the real deal.

And that was just our first day in Morocco!

The next morning, after a relaxed start, we haled a taxi and went to the Jardin Majorelle gardens in the north of the city. We didn’t expect the queue at the entry gate, but it was worth the wait. There was a magnificent collection of incredible cacti and palms from around the world, and it all was kept in immaculate condition.

Next we ventured into the centre of the old city to check out the central market place. Rod was fascinated to see the beautiful snakes that the snake charmers used. There were gorgeous jet black cobras standing up with their necks all flared out, plus some rather lethargic short and stubby adders who just lay prone on the cobble stones. The poor things looked as if they were in a stupor, and even the cobras looked a bit zonked out. We hope they weren’t drugged.

A bit of a browse around the stalls and we headed back to our lovely hotel room to rest before tackling the vibrant evening market as the Sun set. There we hatched a plan to hire a car and drive up into the Atlas Mountains and beyond that to the edge of the Sahara desert for nearly a week. That seemed to be a far better idea than going on an organised tour, especially as Georgie’s mate Pete had given us some good suggestions on where to go and what to see. Also we are rather keen on doing a more spontaneous exploration rather than a formal scheduled one with a group of strangers.

Our third day in Marrakech was spent wandering around the palaces and – wait for it – shopping. Meh, ya gotta do it sometime.

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The first thing we noticed as we crossed over the border is that there were no border guards, no queues, just roll on in from Austria hassle free. A bit of a change from the rest of Europe that we’d been through.

The next most obvious thing were all the busy variety stores just over the border, all bustling with Austrian customers taking advantage of the incredibly cheap prices. Everything is very low cost in the Czech Republic, for example bottles of beer are only about 11 cents! Oh my goodness gracious me!

The rolling hills were all very lush and green, rivers a-gusher with water, fat cows looking very contented and forests covering most of the steeper hill sides. Some of the towns looked a bit sad and in poor repair though, and a little crew-cut kid did slag on our car as we drove through one rather smelly and run down village, but there weren’t quite so many of the ruins that we’d seen down in Albania and Montenegro.

The roads were good though, a proper surface and well made, but they don’t waste any money there on painting any silly old centre lines.

As we approached a huge cloud making machine we slowly came to the realisation that it was in fact a massive nuclear power station. The road we were on almost snaked right between the gigantic steaming cooling towers. That was freaky, particularly when the interior lights on the van started flickering!

We thought that Austria was cold, but Czechia is pretty chilly too. And I guess the almost constant drizzling rain didn’t help warm us up any either.

The one thing that country really lacks is vowels. You are lucky to get more than one in any of the place names, but Zs and Vs abound, there’s no shortage of them.

But then we drove into the Northern Bohemian forests and everything changed. The hillsides became very steep and densely clad in dark and mossy forests, huge sandstone rock faces projected dramatically out of the escarpments, each eroded into fantastic columns, pockmarks and caves. The whole mood changed to one of quiet awe and wonderment. That part of the country had the sort of stuff that we really liked!

Our search for camping places became frustrated though, as it was obviously way out of the holiday season and everything was closed. But that also meant that there were hardly any other people about, which was a good thing. Eventually we ended up staying in a rather posh hotel next to a 13^th century castle and enjoyed the long, hot, private and unrestricted showers of our own heated room. That was a drastic change from the last camp we stayed in where the shower token we bought only lasted about a minute, and the first thirty seconds of that was standing on the cold concrete waiting for the water to warm up!

Rod eagerly awaited his early morning walk through those gorgeous forests, and long before the Sun rose he was out there, scrambling around rocky outcrops and strolling through mature and shady forests. At one point he stopped a while and just stood quietly listening, then murmured to himself about the ‘Silent forests’ before realising that he was whispering! It was just so quiet! The thick damp layers of moss tended to muffle even the sound of his own footfalls.

After breakfast back at the hotel Georgie suggested that we wander down into a gully to investigate the rocks, not really intending to spend too long ambling about. More than three hours later we eventually found our way back through the labyrinth of outcrops to where the van was parked after exploring the most astounding rocky columns, some that reared up about 50 metres high above the tall dark forests. It was a brilliant way to spend most of the morning. Georgie’s poor old crook knee took a bit of a battering, but she did it by crikey!

We think we may have definitely found our new favourite place on the planet.

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We meandered around the alpine border of Austria and Slovenia for most of the day. Really we were trying to get north of there but something seemed to be stopping us from straying too far from Slovenia. That place seemed to have gotten under our skin.

