May 1, 2023
Bay of Kotor to Herceg Novi
We only had 20km to ride today and we definitely acted like it. We actually made it out of the campground at a reasonable hour. Tobias woke up at 5:07 but we convinced him that it was still nighttime and he couldn't go out of the tent until 6. None of us got any extra sleep, but two of us closed our eyes and pretended to while the other crawled over us and poked our faces.
It was only 3.5km around to the ferry. We were surprised to find that it was free. Tobias was very excited to ride the big boat and we went up to look around until he got very worried about the bikes so we went back down with them. Another cycle tourist turned up just as we were getting on. He was travelling from Turkey to Ireland. We were a bit jealous of his set up with only 2 panniers.
Once we disembarked we opted to ride along the road directly by the sea rather than the main road. If we needed to actually get anywhere we would have gone on the road. The sea side path had so many speed bumps. But we were cruising and happy to take in the views. After another 3km we decided we needed a second breakfast and stopped at a cafe with a great view. We actually need to rethink our eating patterns. We don't usually snack too much between meals, but now we are finding ourselves ravenous at about 10am. We need to eat a bigger breakfast, and also be a bit better prepared with morning tea snacks. Our usual touring breakfast is oats soaked overnight in coconut milk but we've been struggling to find coconut milk and have resorted to dried milk powder instead, but this doesn't seem to be filling us up for long enough.
After breakfast number 2 we cruised off around the bay again and it was pleasant, easy cycling until just past Zelenika when we started climbing. We were trying to get to our apartment before Tobias' nap so he could sleep in a bed so we didn't stop but just pushed on up the steep climb to 160m above sea level. We are staying a wee way above Herceg Novi, but it cut out a bit of climbing from our already pretty big day tomorrow so we didn't mind too much.
Once installed and Tobias was asleep we set about getting the laundry done. We have a pretty useful dry bag that has knobbles on the inside, sort of like a washboard. We have to do nappies every night so that they can hang on the trailer the next day and then be dry for use the day after. If there is a machine available I'll use that, otherwise this bag seems to do a reasonable job. Its also useful for our kit. Definitely easier than handwashing in the shower like we did last time.
We were going to catch a taxi down to Herceg Novi but our host convinced us it was only a 15 minute walk with some shortcuts. We trusted her but did end up doing a bit of bush bashing in jandals while carrying a baby and his bike. We stopped off at Fabrika coffee on the way down to get some more beans, then headed all the way down to the beach. Tobias has started saying "ijsje eten" (icecream eating) every time we get anywhere near a beach. Sometimes mixed up with "pizza eten". Tonight we had pizza and icecream for dinner and he was over the moon. We ate down by the beach so he could charge around on his bike then park it up to go look at the icecream then charge around on his bike some more. We walked back up to the bus stop to catch a taxi home because I did not want to repeat that hill again.
We were completely unable to find a supermarket open today. Not a big one, or one of the little markets that are usually everywhere. Google maps said they should be open, but none of them were. We finally realized that its May 1st (labor day). Both Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina observe this on the 1st and 2nd of May, so we probably won't find any open stores tomorrow either. Luckily we stopped at a fruit stall today and stocked up on fruit and we have some noodles and oats and powdered milk. And snickers bars. Hopefully that is enough to power us up the 800m climb to the border tomorrow.
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Today's ride: 21 km (13 miles)
Total: 539 km (335 miles)
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