June 18, 2015
The Right Turn: Trsa to near Trnovo (BiH).
Looking out the window first thing this morning, I couldn't see much farther than across the road in front of the guesthouse. The fog has come down overnight and I hope it isn't like this for the day, riding with visibility down to a hundred metres or so. What if it turns to fine drizzly rain?
I return to bed, not only awaiting the fog to lift, but people aren't up and about yet: there is no sound downstairs and I would like breakfast before leaving and in any case, I still have to pay for the room and last night's supper.
When I'm up again at seven, visibility has improved somewhat. I can now see two-hundred metres along the road from the front of the house to the right turn, the little road I intend taking, beyond which all is dense fog.
Sometime later I glance out again and the fog has lifted so I can now see hills to the west.
I clear the room and haul packed panniers downstairs for eight o'clock. There is now chatter and activity in the main downstairs room. I get the bike out front and put the panniers on, leaving it ready for the road before entering. The family is sat round a table in the corner in boisterous converse and I take a seat at the next table. The woman that I dealt with yesterday evening, who speaks a little English gets up and come over. I get the feeling breakfast isn't on offer, so I just ask her for a turkish coffee. I've loads of food in the pannier.
She come back minutes later and set the coffee on my table, then returns to the group and lights up a cigarette. I find people from mountain areas are reserved toward strangers; if this was a café in a lowland village, I'd be the centre of attention, not here. I finish my coffee and await my chance to get up and break into the circle so I can pay and leave. Then I get my opportunity when there's a rumbling commotion of motorbikes out front. The woman rises and goes out on the veranda to see. And I rise and go out too. Two touring motorbikes with box panniers are now sitting abreast ticking-over at the right turn. The riders consult between themselves, but mainly look up at the signpost, apparently unsure whether to turn right, or continue straight on. One guns his bike gently, swings round and rides back toward the house front, halts across the road at a National Park interpretation board and studies the map thereon, before returning to his colleague and after more consultation, they both ride straight on.
The bill is eighteen euros for room, supper and this morning's coffee and then I set off, but halt after two-hundred metres at the right turn, look at the place on the sign, then look at my map to make sure the right turn is the quiet alternative to the highway through the gorge to the west, the two girls the day before yesterday mentioned. The road straight on is signposted Pluzine, on the map upon the main highway. There are small colour-coded cycling signs upon which, are places arrowed right with distances in kilometres that match places on the map, so the right turn is the road.
I'm dressed warmly as temperatures are in single figures as it remains foggy and I pick up where I left off yesterday, narrow single road without traffic and soon dip down into a pocket of forest, coming to a halt at a road split off where there's a seat by a signpost. Here I sit and breakfast on cereal biscuits.
I make good progress. It is about thirty-five kilometres to the border with Bosnia. On the map the road meanders north, then swings northeast a bit before a sharp elbow west. When I get as far the sharp change of direction is an abrupt descent down into the Tara river gorge, which at this point is the border with Bosnia. The road continues west until meeting the main road on a steep hairpin bend with the Montenegrin customs building on the uphill side. I ride up to get an exit stamp and have to explain that I'm leaving the country not entering, which to the guard it seems. The young guard calls out to a superior, who answers, then he waves me on without seeing my passport.
I descend down and cross over a wooden bridge to the Bosnian customs.
The first twenty kilometres in Bosnia, marked as a red line on the map, is a rough and narrow broken edged strip of asphalt on top of a wider hard core base, following the river gorge. A bit before the first town, Foca it turns to more usual single-lane each way highway. And reaching town, I cross a bridge and follow a sign right for Sarajevo, picking up a road by the Bistrica river, upstream along a branch off gorge, passing through a few short tunnels and at one stage there's quite a steady climb up to a wider valley.
I pull in through a gap in a hedge to what was once the garden of a roadside house at half four for some refreshment. I lean the bike against the concrete base of the one-time house which, has long been demolished with rubble removed, sit down alongside and take out my stove to boil water for coffee. I eat some cereal biscuits and my last snickers bar and looking around see that I could set the tent up for the night. There's only about forty kilometres to Sarajevo and I could get there by nightfall, but think it better to stop early and arrive in the city early tomorrow. There's plenty of level low sward around the site and there's a degree of cover from the road by the hedge along the road-front. There's even charred sticks and patch of ash where a campfire has previously been lit. Though I finally decide against stopping here because it is still a little open to the road and there's a laneway with recent car tracks leading up from the garden to a field. The place seems a little too private property, so I continue on.
Immediately ahead is the head of the valley with a hill the road goes up in a number of twists and turns, rising high up to where there are no more farms, only forest. As usual when climbing, level areas to the side are scarce. I push the bike up into one clearing which is level, but the grass is too long. Then reaching the summit with the road levelling out and prospects of camping spots increases considerably. A break in the forest on the right reveals a fire gutted two-story house; it appears to have been a roadside restaurant. And opposite on the left side of the road, there's a memorial, upon which I count sixty-nine names with year of birth ranging from 1943 up to 1961; and year of decease, all 1992 and 93.
A few hundred metres further as the road begins descending, a muddy track splits off at a angle into the forest, which I turn into. I'm off pushing and lifting the bike around rainwater filled vehicle-wheel ruts until a small rough grass clearing whereupon, another track branches off where a car has recently passed; the surface firm forest leaf-mulch and alternates between level and a barely perceivable incline, going about two hundred metres in to where someone has been at work with a chainsaw, as there are blocks for firework stacked to the side and a felled tree lays across the track, meaning I can camp on the track here without the fear of blocking a vehicle, not that anyone is likely to come this late in the day.
I put the tent up, glad I've persevered and found another great campsite. Then freeze on seeing a figure move back by the grass clearing. A black hided animal, it appears to be a cow, but moments later it come into full view. It isn't a cow. It has a big hump above the shoulders and at once I see it is a bear about the size of a fat bull calf, albeit with short stumpy legs. My heart is in my mouth as he (I later learn the male is much bigger than the female and this animal is surprisingly big) lazily takes a few steps along the track and pauses, raising it's head looking up towards me and time seems to go into slow-motion, though after a second or two he turns and scrambles up the bank at the side of the track and disappears into the forest.
Today's ride: 96 km (60 miles)
Total: 5,642 km (3,504 miles)
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