Adriatic

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Adriatic Coast - Rijeka to Dubrovnik

Pictures portray the Adriatic coast with perpetually Adriatic Blue sea edged by steep creamy coloured rock mountains.

The reality is exactly that.

We have enjoyed near perfect weather for early 4 weeks.

In the first 2 weeks there was hardly a ripple on the sheet of glass that they call the Adriatic Sea.

Winds – something we experienced later – particularly as we ventured into the coastal range.

They certainly have dry summers here.

Only a few occasionally showers and one decent storm in the time we have been here. The ground is as dry as any piece of the Tanami desert in drought.

The whole coastal area is of rock. There is a steep rocky range that drops directly to the sea .

They use that rock for building. Just stack the rocks and add cement to hold it all together. No need to transport rock. There will be plenty of rock right there on the site where you want to build. All shapes and sizes. Chip a bit off to make surfaces flat enough to stack the rock. Don’t bother with internal timber and plaster for internal walls. Just use rock for internal walls too. There is plenty of it. It won’t cost anything other than some diamond blades and a bit of time to scutch it straight. Even bus shelters are built like bomb shelters. They can build good roads. The substrate is rock. Then they can lay more crushed rock to make a solid base. No transport costs- its right there on site. Rock crushing would be a cost –but probably their only cost before laying a seal.

Ancient fjords cut into the shore line making the coastline a jagged saw tooth line. Makes for a spectacular drive – curving from the innermost point of a fjord inlet out to the pointy headland – with steep drop off on the seaward side and vertical rocky cliff faces on the landward side. Always curving. Lots of European motorcyclists enjoy the good road surface winding along the saw tooth shaped coastal road.

One thing which is spectacular is the sky.

Constantly deep blue sky as bright and deep as the best Australian blue sky.

Sundown is about 9pm. The long twilight brings a lingeringly slow airbrushing effect on the sky as it moves in slow motion from deep blue through a set of palette colours ranging from pinks and reds to oranges.

A few weeks I wrote about vapour trails in the sky saying that they can stretch a quarter of the way across from one horizon to the other.

Here are a number of photos I took of a particular trail that went at least half way across the sky.

The change in colour in each frame shows the way in which the sky is airbrushed with a range of colours .

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