Cykel genom Kroatien 4

Hello!

We are back in Zadar after three days on the island of Dugi Otok and the national park Kornati. We arrived to Dugi Otok on Thursday morning and spent the day biking from the town of Brbinj to the southern part of this (mountainous) beautiful island. The plan was to book an excursion by boat into the Kornati archipelago on the next day and spend the night on a close by camping site but our plans where thwarted by the fact that no camping site existed (even though our map had a few camping site symbols scattered across the island) and the excursion boats were all full for friday. So we needed to find accommodation and also stay one day extra to go on the excursion on Saturday instead.

We did find an excellent place to stay on a vineyard in the small village of Žman. The place was run by an old man who did not hesitate to offer us his home made akvavit the first thing in the morning after the first night. He did not drink at all himself because of doctors orders, but served us up with some strong alcohol, home grown fresh figs and home made olive oil with bread for breakfast. He would not be satisfied until we all finished our glasses of akvavit. A belgian family of seven were also caught in his hospitality. After this breakfast we needed to sleep a little more, and it was not until after siesta that we set off to explore the island with lightly packed bikes and snorkeling gear. We found a salt lake and a few semi wild donkeys amongst other things.

The next day, Saturday, was finally excursion day! We left the harbor of Sali 09.30 in the morning on a small boat together with four Italians and two Slovenians that also wanted to go exploring this national park archipelago. The day was spent on deck getting some sun, checking the weird rock formations and relaxing. we stopped several times for snorkeling and swimming, and one time at the boat owners sisters house to have grilled fish and home made wine. When we finally returned back to Sali the clock had reached half past six in the evening so we had some dinner at the docks in a spaghetti restaurant. The boat back to Zadar left a few hours later and we where told that they don't accept bikes on the catamarans but we where allowed passage anyway, due to the fact that the boat was almost empty anyway.

Back in Zadar we found a campingsite to spend the night and now here we are. In a few hours a train will take us to the inland city of Knin where, hopefully, we can change trains and go to Split, back to the coast. From there we plan to visit one or two more islands before our flight back to Stockholm on Sunday. Until the next post, good bye!