Away to the Balkans

Brilliant Wim. Pity about the rain, but not much you can do about it, just get on.
Another lovely set of pictures. :grinning:

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Cheers Steve. The rain had me worried a bit, as tomorrow starts with 30-odd hairpins. No so nice when it’s wet. But apparently clear blue skies again on the morrow! :grinning:

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Not sure I’d have the stomach for the squid :nauseated_face: but what a lovely looking place!

The squid was great actually - nicely battered and crisp! :yum:

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Excellent write up so far Wim, please keep them coming :sunglasses:

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Cheers Helmut! Will do! :smiley:

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Just brilliant. It’s some trip this one…!

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I really liked Dubrovnik, the old town particularly. We stayed about 9 miles down the coast road from Dubrovnik, near Soline, in 2016. It’s a beautiful part of the world. I’ve always wanted to go back on the bike.

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This guy has a series of vids around this area.

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Looks like you are having a good time, ignoring the rain and traffic. It’s fun seeing some of the sights I rode through in the 80’s but we never had any traffic, even through/around some of the cities. The campsites and towns were full of Polish tourists as they were limited in where they could travel because of the USSR. Looking at your route and google maps I see there are a few more major routes these days. The only major route then hugged the coastline all the way from Rijeka past Dubrovnik where we had to turn inland because we couldn’t ride through Albania in those days. By the sounds of it, it’s changed a lot these days. And I got around the heat in august by riding in a T-Shirt with the jacket strapped to the seat, Tut Tut, but I was young and invincible in those days!!!
Looking forward to more updates. I hope the rest of the trip goes well.

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They’ve been limited in where they could travel in the USSR since 1991. :smile:

Yep, that’s the one, James. Fresh in my memory, feckin’ awesome!

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day 5, 208 miles

Yep, a leisurely day, only 172 miles I said yesterday… wasn’t to be…

I left my hostel and headed for the climb out of Kotor. I had my route neatly planned (or so I thought…) I knew it’d be steep - but I was not prepared for what satnav had in store for me… I was sent up a narrow lane, one of those tracks that when you are on it, there’s no choice but to commit - turning out of the question. Hellish steep, narrow and really tight blind corners. The good thing was though, Tigger inspired real confidence. Throttle on and keep going, lugging that heavy beast up the hill. Fortunately we arrived at the normal road relatively quickly.

The views of Kotor from the hill were pretty awesome.


Onwards and upwards, some more views.



Some nice roads followed.


My route would take me North along the R-15 - when I got to the exit it was shut - literally blocked with large lumps of concrete. This meant a 30 mile detour, as roads are few and far between out here. So I set a course to my next known waypoint, and off I went. When I got near that waypoint, I set the satnav to go to the nearest point on my route - big mistake. The satnav did it’s job alright, but again (something about donkeys? :see_no_evil:) I was sent up a narrow track. Not difficult at first, but it soon got worse. Gravel, potholes, no way to turn back… So nothing for it but to soldier on. Again it was Tigger that saved the day. As we progressed, I got more and more confident. It could be al the electronic whatsits, but it felt really steady and safe. After some 15 miles of that, we got back on track and the roads were nice again.
Next was the Tara gorge.




The bridge you see I rode in on. Then it went up in a serpentine way through (unlit!) tunnels. Interesting! Very narrow road, but the views…

Once up high I proceeded to Durmitor national park (Kotor, Durmitor, a bit Tolkienesque me thinks😂).





Beautiful. Mind the sheep, cattle and horses around each corner though!

Then off to the Tara Gorge bridge. Pretty impressive, and people were ziplining from one bank to the other!




All in all, despite setbacks, a pretty good day.
Now some local beer and food.



Crossing Servia tomorrow.

Todays exploits:


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Stunning scenery! Thank goodness you seem to have the right tool for the job :smiley:

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@Vulpes, the riding looks spectacular!!! (Reckon I would have come a bit unstuck on the narrow lane though, or certainly lost about 10kg in sweat at the very least).

That Tiger is an incredibly capable machine. Definitely more so than it’s “master”… :joy:. Funnily enough, inspite of it’s bulk it feels nimble.

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I was unstuck and lost about a stone in sweat - definitely a brown underpants episode… :joy::see_no_evil:
The riding on the whole is fantastic though!

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Looks epic! Absolutely class

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Superb scenery, and what a brilliant experience.

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Don’t you just love a few road closures and an over ambitious satnav. :laughing: :joy:
Character building. :slightly_smiling_face: :+1: