The many errors of our way through Croatia

If I have learnt anything in Croatia it’s that I have a rather vivid and overactive imagination that seems to hinder rather than help in all sorts of situations:

1. Portion control

Getting enough food has been a bit of a challenge on our trip. One evening I fretted that I hadn’t bought us enough food and that we would surely starve and not make it through the night, before proceeding to try to feed us enough pasta for two families of 4 in a single sitting.

2. Finding campsite entrances

We would have arrived nice and early to our rest day campsite as we entered Croatia, but instead we somehow managed to bypass the main entrance and spent unfathomable amount time going round and round the campsite trying to find reception, at one point going past a deserted supermarket which had been completely been taken over by… cats? 

3. Befriending the wildlife

After sharing my lunch with a seagull who disowned me very promptly when I finished eating, I should have learnt my lesson, but I can’t resist a cat, and don’t they just know it. After I said hello to a rather friendly tabby, it followed us back to our tent, tried to kill the blackbirds and give us ticks (lucky didn’t suceed). Ben, who is more than a little allergic, was outraged and banned me from befriending any more wildlife. The cat continued to sense my weakness and follow me around the campsite for the rest of the day and into the night, it’s eyes reflecting in my headtorch, and I continued to remain very much in Ben’s bad books.

4. Not checking sell by dates

I spent several euro on unintentionally mouldy brie!

5. Feeding Ben… cat food?

In my defence I have barely eaten fish let alone bought it. Despite this, Ben entrusted me to buy him a tin of tuna. The first time was a success. The second time… wasn’t. Perhaps it was subconscious revenge for not being allowed to befriend any members of Croatia’s feline population, but in a slightly dehydrated supermarket daze I picked something up labeled “classic tuna”. I had the sense something wasn’t quite right and only bought the one tin which was good as there was nothing classic about it. Ben prodded the pink gelatunous substance for a while before concluding it was just about fit for human consumption. After some googling we think that particular product wasn’t aimed at cats, but we will never be sure. 

6. Believing we could get to (maybe) Australia only shopping at Lidl

Yes, I know I should be far more adventurous AND support local businesses, but after a long day cycling I want to be able to get the food we need for the next 24 hours without using my brain to process an unfamiliar and complex food shopping situation – and that has meant opting to shop at lidl where ever the opportunity arises. This is a fine strategy in Germany, not so much the further away from Germany you go.

7. Checking off season opening times

The usual campsite mishaps have of course continued: there have been the campsites that didn’t exist followed by the ones we wished hadn’t. After discovering the campsite I’d picked for the night had essentially been abandoned I couldn’t believe our luck when I found a campsite with a 4.9 star google review 12km away.

When we arrived an older women on crutches spoke to us entirely in German and showed us to a toilet block which could have had a starring role in a channel 5 documentary about hoarding. Something wasn’t quite right. It transpired that I, for reasons no one will ever quite understand had read the reviews for one campsite and inexplicably sent Ben the link for the one next door whose reviews told tales of a slightly racist owner who will call the police on you if you fail to let them over charge you. It also transpired, again for reasons no one will ever quite understand, that Ben was fully aware that there were 2 campsites, but trusted that there was sound logic for me directing us to the more dubious looking of the pair.

We tried to find out the price for the night but all we managed to obtain was the wifi password and something we thought vaguely translated as pay my husband, who speaks english, when he’s back from his fishing trip. When her husband finally did return he bid us auf wiedersehen and the couple proceeded to have a heated discussion which we hoped wasn’t on our account. I’ve never seen the film Misery but as I lay in my bed that night I did start to wonder whether this was how it began. In the morning the woman’s husband left for yet more fishing, and we decided to pay up what ever sum was demanded (a lot for what it was, but on par with the rest of Croatia) and get out of there sharpish.

8. Falling prey to my own imagination 

Given we’ve seen far more snakes (not as illustrated in the photo above…) in various stages of being flattened to the tarmac than we have living, my rational brain suspects that we are much more of a threat to snakes than they are to us. My irrational brain was however a lot louder when we started to see rather large ones glide across the gravel paths, telling me that they prey on weary cyclists who have taken a tumble in the loose gravel, which is exactly what I proceeded to do. Ben tells me I lay on my back with my arms and legs in the air insisting that I must get up that instant, or the imaginary snakes that were encircling me would surely eat me. Any snakes which had been in the vicinity were of course long gone or watching on in a bemused fashion.

9. Doing a “whoopsie”

After a particularly relentless day of cycling, I emerged from the supermarket for Ben to tell me he’d done a whoopsie. Okay, I thought, he’s shat himself. Not ideal I thought, but sorted easily enough. But no! It turns out it’s not always me who makes the campsite errors. Ben had discovered our lakeside campsite for the night didn’t open until 1st May. It was 6pm on 27th April – so a bit of a wait. It took us about 30 seconds to decide to replot our route to the ferry terminal and sprint for the 7.30pm boat to the Pelješac penisular, where we were haunted by the unnerving sound of jackals whilst we did our best to not piss off the other campsite residents by pitching our tent and cooking dinner in the dark.

10. Pitching our tent on an ants nest

Admittedly – given this was done in the dark on quite a rocky campsite anything is an achievement, but breakfast was an interesting experience.