Today’s distance / 今日の走行距離: 110km
Total distance to date / 今日までの積算距離: 1232.86km (plus 8400km)
Ascent / 上り: +1150m
Descent / 下り: -1085m

More of the same today. More of the same amazing scenery.

A highlight for today was the 9kms or so of Bosina that I cycled through. This coastline is not all Croatian. There still remains a little sprout of Bosnia that you need to go through. There are border controls and everything. Unfortunately I didn’t get a stamp in mz passport. I forgot to ask for one. In general, this 9km stretch didn’ seem as developed as the rest of the Croatian coast. Many more buildings under construction.

It was a long day today. One of those days when I was thinking of the future. Too much of that carry on is bad for the mind, I decided. From mid afternoon onwards I listened to the radio on the small radio thing I got in Istanbul. That kept me going for the rest of the day.

I arrived in Gradac at dusk, and went for a wander along some of the walking tracks, looking for landmines to throw stones at, until I realised that I wouldn’t be able to see them. Probably more effective if I just rolled along the ground on my stomach lengthwise…

I suppose I might as well let the cat out of the bag.

www.villagecamps.ch

I spent most of the day sorting out application forms. All going well I will be a summer camp counsellor this summer in Switzerland, facilitating summer activities for children and teenagers. If there are still places available, and I manage to get one, then I will be spending up to two months there. I heard about Village Camps from an ex-workmate who had worked at Village Camps in the past.
As for what this would mean for the 14degrees Off The Beaten Track journey, it would mean that it would be just part of the adventure as a whole. I’ve always had an interest in outdoor education, and Village Camps would give me a chance to really get to grips with it, and get some proper experience in the area. The 14degrees blog would continue uninterrupted.
Ideally, I would spend one season at Village Camps, and then carry on to England. Once again, I would be cycling in winter. Ugh.

I finally left Dubrovnik at 4pm, and cycled for about 15kms to a small beach, where Nick and his father were fishing for squid. They had been there for 6 hours, and had caught nothing. I must have been the lucky charm, because as soon as I arrived, they caught five squid in a matter of an hour.

I’m not usually very emotional when it comes to fish dying, but squid are a different matter. They just lie there, watching you with their big, knowing eyes. Their skin pulses with brown dots, like miniature arouras, coming and going in gentle waves. The colour however slowly fades as the life in the squid fades. And all the time, those eyes.Those eyes. Watching. Pleading…

Nick seemed happy enough though.

I slept under the eaves of an old building near the beach. A calm night. Nothing stirred except those squid eyes, burned into my mind as I wafted off to sleep.

Today’s distance / 今日の走行距離: 60km
Total distance to date / 今日までの積算距離: 1122.86km (plus 8400km)
Ascent / 上り: +970m
Descent / 下り: -930m

Dumb speedometer. I think the sensor is to blame for the fact that it no longer registers speed. Will try to get a replacement somewhere along the road somewhere…

The ride around the bay of Kotor is really quite pleasant. Rather pleasant indeed. Great Sunday drive stuff. Quaint old towns, quiet marinas…

From the border of Croatia, the road passes through relatively uninspiring inland farmland until it hits the coast. For about 25kms, I was thinking that all the hype about Croatia wasn’t living up to itself. I did however meet the third touring cyclist I have met so far on this journey. Sandra from France is cycling to Mt. Kailash in Tibet. Jolly nice to meet her.

The uninspiring farmland continued. Then I hit the coast.

I almost cycled on past Dubrovnik, due to the fact that I would have to cycle down there, and up to get out. But just as well that I did go down for a look, as the town lives up to its fame as a beautiful old town.

I cycled around through the narrow streets to the amusement of fellow tourists and locals alike, before making a beeline for the coast to find somewhere to sleep. I eventually settled on a quiet spot of stony beach. I found a large plank of discarded wood nearby, and used this as a ‘bunk’.

Quite nice, and slept till morning when I was woken by the sound of a large cruise ship entering the bay.

