Cavtat to Karlobag
Morning, all. Better day. The ridiculous spots by now are going and the itching has now gone.
Opening of the doors we're greeted by this miffed chap.
Settling up time and the owner of the apartment gives a discount for coming back, most welcome. So the unexpected windfall is spent by having breakfast by the bay.
Heading along the coast again taking the main road around Dubrovnik, crossing the bridge North and you can see one of the tubs that brings so many of the visiting tourists.
Passenger has had too much coffee (again) so I'm left at the roadside whilst facilities are located. Sun is out. Raining at home. Not exactly a hardship.
A good morning to ride and not much traffic about.
A number of trikes on the coast road and there are a few animated waves in our direction. The mind wanders and gets me thinking- do trike riders wave at other three wheeled variants such as Piaggio Apes, Reliant Regals, or those little blue disabled cars you used to see parked behind the goal at Stamford Bridge on The Big Match in the late seventies? Ah, such mysteries of life.
Some excellent views of the coastal landscape to be seen from the road.
The road climbs up into a hilly section before you're presented with a large lowland area where you can veer off to some seriously interesting places..
Part of the new road is picked up to link up to the motorway. Not long after 9am here. Rush hour is what I would term as 'light'
Not much traffic to appreciate all of the engineering gone into this little lot.
We've decided we want to make a decent move North today so we'll have to do some mile munching.
The main A1 isn't finished this far South yet so the new link ends abruptly although you can see the construction work going on in the hills, again things look quite impressive from a distance. Anyhow, once this is complete that'll get you to the town of Ploče a fair bit quicker.
Pictures of road signs are on special offer today, buy one, get one free, so have another one at no extra charge.
Eventually the A1 is found and we're heading North. A quick stop on the hard shoulder for a snap of the 50k miles being up on the bike. Marvellous. Here's to the next 50k. The old girl has done fantastically really and had a very hard year, but I've a lot of work to do if I want to catch some of those with proper miles on..
A break and a fill up at the services and more hum drum miles of motorway tarmac.
Some time later we've done alright. Miles made up. We're bored with the Motorway now. So we head off again to the coast, bung the bike in the shade and have an Ice Cream.
Continuing along the coast we head into Zadar. Accommodation seemed pricey and (outside the old town I should say) we saw nothing at all special to draw us. We thought a decent opportunity to cover a few more miles so we decided to keep on going Northwards. We decided to check out the Island of Pag to the North East of us, and we could perhaps stop somewhere there, or take the ferry back to the mainland, who knows. So off we shot.
We saw a bit of traffic, plus some bloke on a GSXR who came past on a mission in flip flops. Of course, it'd be no match for a well ridden GS in flip flops.
Pag is a curious place. For some reason that I read and can't properly remember there's hardly any vegetation on the Eastern side of the Island; just a barren, lunar landscape and very odd considering you can see the green-ish mainland not far away. Its something to do with the winds around here
The pictures I thought would be great from my camera phone turned out a bit odd. I think it’s another piece of technology that I've successfully ruined in the last twelve months. Reminder: never lend me anything with a battery, I won't aim to break it, but I probably will.
Here's one of Pag from my point and shoot camera; not great I suppose but you can get a sense of the variance between island and mainland over the back.
Weather getting a bit dodgy on this side of the Island and over the mainland up in the hills there.
But over on the other side of the island, completely different, sort of like this different..
We don't find anything in Pag either that tickles our fancy to stay at, so we think with it only being before 3pm we can go a fair but further; so we’ll take the ferry and carry on. Hopefully the weather will hold.
As we approach the ferry from the West, well, things didn't look great. Ah.
And by the time we've bought a ticket and are wobbling onto the deck it is raining and raining hard. No shelter at all on the boat, save from under a staircase by a crew door so we squeeze into the gap with a couple of backpackers and a german couple on matching Aprilia Tounos. How very sociable.
My failing tech caught this picture, somehow it's very appropriate.
The wind picks up too now. And the ferry is wobbling about now, so the German chap has to go and stand in the rain to stop his bikes from falling over, he doesn't look very happy as you might expect.
Off of the Ferry and about 10k south is the town of Karlobag, visited before and with a known little hotel. It wasn't an intention to go back, but the weather is awful and the pillon view is 'Had enough, want to warm up and get a shower'. Can't argue so that's where we head to. Room sourced for 50 Euros, bike stuck under a canopy and we hot foot up to a room and drying duties.
By the time we get sorted and come back to sort outside the weather has completely changed. It's nice; the cobbles are drying and the hotel staff are laying tables outside for dinner. So the evening is salvaged to some degree as the local inside dining opportunities looked a bit limited.
A taste of Pag: Pag cheese, which was very pleasant and not unlike an 'English' cheese. And a beer of course because it’s the law
We're peckish, so conclude some Dalmatian ham can be enjoyed. And enjoyed it was, very tasty, outscoring the cheese on a points decision.
And then the mixed grill arrives. That's when the trouble starts. There's only two of us, you see. Whilst it is fair to say we can eat, we’re not expecting a Wallace Arnold coach party to join us and come and get stuck in.
And then the steak arrives, served on a wheelbarrow sized portion of chips.
We had to surrender. Can't recall encountering that much food for quite a while..
A walk was needed to get rid of the vast amounts that we did manage to get through, offering another view of a pretty Adriatic evening.
Another view to Pag.
Where did the clouds go? Incredible.
Night night.
Not forgetting
Beer of the Day: Velibitsko. No classic to my taste but something a bit different to the other Croatian brews.
If you've the chance to get here it is worth the effort- this really is a great part of the world; so many differences, so many interesting places in such short reach of eachother. 
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