Hi All,
We have been on the move quite a bit lately...
Ferry from Dubrovnik to Split. Cheap ferry ride at 12.5 Euro each for 8hr trip. Stopped at Korcula island. Beautiful old fortified town on beach. Regretted not planning to stop there. Arrived at Split and then found that the accomodation wasnt ready. Ended up with a self contained apartment in the old town with a single bed and a lounge that opened and was supposed to be a double bed. Had a tendency to tip over when I sat in the wrong spot.
Split. Claim to fame is Diocletians palace which sits near the waterfront. Quite impressive. Really all that remains is the basement and the outer walls. Most of the old city is medieval quarters so all matches up quite well. We spent the day exploring the old city and fruit markets.
Day trip to Hvar Island. 4am start to catch the early ferry at 5am. 1.5 hr ferry ride to Stari Grad but we didn´t realise that we had reached the port and by the time we had got off the ferry the bus to Kvar was leaving and the ticket office just shrugged when we asked when the next bus would arrive. Not good and thought we would have to walk the 15km to Hvar. Hitched a ride with an old croatian Man who spoke a little english and had a son in Melbourne. He took us to Milna which only left 5km to walk to Hvar. Nice walk anyway past vineyards and olive groves. Hvar is another beautiful old venitian city. We had a quick look around and then went for a swim in the 23 deg C clear water. Lovely. Midday ferry was full so had to wait until 5pm for the next ferry so just got a tub of icecream ate it then looked around some more. Watched an injured small fish getting chased then eaten by a larger fish.
Travel problems. Early bus to Sibenik arrived at Split bus station with the bus just about to leave. Arrived at Sibenik and then Day trip to Krka National Park. Evening bus full. 10pm bus to Zadar arrived at 1230am to no accomodation offers and no ticket sales for the evening. Thought we might have to sleep on the floor but found a taxi driver who arranged an apartment for us a 1am which was quite a relief. Met by nice old man in dressing gown and we apologised for the late call. Next day caught 12pm bus to Plitvice lakes national park. Saw a bear along the way in a field. Lunch break at a restuarant that had a bear family in an enclosure out the back of the building and a deer family on the other side for obvious reasons. There also was a lot of trophy animals that were in various poses inside the restuarant. Nice. Got dropped off at entrance to national park not the camping ground which was 6km away so had to wait for 3hrs for a bus. Thought lost nikon camera on bus and rang the company to get them to hold it until we got to Zagreb. Was really annoyed at myself then found the camera in the bottom of the day bag later. Camped at expensive national park camping ground about 40AUD. Quite peaceful.
Plitvice national park. Packed up tent early and bought tickets for the 830 am bus to the national park which left at 815am. Hmm. This is one of the most beautiful national parks I have ever visited. Lakes with clear bright blue water filled with fish and cascading waterfalls all in a gorge that is surrounded with forest. We followed the C circuit which went for 18km and included a boat ride and a bus trip back to near the starting point.Overcast and eventually rained. Wished we had a polariser lens for the photos. Cost was high for park entry at about 30AUD. Waited for the bus at same place as dropped off. Just had to look for a light blue bus and wave it down hoping that it would stop. Luckily it wasn´t a problem and we ended up in Zagreb a couple of hours later.
Zagreb. Hostel directions were to catch the tram a couple of stops then follow the yellow feet on the ground. We walked so the yellow feet were not so easy to find and the station was actually 3 stops. Wish hostels would put more accurate directions on their web pages. Hostel run by a couple of germans and had an interesting mix of russians, french, canadians and of course australians.One guy had a voice that sounded like a disguised one for movies in ransom demand situations. Funny. Were going to stay but realised we only had 10 days to get to Frankfurt for our flight to Oslo and even worse read the rhine air info and found that we only have a 15kg baggage allowance and our bags are 20kg. Plan to store some gear at Budapest and will pick it up after getting back from Scandinavia. Headed to the bus station in the morning and found that we needed to catch the train to get to Ljubljana in Slovenia. A bit of a shove but stored our bags in one locker before spending an hour walking around in Zagreb the on catching the train.
Bye,
David and Vanessa