Today’s distance / 今日の走行距離: 33.67km
Average speed / 平均速度: 5.2km/h
Time on bike / 走行時間: 2h 12m
Total distance to date / 今日までの積算距離: 962.86km (plus 8400km)
Ascent / 上り: +420m
Descent / 下り: -405m

A short blat up and over the small 200m saddle into Kotor, where I spent a few hours at the internet place in the old city.

Toward the end of the day, I cycled out of the city and set up on this small marina for the night. There was not a breath of wind, the bay as smooth as glass. How great it would be to be on a ski behind a boat right now, I thought as I wafted off to sleep.

Today’s distance / 今日の走行距離: 63.42km
Average speed / 平均速度: 12.2km/h
Time on bike / 走行時間: 5h 11m
Total distance to date / 今日までの積算距離: 929.44km (plus 8400km)
Ascent / 上り: +840m
Descent / 下り: -865m

Look Mum! I’m on TV!

This just goes to show that you should always repair your trousers when you have the chance, as I did last night, because you never know when you might get interviewed for the TV news.

The ride from Ulcinj to Budva was amazing, as is the whole coast here. Just spectacular. I never expected it to be this dramatic. Massive rocky outcrops (like, outcropping to 1,500m high) drop down to the crystal clear water of the Adriatic, leaving people to build where ever they can. Below is Sveti Stefen. That one took me by surprise.

Churches and monasteries built where ever land was flat enough to allow.

Old olive plantations in Bar had trees up to 2,000 years old.

Now, as I was innocently cycling along, trying to keep my jaw from dropping on the ground due to the magnificent scenery, I was called over to the side of the road by a guy washing his car. He spoke good English, and was impressed with my journey and mode of transport.

“Can you wait for a while here? I have a friend from the TV news who would like to speak to you.” he said, while stabbing his mobile phone, dailing his TV news friend.

Fifteen minutes later, Dado, an announcer on the news, arrived with his cameraman. We arranged to meet in Budva, an amazing small town with an enchanting old section of the town meticulously upkept.

Many many thanks to Dado, who, after hearing that I wanted to stay a night in Budva, offered for me to stay at his place. We did the interview (you can watch it by clicking on the small image at the top of this post), and we arranged to meet up again after he had finished work.

This gave me a chance to have a wander around the old town. The streets are narrow, the tops of buildings, if any higher, seem as though they would meet.

Basically, the coast of Montenegro has taken me totally by surprise. I had been expecting great things from the coast of Croatia, and Montenegro was just another country to pass through to get there. But what a place. A rather well hidden secret.

After work, Dado and I drove to Kotor, a little further along the coast. Kotor is even more impressive than Budva. A massive fiord (the biggest in Europe, apparently - yes, even bigger than any of the fiords in Norway) creates a massive bay, with rocky peaks towering over the town.

Man, if Croatia is supposed to be the most impressive coastline in Europe, then it must be something out of this world.

Don’t ask me how to pronounce that town name. Beats me.

Ulcinj is a small but bustling town of 25,000 inhabitants. The local internet cafe is only 1 Euro per hour. Much cheaper than Greece, where in places you’d pay up to 3 Euro per hour.

I was up early as usual, and headed into town to find the internet cafe. I found it soon enough, but it wasn’t open until 9am. I sat the adjacent cafe for an hour, contemplating the absurdity of the espresso coffee I ordered. I mean, there can’t have been more than 20ml of coffee in it. I didn’t actually know what an espresso was. The waiter said “Espresso?” and me not knowing any better just said “Yes thanks.”

I mean, what on earth is an espresso for? What does it do? You can hardly take your time drinking it. Which is what I had intended on doing, waiting for the internet cafe to open. Enough to put in your eye, this espresso stuff is.

I think I’ll stick to the hot chocolate next time. The plan from here is to head towards Croatia along the Adriatic Coast. I am looking forward to the coast of Croatia. I have heard very good things about it…

Today’s distance / 今日の走行距離: 104.42km
Average speed / 平均速度: 13.8km/h
Time on bike / 走行時間: 7h 32m
Total distance to date / 今日までの積算距離: 844.97km (plus 8400km)
Ascent / 上り: +415m
Descent / 下り: -360m

Another day, another country.

