Gretings from Sibenik

The Great Lakes Hotel in Plitvicka National Park  was excellent, big airy rooms and anyone who actually volunteers to wash Harley’s cycling shorts will always get my vote. Added to which, our hostess had gone to the trouble of making us sandwiches for our journey.

Grand Lakes, excellnt place to stay

 We left at 8 AM, a cold grey morning and  headed south for the coast touching the Bosnian boarder. The scenery in this country is spectacular; mountain ranges dissolving into mighty forests and then on into wide open planes dotted with small villages and farming communities. Just by a field full of derelict T72 tanks the sun burst through and it became excellent cycling weather. The climbing we had done the previous day and continued with this morning, paid off as proximity to the coast meant a glorious descent off the mountains, ten miles of long sweeping downhill hairpins in bright sunshine – the perfect cycling experience.

This really is a wonderful country

Stopped for coffee in the little quiet town of Kornica at which point Graham began to negotiate for the use of the team bandage to protect his arm from sunburn. Now you have to understand the team bandage has remained unused on our travels from the north of Scotland to Sicily and by common consent, requires a special kind of injury to justify unwrapping and use. After careful deliberation, the National Institute of Clinical Excellence determined that the use of the team bandage was not in fact justified as evidence of real injury had to be shown and that Graham should continue with the suntan lotion like everyone else. Graham fashioned an interesting alternative comprising toilet paper and string.

By the way, today’s BREXIT arguments for leaving seen to centre on the ideas that the EU restricts the UK’s “right to choose” even though the referendum itself seems to represent a pretty fundamental preservation of this right and some guff about EU trade deals taking too long to negotiate. On the remain side the main theme was around the importance making the world a better, more reasonable place and as the UK is in point of fact, not a super power, its probably better to work with others to improve the lot of mankind rather than pretend we can still attempt it alone. Maintaining unrestricted access to French cheese also seems a key issue.
Lunch in at a road side cafe outside Gracac, a place that gave one the impression that the last time they had had to serve 5 people at the same time for lunch was the late 1970s and then onto long straight roads taking us down towards the coast. Ice creams from a suprmarket, consumed under the watchful gaze of some garden gnomes and then got to the Life Palace hotel in Sebenik on the coast about 6.

Sebenik

Today’s stats. 115 miles (185 km) 6,000 ft climbing Average 15.3 mph (24 kph)

Keep you posted

GPX file of today's route  Plitvice Lakes to Sibenik