Adventures With Harvey

Deanna, Dubrovnik and Dancing!

It had been more than 15 months since your author had seen any of his children so imagine our absolute delight when we met our oldest daughter, Deanna at Marco Polo Airport in Venice following her flight from New Zealand via a few days in London. It was just so lovely to see have her come and visit and we had PLENTY of catching up to do! We’ve had overnight guests in Harvey before, and also others join us for some of the driving, but this was a full 2 weeks of travel with an extra person on board – such a treat! So what have we all been up to for the last couple of weeks? Grab yourself a cuppa and settle in for the latest exciting instalment of Adventures With Harvey.

As is often the case when we leave each country, a final forage for supplies is in order. In Italy we have fallen in love with the fresh pasta, buffalo mozzarella, the local tomatoes, limoncello and basil pesto to name but a few. A favourite evening tipple (mainly for those in the pink team) is limoncello spritz which, apart from its namesake ingredient, also includes prosecco and soda water. All of these items were stocked up on before crossing the border into Croatia which is now a full member of the EU so again, there were no border crossings to contend with.

The focus of this next couple of weeks was a little different than previously, more relaxing and hanging out with Deanna with a little less exploring. The other difference is that wild camping is forbidden in Croatia and we’d heard reports of big fines for transgressors so for this period of time, we had mainly booked camp grounds to stay at. Although such things may appear trivial, it’s all relative, and lately your intrepid travellers have been living in the luxurious world of continuous hot water, electricity for the microwave, toaster and hair dryer, and we’re even able to fire up Harvey’s air conditioning unit in the afternoons when the temperatures are stifling, most days exceeding 30deg (with apologies to our NZ friends and family who are suffering through a wet and miserable winter).

First stop was a camp site just out of Opatija which itself is around 15km from Rijeka. Our camp site was a little way back from and above the water, probably about 10 minutes to walk however usually your author and his daughter would load up the bike paniers with our supplies for the day, then ride until we found a suitable place to park up for a few hours, Anita walking to join us shortly thereafter. So far we haven’t come across any sandy beaches in Croatia, they are all stony or pebbly and often the ocean swimming areas have been created with a vertical concrete waterfront with ladders for access. It’s still perfectly adequate for swimming and the water is, without exception, lovely and clear however it’s quite unusual for us kiwis to have a rocky beach and/or ocean bottom to swim in. For two days in a row at Opatija we parked up at a little partly shaded grassy area with concrete steps down to a gorgeous little swimming hole – just perfect! One day Deanna and I rode our bikes the 15km or so around the waterfront for a quick Rijeka explore, stopping for swims and ice-creams along the way. We passed an athletics/football stadium right on the water and also a shipbuilding facility with a vessel on the slipway looking about ready for launch. Young Deanna was dying to try some of the local seafood so one evening we ordered a delicious platter to share, it was easily as good as anticipated, overloaded with fish, squid, sardines, calamari and all things good!

With noses pointed south Harvey and his 3 occupants chugged their way down the road all the way to the island of Pag which is reached from the north by a car ferry. Unluckily there was a queue up the hill and we were not quite small enough to squeeze on the full ferry – summer has arrived in Europe with all the crowds. It reminded us fondly of the Russell – Okiato ferry on a long weekend but the next vessel wasn’t due for another hour. We were, however, happy enough to fill in the time wandering around the tiny waterfront marina and playing cards in Harvey until it was time to go. Only around 20 minutes on the ferry and we were docking ready for the short drive to Camping Village Simuni which is the largest and fanciest camping ground your author has ever been to, by quite some margin! We were told the place can accommodate 4000 campers when full, it had 6 beach bars, a number of restaurants, shops, a small supermarket and everything else you might possibly need. As elsewhere, the beaches were rocky or had small pebbles but the loungers were plentiful, the water warm and clear and we got stuck into some hard out relaxing.

Around 15km down the road is a tiny place called Zrće which is home to several beach bars and hosts a 3 day music festival at this time of the year. Although the official event had finished the day before, there was still plenty going on, so off went your author and his eldest daughter to check things out. It turned out to be a awesome evening listening to the DJ’s doing their thing while we chatted with new friends and danced ‘til the wee small hours. Although this correspondent’s youth departed him far longer ago than he wishes to admit, it is lovely on an odd occasion to let one’s hair down (… oops, that probably doesn’t work so well either…) and party with the youngsters. Old guys like me are somewhat of a novelty, especially those getting amongst it with their children – too many new friends and too much fun!!!

The largest settlement on Pag is the city of Zadar which we explored after departing Simuni. Like so much around these parts, the Romans were a major early influence which can still be seen by the remains of their forum close to the centre of town. The town was busy with tourists however the queues for ice-cream weren’t too long and we enjoyed a climb up the belltower for usual panoramic views. Down on the waterfront was the Sea Organ, pipes built into the quay which each played a note when the sea pushed water through them. A unique concept and very clever.