The side wind was fierce this morning. I battled it while trying not to be pushed into traffic. The non-existent paved shoulder didn’t help. The surroundings were open and bare, the road straighter than I have seen for a long time.

Albanian drivers seem to be a fairly nervous lot. They will give cyclists and motorcycles a toot before overtaking. Perhaps bad driving is expected, therefore they want to make sure the bad driver cyclist knows that they are coming.

I arrived in Shkoder, a dirty, dusty city near the border of Montenegro at noon. The roads in Shkoder are something out of a serious third world city. Litter lines the streets, buildings are in disarray. I sought asylum from the madness in Hotel American, a small Bar/Restaurant/Hotel. Inside the restaurant were two customers who spoke good English. One had lived in the US for 10 years before being kicked out after 9/11, and the other has been living in England for 10 years.

They helped me order some food. Rice, yoghurt, and a beef soup goop that was like a runny version of the filling of a good Jimmy’s Pie. The hotel owner then insisted that I take a shower at the hotel and have a rest for a few hours, at no cost to me! A big thank you to the owners of the American Hotel in Shkoder.

After a solid nap in a comfy hotel bed, I was on the road again to Montenegro. The border crossing was straight forward. The first thing I noticed once in Montenegro was the amount of trees everywhere. It was a quiet rural area, with folks just going about their business at their own pace. This was in start contrast to Albania where everything is hustle bustle. Everyone wanting to get in on the development. Montenegro takes a step back, and people seem to be content with their lot.

I do see fewer smiles here however. There seems to be a tough skin on people’s faces, and a suspicion of strangers. People will stare at me and my bike (as always), but when I wave in reply to their stares, often I will get a look of surprise, or no reaction at all.

Ulcinj is a coastal town, so I headed for the beach for a spot to sleep for the night. I found a spot in front of a beachside summer cafe, and slept soundly until 12:30am, when a security guard doing the rounds woke me up and told me to get on my way.

“No sleeping here.” he said.

Nice enough guy, and he led me to another, more dilapidated cafe, a few hundred metres away. I slept OK, apart from the sound of some form of rodent scratching at something wooden not far away…

Today’s distance / 今日の走行距離: 177.16km
Average speed / 平均速度: 19.0km/h
Time on bike / 走行時間: 9h 18m
Total distance to date / 今日までの積算距離: 740.59km (plus 8400km)
Ascent / 上り: +515m
Descent / 下り: -840m

A new distance record for me. The same strong tailwind that I have been enjoying for the past four days continued to blow hard. A generally downhill morning and flat afternoon helped also.

The internal conflict scars all too evident throughout the country. This bunker was near Elbasan.

The road from Elbasan to Durres snakes through rocky mountains. The road is smooth, and the traffic light. An absence of a shoulder makes a cyclist uneasy however, as most of the Albanian drivers seem to have only received their drivers’ license recently. Much less room is given, certainly less than in Greece.

In general, Albania is an ecological disaster zone. Truck loads of garbage is dumped into rivers, due to an apparent mindset that says that a good high water will wash it all away. The thing is that often the river is so clogged up that water flow is non-existent. The photo below shows one of the tamer situations in Durres.

Towards the end of the day, the road changed direction, so that I was now cycling against a strong side wind. The road passed through a very flat, open part of the country, with few options for sleeping spots. I asked at a hotel how much they charged for a room. 20 Euros. I was tempted, since it was still very windy. But sleeping in a hotel on your own is no fun. I carried on into the dusk.

In the end, under cover of darkness, I pushed the bike into a field, and found shelter from the wind behind some thick boysenberry bushes. I slept like a log, shattered after the long day, hoping and praying that the wind wouldn’t bring rain through the night.

What’s going on here? Another 100km plus day ends in Albania, pushed on by the wonderful gusty tailwind. I can’t comment much on Macedonia. I was only there for a day, and didn’t bother changing any money, since I had all the food I needed.

This was one of the few photos I took in the country.

The border into Albania is at altitude 1,000m. It was a stiff climb up to the border, but getting through was not an issue. As per the information I had gathered, a 10 Euro entrance tax is required, and a receipt is issued.

The descent down into Albania is impressive. Remains from conflict all too evident.

