When we went to bed last night the skies opened up and unleashed plenty of rain, thunder and lightening. The forecast was expected to clear the next day, and that's exactly what we woke up to; a beautiful clear day with nice temperatures. A great day for a ride.
We set off from Ptuj and were happy to ride along a separated bike path as far as Ptujska Gora, with Župnijska Cerkev perched high up on the hill. As we rode south and out of the Drava valley the low lying hills on the horizon loomed larger as we approached the rolling landscape of the Donačka Gora Park. We skirted the parks northern flank, and chose to stay low, attempting to avoid the climbs that were inevitable. When the climbs couldn't be postponed any longer, we began to ascend into cool beech forests. We were back into the rolling landscape of Slovenia.
Our first stork sighting of the trip. We would see many more feeding in the fields throughout the day. We watched this one have a successful hunt, as it snatched something moments later.
Church of Župnijska Cerkev in Ptujska Gora. The intrepid Scott Anderson recommended we head up for a look, but with a longish day ahead, we regretfully passed up this opportunity.
Once up and over the first hump of the day, we descended to the Dravinja River valley. Here we encountered an obstacle; a consequence of the torrential rains last night. The Dravinja had burst its banks and flooded croplands, and even flowed right across our route, so a quick and easy re-route was required. Fortunately, there was an easy solution to this minor obstruction and we were on our way without too much added distance.
Much of today's ride was peaceful and very stress-free. If we were not on separated cycle paths, we were cycling along small mainly traffic free roads. The Slovenian drivers were respectful when passing and, for the most part gave us lots of room.
The Dravinja flooding across our route. I said to Sue, I think we should go for it. She was having none of it.
We've past dozens upon dozens of these small Catholic shrines throughout our trip. Each one is usually has Christ on a cross, but others have Mary, or other catholic saints. We wish we had taken more shots of these. A nice spot to finish last night's leftover pizza.
Just past Ostrozno pri Ponikvi, we encountered an ominous road sign that looked to indicate that there may be some problems ahead. With the help of Google Translate, our suspicions were confirmed. There was road closures ahead. For touring cyclists, the same questions always come to mind when you encounter these...How bad can it be? Sure, these signs are mainly for cars. Can we get through? How long do you think the closure goes on for? Do you think road crews are working on it now? Maybe we can get through? Should be go for it? Maybe, we should just ride up a bit longer and check it out? What happens if we can't get through?
So, we decided to continue to ride and check things out. If we arrived and we had to turn around, so be it. But, it's often worth the risk to check things out from our experience.
At first, the road was clear and it appeared that road crews had just cleared some downed trees across the road. This ain't so bad, we thought, so we continued on and thought we had passed through the worst of it.
Then, we exited the cool beech forests and looked up the steep slope to what appeared to be some serious road work going on. Oh...so this is what the sign was actually referring to. There was every bit of large road machinery in view, and it looked like crews were actively working. This did not look good, but we continued on up climbing 10% gradients until we got to the beginning of the construction zone.
The best course of action here is to play dumb, and continue riding. But, judging from the scale of the road work, I caught the eye of a backhoe driver, and gestured if we could ride through. He shrugged his shoulders, as if to indicate, it's your life, so go ahead if you wish. Which we did. It was a real piece of road work going on, and probably a place no two cycle tourers should be at all, as bulldozers roared, backhoes scooped and dump trucks hauled. And, it was steep too. So, it was a slow go for us to get up and over and out of this crazy place. But, we pushed on as indifferent Slovenian roadworkers looked on as we climbed slowly past. This would never happen in Canada, and we would surely have never been allowed to proceed. WorkSafeBC would surely have something to say about this. Good times.
Baroque interior. This incredible church was seemingly in the middle of nowhere. What an impressive structure. So glad we stopped in for a look around.
After this it was rolling terrain to Celje. The roads steadily got busier, and we just pushed on. By now, we were tired and ready to get off of the bikes.
Sue pushing on through rolling terrain towards Celje.
As we approached Celje, the traffic increased, and the associated noise began to grate on our tired and hungry bodies. We were thankful that there was a dedicated cycle path all the way into the center of town, otherwise this would have been a very unpleasant approach into the city. Once we broke through the outer ring of traffic chaos, we found ourselves riding through the quaint and historical center of town where we sat and had a nice little break before our final 10kms to Lasko.
A quick break in the town of Celje. We wish we had more time to explore this town.
When we finally arrived, we showered up, and were off for a dinner of burgers and beer along the banks of the Savinja. There's not much to Lasko, other than the Lasko brewery, but that suited us fine for tonight. After a satisfying meal and a commemorative hometown Lasko beer, we set off for home for an early night.