In our travels we had seen some pretty gorgeous castles, but the Hochosterwitz Castle has got to be the absolute best. Perched high upon a steep and isolated rocky outcrop with a winding road that snakes around the vertical precipices, finally reaching the battlements where parts of it date way back to 860 AD. It has a perfect shape and is an absolute ideal of what you might imagine a castle to be. Unfortunately we arrived too late in the afternoon to take the funicular up the cliff to the dizzying heights, but we did get to ogle it from below. The next morning that gorgeous castle was swathed in mists so we pressed on.

Eventually, in the spot we camped for the night, we espied two old gentlemen sitting at a table and cleaning a great big pile of freshly picked mushrooms. Realising that these were probably the legendary chanterelle mushrooms because of their bright yellow colour we approached the aforementioned gentlemen to see if we could buy some. Despite the language barrier they let us know they wouldn’t hear of it and instead GAVE us a big bag of the things. We managed to give them a handful of Swiss chocolates in return, supplies that we’d been hoarding since Switzerland.

That night, Georgie’s mushroom omelette creation was heavenly.

The next day saw us travelling slowly up and around mountains and in and out of deep valleys. Many a gasp emanated from our mouths as we marvelled at the amazing mountain scapes. Austria simply glows green and is an absolute delight to be in. ‘Tis a bit cold though…

It was truly mushroom season there as many people were seen out with baskets in hand collecting those delectable treats. Georgie even spotted a swathe of chanterelle mushrooms growing under a patch of pine trees, but we elected to leave them for the locals because we already had plenty from the day before.

The four hour journey that we had planned to reach the Czech Republic ended up being a six hour meander that got us only two hours closer to the border. Obviously we are easily distracted.

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We wound around beautiful forested hilltops on narrow roads, through ancient villages and past broad views, on our way to the Slovenian border. We were all excited about getting another stamp for our passports!

When we arrived at the isolated border gate atop a lonely forested ridge the guard looked at us with frustration and said that it was only a regional border not an international one, and he couldn’t let us pass. If we were EU citizens it would have been alright, but because we came from another continent entirely he didn’t have the equipment to check our backgrounds with Interpol – or something like that.

Somewhat disgruntled, we had to retrace our winding steps and detour for about an hour to get to an international border that would let us through.

But it was worth it, Slovenia turned out to be a lush, verdant country that obviously wasn’t having the same trouble with lack of rain that the other Eastern European countries were. Still the limestone ranges continued, but the valleys were filled with deep soil and fertile farming country. The ranges themselves tended to remain wild bushland and tall cliffs, with dark caves dotting the impressive escarpments. It was a lovely sight to see juicy green grass and tall dark trees everywhere again, with the stark white cliffs standing out in long bands around the mountains.

It must surely be the land of paragliders, we saw so many of them soaring and circling from the high cliff tops. Georgie counted more than thirty in one group! Slovenia appears that it might be even more affluent than its neighbouring Croatia, everything is so very neat and clean.

The Alps were calling us, so we moved deep into the interior of the country and followed gushing rivers toward their mountain source. Soon the horizon revealed the silhouettes of towering monoliths, and we were content. We bush camped beside an alpine river, watching lean trout from a bridge as they swam languidly in the crystal clear and fast moving water. Simply delightful!

The next morning saw us meandering even further up into the stratosphere, negotiating hairpin bends and precipices, ogling the enormous cliffs and astounding views. Gosh, who knew Slovenia was so gorgeous? We stopped for lunch at a restaurant atop a high mountain pass, eating Slovenian goulash whilst huddled close to a fire as the clouds closed in to gradually fade out the breathtaking views.

Reluctantly we slowly drove down the other side and got ourselves a little bit lost on the confusing autobahn over-under-across-around thingies, ending up having to convince the ticket guys that we actually didn’t really want to go on the super highway, we just took a wrong turn. Luckily they were sympathetic and showed us the way off without charging us anything. Phew!

We visited Lake Bled, which is quite a picturesque place, but unfortunately we had turned up in the middle of a regatta or something, so the place was chocka block. But we found a nice spot out of town for (sadly) our last night in the lovely Slovenia. Could this be our new favourite place?

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Actually there are heaps more islands than that, but we just liked the sound of it as a title.

After enjoying being serenaded by traditional Croatian mandolin and guitar-playing musicians whilst we ate pig-on-the-spit, we retired to Ebenezer for a night of wild winds and driving rain. It may have been an uncomfortable inconvenience for us to have to mop up rain leaks and pull down the outside canopy in the middle of a power outage, but the coast sure needed a dousing to moisten the bush and put out those smouldering fires. So it was OK.

