Advertisement
Published: September 26th 2019
Edit Blog Post
With Kevin’s 60th birthday looming I decided that to mark the occasion we needed an adventure. I started scheming and decided to book a cycle trip as this is one of his favourite ways to see new places. We had briefly visited Montenegro a few years ago while on a cruise with Steve and Cindy and loved it and said at the time it would be a great place to explore more one day.
I was able to get time off for Kevin and keep the whole trip a surprise until a few days before we left.
The cycle trip was 7 days and would include Croatia, Bosnia and Montenegro. We ended up crossing the various boarders several times gaining many new stamps in our passports.
After a flight delay we were picked up at the airport by our cycle company only to find that they had the wrong bikes for us. This was an issue that we would rectify prior to the start of the ride. We had supper and an itinerary review with lets call him Eeyore to protect his identity... he described some of the challenges and issues we
may face in the coming days. “Hell hill” and tunnels that would be terrifying and well you get the gist. A real upbeat and positive guy for sure.
We were collected the next morning with our proper bikes and driven out of town to begin our ride as it is a very steep and narrow road out of Dubrovnik - fine with us! We were unceremoniously dropped off in a gravel pit near the Bosnian border with a wrench and our petals. I wanted to give Kevin an adventure and it looks like that’s what we were going to get.
Crossing the borders were a bit confusing at first, there are always two crossings, first the country you are leaving, then what they call no mans land and then the country you are entering.
Day one of riding was from the drop off point to Herceg Novi. The first part of the ride was pretty flat and we found a nice little coffee shop in the middle of no where, where at 10am the locals were doing shots and drinking beer and then driving away. We found “hell hill” not too
far from there, 12-15k of steady climbing... Ok Eeyore had a point. The weather turned and rain started in a pretty serious way before we summited and at times the fog made it hard to see. At yet another border crossing the guard pointed out that the weather in Sept is uncertain.. thanks tips. He also eluded to the fact he thought we were a bit nuts. After all the climbing we were rewarded with a long down hill but rode the brakes hard for most of it due the rain and terrible road conditions. At last we arrived, ahead of our bags - Eeyore arrived not long after us surprised and amazed that we beat him there. He inferred that perhaps we had gotten a ride... come on Eeyore give us some credit.
Day 2 of riding was from Herceg Novi to Kotor. This was our introduction to the crazy drivers of Montenegro. The roads are very narrow and busy and not to mention they don’t seem to like cyclists much. We did get off the main roads a bit to the boardwalks where we discovered that the pedestrians seemed to be completely blind to cyclists
as well. We had a “near miss” with either someone throwing or something falling out of a bus and landing very near us on a really busy part of the road. Heart stopping for sure. We managed to arrive safe and sound in the beautiful town of Kotor.
Day 3 was going to be the longest and toughest of the trip. We made our way out of Kotor through the chaos of the cruise ship traffic with a crazy amount of people, taxis and buses. The ride from there to the ferry crossing was along the sea and breathtaking. We crossed a narrow channel by ferry and the chaos continued in earnest and we just tried to pound those kilometres out as fast as we could. I followed Kevin and as the cars came whizzing by I could see just how close they came to us working my nerves raw. Enter the tunnel.... we had ridden through it the day before but it was nothing like today. I was already worked up and a bit on edge and it came up pretty quickly-I stopped to take off my sunglasses - this required us to basically kiss the
rock wall while traffic went by. The tunnel was short but we entered the same time as a wedding party with all the vehicles honking the whole way through it. I may or may not have had a panic attack that required a stop and a debriefing by the “rock” on the other side. We still had a very long day of riding but the worst of the roads were behind us. This is about when the GPS decided it hated us and tried to direct us in a variety of wrong directions. We still were not even half way by then and stopped at a quaint sea side restaurant and regrouped. We continued to Cavtat and I will admit if there would have been an option to hitch a ride I would have taken it 😊.
Day 4 we were transferred once again to the same location as day 1 only we turned a different direction taking the old railway that was paved of sorts. We road through old villages and stations some abandoned when the rail was decommissioned or bombed out in the war. Very sad to see such a beautiful land unoccupied and scarred.
I heard someone refer to it as valley of ghosts and that was a get depiction. The trail was very rough and hard to get anywhere fast, and I ended up with a flat tire about 10k before our B&B. Kevin made quick work of it and we were greeted by a really beautiful room and a much needed welcome drink and deep fried bread that I am sure I won’t be forgetting any time soon. There is also a very impressive cave here that we did a tour of. The Bosnian people are very poor compared to their neighbouring countries, yet when I tried to tip the woman that helped with our laundry she refused to take it at first until I pressed into her palm, there were tears in her eyes when she thanked me 😞. This town has a total of 3 residents so we basically doubled the population for the night.
Day 5 we started in the pouring rain on a fairly mean uphill but the road was smooth, wide and no traffic....! Yay!! We continued in the rain for about 1/2 the way and as we broke over the pass the sun
came out! Beautiful ride on quiet roads and the amazing city of Ston as our destination and great little B&B awaited us. My favourite day so far 😊
The last day we rode from Ston to Orebic we climbed and climbed and then took a quaint litte trail along the sea. We knew that we would reconnect with the main road so when we got close again we hopped on... this turned out to be a mistake as it took us up an unending hill. I stopped every kilometre or so to rest a bit and drink because it was stinking hot!! After the summit I wheeled into the first place I found for a beer and something to eat. We arrived in the busy ferry town and were shuttled back to Dubrovnik! The riding portion is completed and we start on phase 2 which will be much more relaxing. Just a few comments about the cycling tour, I felt I had done my homework on the routing etc. Turns out quiet roads are relative and people all have a different opinion on what makes a nice cycling road. Also I would bring my own GPS as
renting one did not turn out well and causes a bit of grief when it malfunctioned early in the trip. I also would not do a self guided with a group. There are lots of things that can and do go wrong adding people and more opinions would add to the stress I think.
After transferring back on the route we took we felt very proud of the riding we did and could not believe a week had passed so quickly!
“adventure may hurt you but monotony will kill you”. Once again I May have overreached my comfort zone but Kevin is always the stabilizing factor in these situation keeping things calm (me) and ends up getting me through the rough parts.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.254s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 7; qc: 47; dbt: 0.0706s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb