Tromilja – Gornji Karin 62.91km 🚴♀️ 3.33.54 ⏱ 17.6km/hr ⬆️ 470m ⬇️ 580m 🌡 39C
We started the day with breakfast 🍌 🍉 on our balcony around 6.30. The temperature was pretty nice so we had a good start of the day. We got on the bike and turned onto the road and saw a dead fox 🦊 in the middle of the road, really sad. Mas first thought it was a dog 🐕 or a kangaroo. Looked like the heat had already gotten to her.
The first seven kilometres to Stradin were all downhill through a swarm of little flies. It bugged Mas so much she didn’t even stop to take pictures of the beautiful view of the Krka National Park that we crossed on our way down to town. From Skradin you can make a boat trip into the National Park 🏞 to see waterfalls. We didn’t, but in Skradin it was already getting busy with tourists catching the first boat into the park.
We had a coffee ☕️, went to a bike store to check the air pressure in the tires (cause the pump that got stolen had a barometer, but the one we bought does not), and we bought some fresh bread 🍞 for the road. The road was really quiet after Skradin and we passed a handful of villages providing a welcome distraction. The climbs weren’t too bad and for sure not too long. We were kind of going up and down the whole day except for maybe one or two bigger ones.
The wind was in our face today, but we were still happy it was there to keep the hot air moving a bit. After about 10 o’clock temperature went up fast and an hour later at lunch it had gotten really hot ☀️. Mas had a tasty omelette 🍳 for lunch, Suuz lost her food mojo. She had a mayonnaise burger 🍔 with chicken 🐓. Yesterday’s dinner wasn’t too great for her either.
The landscape changed a couple of times today from all green to yellow, dry, back to green and back to pale yellow again. We did see a LOT of butterflies 🦋 today. Lots of dead ones on the road, but luckily even more flying around and flying with us for short bits. And also flying against Mas’s nose in a downhill. Don’t think the butterfly 🦋 survived the clash. The roads in Croatia smell like the Mediterranean and are lined with olive trees, grape vines, lavender and other flowers. Great place to be a butterfly. We also spotted a lot of dead snakes 🐍, a hedgehog 🦔, and some kind of weasel, and we spotted another turtle 🐢 crossing the road. Suuz didn’t save him this time, she thought he could make it on his on. We will never know. They promised us wild boar as well, but we didn’t see any.
After a lovely windy downhill into the town of horny Karin (sorry mom), or Gornji Karin, we arrived at the apartment around noon, checked in, gave the lady our laundry and walked to the beach 🏖. After a good swim 🏊♂️, or more like laying still and trying not to use our legs, we crashed under a tree and read/napped for a while. There was a nice breeze that kept us cool for a bit, until we had to walk back to the apartment 🤒.
A cold shower 🚿 did the trick and we used the rest of the afternoon to plan our next stretch to Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia. Tomorrow will be a rest day 😴, there is a good chance we are not leaving the air conditioned room, or maybe only for a quick dip 🌊 .
Around 6pm we went downstairs to have dinner at the bistro next door. Suuz had her third food fail in a row by ordering spaghetti Milanese 🍝. It was basically Sheldon Cooper’s favorite meal: over cooked spaghetti (cut up, the Italians would go nuts) with ham and ketchup. Gross. Mas ordered fresh trout grilled with olive oil and garlic and was delighted about the taste. We finished dinner within an hour cause Mas was sweating so much (it was still 37 degrees) it was literally dripping down her face. And other less appropriate places 🍑 👙. Sweat, sweat, sweat 💦.
Wat een rare plaatsnamen hebben ze daar…😀
Leuk he 😉