But now I realise that I'm really no better at booking things. Here's how I decided we should get to Croatia. Day 1: train from Texel in the north of the Netherlands to Amsterdam. Day 2: train from Amsterdam to Cologne, Germany. Train to airport. Fly from Cologne to Dubrovnik. Fourteen hours. Nicole's phone number is now on my speed dial.
We had arranged for Tony, the owner of our hostel, to pick us up from the airport, but he had forgotten this minor detail and we instead had to sidle over to the first cab lined up in the rank: a Mercedes with a hyperactive meter and a driver whose concern for the sheer drops off nearby cliff faces was under-developed. When we arrived at the hostel, Tony was half cut and offering us home-made wine and entertaining his guests. Nackered - we started in Amsterdam at some ungodly hour that morning - we opted for the bed.
So far, so bad, but the next day we hit the streets and quickly developed "beautiful thing-itis" - the assault on the senses from beautiful things that makes you completely unable to really appreciate them. Look at this:
We swam most days, ate lots of seafood, took Tony up on his offer of home-made wine one night, and ventured out to a nearby island, Lokrum. Bizarrely, there is a botanical garden on the island with a range of familiar species, including a eucalyptus named after me:
Firstly, we went to Montenegro, a lighting tour of three or four key places, including the world's most ridiculous mountain pass that featured 25 hair-pin turns on a narrow road up a very large mountain. We stopped on the top of the mountain to eat salted pig and home-made cheese and drink more home-made wine, and to buy postcards that captured the full horror of the trail that we'd just completed. Unfortunately, I haven't got any decent photos of this part of the journey; all of them are blurred, either by my unsteady hand as I peered down 2km into the valley below, or by cloud and rain, which made the ride all the more pleasant. This photo is from Kotor, which had a nice walled old town and a bewildering array of shoe shops:
On this trip, we met two people from Melbourne who knew Bron's Mum from her days as a head honcho of the Eltham Revolutionary Freedom Fighter's Brigade aka Nillumbik Council. Actually, most of Australia was in Croatia while we were there; I seem to recall Christina Rowntree crapping on about the place on Getaway before we left, so that probably explains some of the influx.
The next day, we were up early again to visit Bosnia and Hercegovina. The trip was really just a dash to the town of Mostar and back, but that was enough for me. I have wanted to see the Old Bridge in Mostar since forever and it didn't let me down:
It was very hot in Mostar though - piercing sun and no breeze at all. But there was plenty of interpretive art on the sides of the buildings, made from the barrels of an AK-47s. The scars of the war are still well and truly on display.
And at night:
On my birthday, we went up to a restaurant overlooking the main square in town. It soon emerged that Croatia and Germany were duking it out in the Euro Cup soccer. It was a tense encounter, but the Croats prevailed and then the locals of Hvar proceeded to unleash half of the world's supply of maritime flares into the sky...and I thought this stuff only happened when ethnic violence erupted at soccer games in Sydney and Melbourne.
It all went too fast and soon we were spending hours in internet cafes sending our CVs to recruiters in London, in between going to the beach and eating very cheap gelati.
Well, this is the emotional last paragraph where I attempt to sum up life on the road after four months. Here goes: I missed reading the newspaper on the day it was printed. I could no longer stand internet cafes, loud Americans looking to get "like, uh, totally wasted", doing currency conversions and having those "where have you been, we are you going" ice-breaker conversations. But we saw some truly amazing sights and despite dwindling finances and energy levels, had a blast.