The next morning saw a few isolated showers about, but it cleared up later in the day so then we were treated to air that had been washed clean of smoke to view the gorgeous Dalmatian coast and islands.

We drove along that beautiful seaboard admiring the 101 islands just off shore, then veered off to wait for a drawbridge to go down so that we could drive onto a scenic island and locate a camp site. The park we stayed in was wonderfully isolated and we scored a very private site around a small bay and under a shady tree. Rod’s morning walk followed the empty shore line for quite a few kilometres, rock hopping over limestone most of the way.

After Rod returned from his walk and relaxed over breakfast with Georgie, a loud voice could be heard singing further around the bay. Gradually the female voice could be heard approaching our site, bellowing out traditional Croatian songs for all to hear. We hoped she may be selling some pastries or other delicacies so Rod went to investigate, and sure enough he found a little old lady with a basket full of Croatian doughnut thingies wandering amongst the campers and loudly vending her wares.

The tides along the Mediterranean shores only vary by a few small centimetres, which makes a very interesting but very thin intertidal zone. So different from the multiple metres we are used to in Australia. Mediterranean people only have to pull their boats just out of the water and leave them there all night without fear of them being swept away.

Because of the ubiquitous limestone there are no sandy beaches, just the occasional fine gravel section. The shear size and amount of limestone in Eastern Europe is mind blowing, the enormous mountain ranges seem to go on for ever. All made by countless gadzillions of tiny little sea shells so, so long ago. It’s quite staggering really.

The northern Dalmatian coast has some astoundingly stark and rocky environments. In many places the ground was just completely littered with jumbled and broken limestone rocks and boulders. In some areas you could see where ancient humans had attempted to make almost farmable zones by heaping and stacking the rocks into enormous piles and walls in an effort to get to the soil beneath. But there were still many sections where the rocks were just too thick. Some of the 101 Dalmatian islands gleamed an eerie off-white colour because they could not support any vegetation at all, but were simply moonscapes of bare limestone.

We continued up the coast then veered inland to visit some places recommended to us. The hills and mountains away from the sea were very green, not nearly as stark and rocky as the coast. Productive farms and forested hills were common. We called in to, and wandered about in, an ancient hilltop town called Groznjan which long ago had become a bit of an artist’s colony, helping to preserve it and make it just that much more gorgeous by people who enjoy the aesthetics of their surroundings. It was a sweet little village, plus the very first place that Rod had actually tasted real fair dinkum truffles! Just as fabulous as everyone raves about, he reckons. We came away from there nursing a valuable jar of the stuff.

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Apart from waiting for over two hours in the queue to cross the border, we found Croatia to be a very nice place. It is a relatively affluent country, particularly compared to Albania, Serbia and Montenegro. One of the best things about it was that there were plenty of road side public dunnies! Obviously they have learned the lesson that their neighbours are still yet to realise. Coupled with plenty of rubbish bins, the stops along the roads are clean and not plagued with the same stench that the nearby countries have.

The other outstanding feature of Croatia we saw was the lack of umbrella plantations. In the neighbouring countries, and indeed along the French and Italian Riviera, every available space at the sea side had rows and rows of broad umbrellas planted close together, each with its own chair beneath. Conversely, the beaches in Croatia displayed a significant absence of these horrid ‘plantations’. So our first impressions of the place were very good.

The hills were clean, the sea a gorgeous blue and there were not the same numbers of houses in terrible disrepair that we had grown used to seeing. Croatia was a refreshing change in our Eastern European jaunt. Could this be our new favourite place?

The first night we stayed in a pretty sea side park, strolled into town along the quiet umbrella-less seashore and ate a reasonably priced dinner in a local restaurant. After dining we ambled down to the local plaza where a jazz band was playing very relaxing and listenable music for free. After they finished we wandered back to our van, marvelling at the numbers of fish and sea urchins just next to the road, all quite visible in that crystal clear water under the street lamps.

We spent two nights in that lovely spot, but the next day saw us progressing further North toward the legendary Dalmatian Coast. Apart from crazy detours up incredibly narrow and winding roads we passed through a small section of Bosnia, stopped for a coffee and Bosnian traditional treat, and then moved back into Croatia to follow that spectacular coast northward.

Then rain began tumbling down and obscured our view of the amazing cliffs and rocks that reach down into the Adriatic Sea. So we stopped again, hoping that the morning would see a clearing of the skies and a return of those stunning views.

(Click on the pics to make ’em big)