3 Weeks 5138km to Bosnia and Back

[Irishdude]

The next day we got up bright and early and left split about 12ish.
Headed down the coast a bit more towards Markarska stopped there for a bite to eat and met some people from the rafting.

After a bite to eat we headed inland towards Mostar, I have friends from there so I was lookin forward to it .
So much so I was drivin fast thru all the twisty roads in the mountains and I feckin fell in a hairpin bend.

I drove too fast into a bend touched the breaks the bike went up straight so I jammed on ,abs kicked in and I stopped on the other side of the road next to a 1m by 1m by 1 m hole in the ground for drainage and when the bike stopped I was leaning away from this hole and then I fell hehe.
here is the bastard bend

All that was damaged was a loose mirror. And by the way it was feckin hot on that road.An old couple saw me fall and stopped the car instead of running over me and asked if I was ok, I said yes even though I was a bit pissed of with meself for lettin that happen hehe.

Made it to Mostar, woohoo and in one peice.

Still a few buildings fecked up from that feckin war

But they fixed the old bridge ( StariMost )

 

[Aidan1150]

Great craic. Any more??

 

[Irishdude]

When we arrived in Mostar rode straight to a mate of a mates Bar, and asked if he knew of a good hotel, it was too warm for the tent .
He got on the phone and got us a place two rooms with parking in the building for one night for 25 each, great just what we need after all the road excitement falling and all.
This wasn't the hotel

Had me dinner down there where it was cool

A big sign telling how dangerous the building is and what ever ye do don't park there and so on

Was amazed by this bar in a cave, it was quiet big

The next day we asked the pretty girl at reception where we can get access to internet she said here and let us use her PC.

I love the Bosnians they are great
And here we are on the way to Sarajevo,

 

[Irishdude]

Not too far from Sarajevo

There where loads of these road side places with sheep on a spit and me mate kept saying stop here so we can eat but his mic was broke so I did'nt hear him and kept goin till I got hungry and stopped .

A nice cup of Bosnian coffee not Turkish Coffee as we where reminded by a waiter in Bosnia,

a sheepstickal

Had to drag him away and tell him to wait for the waiter to serve us

Thats the place there somewhere between Mostar and Sarajevo

I was given directions to a place where I should find a hotel with parking from a mate from Sarajevo.

So we rode to the Seblje or something like that its famous in Sarajevo

 

[Irishdude]

More Sarajevo cool city

This church has a funny something about it , A bosnian mate told me that if you look at the hand of Jesus statue he is makin the Serbian sign with his 3 fingers.But ofcourse that church was there long before people gave a shit over which part of Jugoslavia ye can from.

 

[Mr K]

This is compulsive reading.

Excellent!

 

[Irishdude]

Still in Sarajevo,
Drinkin some local beer.

Forgot to mention the border crossing into Bosnia,At the border we where stopped by the Croatian dude at the border he looked at the bikes and said goahead, we said thanks and started to drive thru, but of course there was also the Bosnian side , I kept drivin and in me mirror I saw some dude waving me back, me mate stopped , I turned around went back said sorry and showed hime me passport, said in Bosnian that I was from Ireland and how's it goin and all that in bosnian, and yerman said ok go ahead,
But me mate was asked by the more angry of the two for a green card for his bike, showed him the registration papers but he said no no no green card, me mate goes no no no green card and yerman said yes yes yes shoutin green card green card, I was sayin keep smiling and if they give ye shit we go to other border crossing.
Ye see the night before we met an aussie that was the day before at this same border crossing ,and he too was asked for a green card but didn't have one or even know what it was for so he had to pay 20 euros and then they told him to go and he didn't even get a green card,
The two guards had a small chat and then told us to go even though we didn't have any green cards.

ok more Sarajevo
Them there kids love there pigeons.

What a name for a bar.

Here is where we stopped when we got to Sarajevo and as soon as I stopped some dude asked me , parking? appartemani? I said yes both.

So he points me into the parking building with a lift to the 2nd floor, we Parked the bikes in a parking spot and right next to it was a brown door and that was the appartment, I thought that was feckin handy so we got 2 appartments.
View from me mates appartment.

 

[Irishdude]

In the restuarant they had a sign posters for sale , but when we asked for one they where all sold out.

A symbol of how the city felt during the feckin war.

A symbol of how we felt after a night of drinkin Sarajevsko beer.

We meet this American all dressed up in Uniform with what looked like two local gangsters who turned out also to be american in civi clothes.
We asked him was his clothes still wet from the wash that he had to wear his uniform and the others didn't. He laughed and said no he thought it might help him get some local pussy.
When the officer and a gentleman went to the bog the waiter asked me to let him try the hat so I gave him the hat and took a foto.

took me ages to remember that.

The next day all fit and rarin to go.

 

[Irishdude]

Somewhere between Sarajevo and BanjaLuka.

There was loads of this

with loads of this , buildings in wreak and ruin.

awwwww

bleedin knackered from all the drinkin.

this was near Jajce

 

[Irishdude]

And then the road got really interesting,
we entered a big canyon road nr16.

And after a long ride thru up and down the canyon we found.