These little shelters were all over the border area, and can be seen throughout most of the country along the road.

The road descends steeply through a deep valley, flanked by massive mountains. It reminded me of Tajikistan, on a smaller scale.

I stopped in a small town near the border and had my first Albanian food. A warm fresh pastry with an onion filling. Cheap and nasty, but good enough. The locals in the cafe were a hospitable enough lot however. It was tough not to know the language, and conversation was limited.

Afterwards, I continued on down the road looking out for a spot to sleep. The pickings were thin, until I spied some scrap metal near the railway tracks, up from the road. I pushed the bike up the slope to the tracks and set up. A perfect place to spend the night, out of the still very strong wind.

I was too tired to play with the Coffee Can Stove Mark 2, so I cooked up some food with Malcolm’s MSR stove, and went to sleep, the wind lapping at the steel walls of my shelter.

The strong tailwinds and flat(ish) roads continued today, with over 120kms logged. So much for the continental winds blowing from west to east.

Apparently Greece has not caught up on the latest developments in country names and borders. Yugoslavia does not exist any more. It is now three different countries. Macedonia, Serbia, and Montenegro.

I spent a good part of the day pondering over how I could improve my Coffee Can Stove. A discarded piece of bumper grill on the side of the road gave me a brain wave. The stove now has a grill, raising the embers off the base of the stove, improving air flow.

The grill is expanded aluminium. I figured that the heat of the stove might melt the aluminium, so I picked up a convenient piece of steel mesh further along the road to put on top of the grill to provide some protection from the heat, making it a two layered grill.

The idea was that the steel mesh on its own would not be strong enough to support the wood. The expanded aluminuim would provide some support.

The grill is supported by tabs cut in near the base of the can.

The main base air intake has been made larger also, as has the exhaust hole at the top of the can.

The end result was that it burned better than the Mark 1 stove, but the steel mesh over the aluminium grill clogged up with ash too easily, choking the stove. I still managed to make pasta and a tomato sauce on it in about 1 hour, but I think that the aluminium grill on its own will work better, and may even hold up to the heat without melting.

My pot by the way is now very black. Apparently if you put detergent on the outside of the pot before you use it, the tar and soot cleans off easier.

I was sleeping in a small pine forest, so there was plenty of small dry pine cones for fuel.

It was a late start to the day, leaving Nasta’s place at around 10am. The winds however were blowing in my favour. A stiff tailwind and a light bike propelled me more than 100km, to an under construction overpass near Edessa. I continued to sense the change in the seasons, cycling past orchards in full bloom.

It was just before the under construction overpass that I had my most frightening experience with dogs. I spied what I thought was a small side road, running parallel to the main road. Being the ’side road lover’ that I am, I headed for it via a dirt road running through an orchard.

Just as I came up to a rise in the road, a dog started barking. A second later, the barks of four other dogs. The pack came over the rise towards me, inching closer, barking threateningly. I yelled back at them, but they continued to come towards me. I was too petrified to turn the bike around and run, and soon the dogs were right at my feet.

One snapped at my leg, ripping my trousers. I stood up, dropping the bike and grabbing the neck of the dog that snapped at me. I snatched my water bottle from the bike, and was about to try squirting the dogs with water, when a farmer came running up over the rise, hearing my frantic shouts. One short snap at the dogs, and the farmer had the dogs backing away.

I stood there shaking, blabbering that I wanted to get to the road. The farmer was not impressed, and waved me to go. As I was leaving I noticed that the ‘road’ I was intent on getting to was in fact the railway. I felt like an idiot. It appears that I was on his land, so I guess I was asking for it.

Once under the overpass, I had my first opportunity to try out my Coffee Can stove. With the roads so smooth and so easy these days, I need something to think about during the day. The Coffee Can Stove was it.

The Mark 1 version went OK. I managed to cook some pasta and soup in 1 and a half hours. It needs some serious improvements in the air intake and outlet areas. The stove runs on any kind of solid fuel. If I can get the stove to work well, then I could save up to 1kg over the MSR Whisperlight liquid fuel stove I have.

The bottom photo is with me blowing into the air intake at the bottom of the stove. Expect some improvements to follow.