May 10, 2023
Mostar to Kulen Vakuf
We started the day by shaving a week of our ride to Ljubljana and taking a van 250km across the country. Our driver Enid showed up to pick us up at 9:30 and thankfully had understood the assignment and had a very big van. Both bikes could just be wheeled in and the trailer slotted in beside without needing to be folded at all. We had a few offers from other people to transport us in a regular car, and for 2 times the price, so I'm glad we chose Enid. He's no stranger to transporting bikes, he once drove an Australian couple with a tandem from Mostar to Zagreb. Mostly he drives tourists to and from Split and Sarajevo.
He also had a car seat, something we haven't seen much of at all in any of the countries we've visited so far. It was however missing one of the shoulder straps to make it a group 1 seat (what Tobias should definitely still be in) so I had to put Tobias in just with the lap belt because he was too small to have it across his shoulder like a group 2 seat. I guess it was safer than nothing, and it was nice to not have him on me the whole time. He was very excited about the van since we told him yesterday, and was so happy to see it this morning. He made sure all the stuff was in, including wheeling his own bike up. The excitement lasted about 30 minutes into our 4.5hr ride when he declared "all done van". Hmm. He ended up falling asleep after about an hour and slept half the ride which was great.
It was beautiful country to be riding through, and we passed a couple of cycle tourists going the other way. I spent weeks pouring over this part of the route, so I was quite familiar with the road. But I was pleased not to be biking it (at this stage). Lots of hills, big distances between civilization, and it was raining. Tobias got super cranky over the pass before Drvar when suddenly he power chucked all over himself, the car seat, and my hands. I don't think he's ever actually puked before, besides really little baby post feed stuff. Poor kid was so confused and shaky. So we stopped and cleaned him (and the carseat) up. Thankfully he didn't seem too upset about getting back in.
We got dropped off at the picnic/campsite at Martin Brod. The original plan was to camp there then explore the waterfalls the following morning and dawdle the 10km up to Kulen Vakuf the next day. However the forecast is for about 20mm of rain overnight and solid rain for the next 2 weeks, so we decided it's not really dawdling weather. It's a shame, the campsite was great - small, right by the river, plenty of covered picnic tables and 3 big covered platforms where we could have pitched our tent. There were 2 toilets and 2 showers.
Instead we got on the bikes and went straight up the outrageous zigzag to get to the main road to Kulen Vakuf. It was lightly drizzling, but nice to be on the bikes after a day in a van. The road had a couple of gravel patches waiting for the new seal that covered most of the rest of the route. We only saw 3 cars the whole ride down the river.
We're staying in a kind of log cabin thing with a mezzanine sleeping level. Even though Tobias is contained in his bed I still rearranged so that our bed is blocking the stairs. Just incase he wakes up in the night and suddenly masters the art of zips or climbs out without waking us, even though I wake up if he so much as coughs. The drizzle eased up after we arrived so we could take a walk around town and get breakfast supplies. We enjoyed the view, Tobias enjoyed chasing the rubbish truck around town. We ate out at the bistro since neither of us felt much like cooking. Tobias was really into the Bosnian Trahana soup that I ordered and it was half finished before I even got a mouthful. I'm still getting used to people smoking inside while I eat my dinner. It started raining while we were out so we raced home. Tobias got the speed wobbles on the downhill, but somehow managed to hold it together and didn't faceplant. I had flashbacks to when I was a kid and I forced my youngest brother to ride home way faster than he wanted to and he got the speed wobbles and crashed and ended up with stitches.
It's probably going to be hard to hit the road tomorrow, it should rain steadily all day and we're facing a reasonable climb to get out of the valley. We're staying indoors again though in the town of Bihac.
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Today's ride: 10 km (6 miles)
Total: 737 km (458 miles)
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