 

[Irishdude]

The very next day all freesh and ready to roll.

Stopping only for refreshments or coffee inanyway.

Here the roads turned from normal shite to really not quiet finished shite,
all gravel and holes.

It was like goin off road but being still on a road of sorts.

Found this but it didn't fit in me tank bag.

For those that can read hrvatski

He wouldn't have done that a few years ago.

 

[Irishdude]

At this point we drove a bit further and got to the middle of nowhere and took a turn off the main road on to a gravel type road.

and from here we found what used to be a path leading to a field where we camped rough.

A bit of a gradient but we where too tired to give a shit

two fields further it was still

There was no bars or women so we had to make our own entertainment by takin fotos of the sky and flowers and stuff.

at four in the morning we where woken by something near the tents,
Dude are ye awake me in my tent Yeah I'm awake, whats that out there ..
Don't know might be a ghost ...I'll go take a look... there was nothin but the stars at night where bloody great to see.
We also heard the odd car drivin up and down the gravel road and at 5 in the mornin one stopped not far from us, the door opened and we could hear heavy metal Music Yugo style, he must have stopped for a piss cause then car door closed music went quiet and off he drove.
Woke up to see this

 

[Irishdude]

Driving down the road a few hours waitin for somewhere to open so we could get a bite to eat we came across this, funny name for the feckin war.

Talk about recycling

we had crossed the border at some point at Bosanski Novi that was earlier before this display of Homeland displacement robbery and murder.
And after a long ole ride we crossed the border again at Metlika into Slovenia
and headed all the way up to a place called Bled

 

[Invicta Moto]

Excellent write-up and superb pix.

 

[Irishdude]

After driving for a bit we came across a toll road gate that was open, we thought cool it must be free on Sunday, thats if it was Sunday we couldn't really tell.
The next toll gate had a dude sitting behind a window I went to pay and he asked me for a vinjeta or something like that ,I said yes I want to pay he looked all puzzeled and asked again for a vinjeta, So I said do I pay here, He just looked at me and opened the gate and off we drove, at the next petrol station I saw a lod of bikes with little orange stickers, I asked the dudes what was that for , He said that that was a vinjeta and that they don't have toll anymore but you do have to buy one of these to use the motorway, and if you are caught without one on the motorway you get a 300 euro fine,
We thought feck that I'm not gettin one of those, the feckers here get EU money to build the feckin roads and they want to charge us for using them the bastards.
SO, we left the motorway and took to the small roads again which was way better than payin that crap or worse still getting caught.
At the camping at Bled we meet an English couple that just had their bike converted a while ago.

Lovely people

At the camping we set our tents up next to a tent with two bikini's hanging up out side... but it two for the one girl and she was with her fella, an American, she was english.

The camping was next to this lake

View from the Castle on the Hill

 

[Irishdude]

The next day we headed into Austria

Looks like me mate was here before.

On the road

When we got a bit tired we saw this so we stopped

They had a view and a bar

In the bar we met a Danish couple. Good laugh with them.

 

[casperghst42]

Hello there
Just thought I'd share a few fotos of the big trip me mate and meself made to Bosnia and back.
I'm from Dublin Ireland and me mate is from Townsville Australia and we workin in Rotterdam.
Thats us there

That look very much like one of the 1150's which blasted past me on the A15 west sometime ago These 1150's are fast

Casper

 

[Irishdude]

The hotel owner had a bike

He had some deal with KTM where he would get a demo bike to play with for a while every month or so, and if ye wanted you could get a go on it.

Here is me mate showing us the tape he used to stick to the hairs on the back of his neck, also to hold the crappy intercom cables in place.

At this point it didn't feel like we were heading home but more like the begining of a new holiday.

Stopped for a bit to eat at a brewery but didn't have any beer cause we were still on the road.

Germany

Went camping next to a lovely lake with a shit load of lovely bastard mosquitos.I got one bite for every border I crossed on the trip and a few more.

Got talking to two young girlies that where frollicing in the water in front of us .A bit young but old enough to bleed old enough to slaughter, But they had to go home or else their mothers would kill them, so nothin happened.

Nice lake, but them bloody mosquito's

We lit a fire to keep the bastards away and drank loads to make sure.

Next mornin the feckin mosquito's were back in force so packin was done quickly and sharpishly and we where out of there

 

[Irishdude]

On the road again came across a town with a funny name Pornbach

Notice how its gettin greyer the closer to home we get

We stopped for a bite to eat and since we where here we used this chance to buy some clean socks and jocks because all was dirty and beond safe use.
The last laundry we found was in split ages ago.

Startin to look a bit like how bikers are ment to look or somethin like that.

 

[Irishdude]

Fuel prices in Germany
petrol petrol petrol diesel

Here we stopped to ask directions, and since we where here we ordered a pizza.

They had no seating so the dudes that worked there found a table out the back grabbed two chairs from the office and put them out front for us .

after that food we rode on to Heidelberg

But we got there late just as all the girlies where going home to bed without us.

Early motorbike where you where the motor

me brothers place

Tourist boat

there is some sign makin a monkeys arse of itself