Camp Roko was our next stop, back on the mainland and not far from the town of Vodice. Although still very different, this area reminded us the most of home with a sheltered bay, all manner of recreational watercraft, loads of families enjoying ocean based activities and a campsite literally right on the beach. Everything is very arid with loads of olive trees about the place, most camping pitches are dirt or stones rather than grass, and the beaches are still very rocky. One thing we hadn’t thought about was the issue of sea urchins which are very similar to kina back home and proliferate in these waters – once you’re more than about a metre into the water, the little blighters are everywhere and you definitely don’t want to stand on one. Fortunately, there was a tiny convenience store further around the beach which had a large selection of water shoes so we were able to procure a pair each and swim without difficulty. The other major difference from home is the lack of tide – although we were staying on the ocean, the Mediterranean is more like an enormous bay, the only link to main body of ocean is the 13km wide Straights of Gibraltar more than 2000km away as the crow flies. This means the tide behaves more like a lake than the ocean, depth changes being almost imperceptible, and in most cases no more than a few inches between high and low tide.

Croatia’s second largest city is the Port of Split which was around 120km down the road and the next destination for the Travelling Woodies. We found a Harvey parking spot a short distance out of town in the hilltop settlement of Klis from where regular buses depart into town. Klis had a very impressive fortress which we climbed up to the following morning, but before that, we were off to explore Split. The main feature of the central city is Diocletian’s Palace, built in the 4^th century as a retirement home for the so named Roman ruler, and unique in your author’s experience. In plenty of towns there are Roman ruins, often a temple or forum, however this palace had literally been reclaimed by and completely integrated into the city. However rather than being overgrown by plant life, it has reclaimed by the human inhabitants, with many dwellings, gardens and other structures having been constructed within its walls, these days some 3000 people live within. The two most famous features are Diocletian’s octagonal mausoleum which has these days been converted into a church, and a couple of 3500 year old granite sphinxes, one of which is missing its head. We enjoyed a walking tour with a guide called Roko (there was a baby boom following the 1991-95 war and Roko seems to have been a very popular boys name at that time!) followed by our obligatory refreshment thereafter. There was another enormous music festival about to start in town however tempted as we were, Deanna and I had had our fix of festival partying at Zrće so decided to stick with the original plan for our last few days together…

… a plan which involved visiting Dubrovnik! The camp ground we booked was around 25 minutes by bus from the old town so after a day spent lounging by the beach, it was off for our last day of serious exploring with our daughter. The main feature of Dubrovnik is the walls which surround the old city which measure around 2.5km and can easily be circumnavigated on foot. Your author and his lovely wife had visited back in 2016 however it was all new for the youngster so she and Anita went off exploring the walls together, stopping for a much needed thirst-quencher half way along. Your author enjoyed a couple of hours wandering the alleyways and waterfront and also some very important research… you see, the first All Blacks test of the year was being played that evening so, as usual, an Irish pub would be your best option which indeed it turned out to be. But not before our last dinner together! Clever Deanna had done some excellent research and found a Bosnian restaurant which was Michelin rated but still very reasonably priced. This was a new experience for your author, usually the words Michelin Star and affordable don’t go together however here we were in Dubrovnik, our last night for the three of us, and feasting on bbq skewers and other such culinary delights!

We were hugely sad to farewell Deanna yesterday morning as she jumped on a bus to carry on for a couple more weeks backpacking her way through Montenegro and Albania to Greece. It had been such a wonderful time sharing 2 weeks of our adventure with our eldest girl, we all got on so well together and she was delightful company as always. Have a great rest of your trip Deanna, we’ll see you back in New Zealand soon!

So what now for the Travelling Woodies? It’s actually time for us to make the turn for home, although the finish line is thankfully still some distance away. Vilnius in Lithuania was the furthest east we travelled on our earlier northern circuit, and Dubrovnik is the extremity in our southern loop. We’ll stay another couple of days here as Team Pink has a hair appointment in the morning before we’ll head north, back the same way we’ve come for a little distance before heading inland to Plitvice Lakes, Zagreb and then a proper look around Slovenia for a week or two. One feature of this campsite that we like is the handful of cats that hang about awaiting titbits from the table. So far we have named them Smiley, Stumpy, Skittish, Snowy and Stripey with Smiley in particular being the most friendly, often popping into the motorhome, and even up onto the bed, to say gidday.

That’s about it for this edition of Adventures With Harvey - thanks again for keeping us company, we love sharing our adventures with you!

With much love as always from The Travelling Woodies