27 July 2025 (sunny and warm morning, then hot in arvo) 25km

It was 7am when I heard the church clock chime and then go mental for a couple of minutes. It is Sunday after all and God obviously wants all these good Roman Catholics up and at it.

He must have missed the gig on the lakefront last night. More likely, he doesn't get tired. You'd think he would since he knows and hears everything that's going on. That would be very tiring. 

Needed another shower to wake me up properly this morning. Julia was still sleeping soundly, so I crept out. Just the job.

Had something to eat and then packed up in the warm and getting hot sunshine. Strange to think that yesterday morning in the mountains was pouring.

Headed off around the lake, after chatting with the Dutchies. Didn't get far when I suggested a swim.

Yes...you heard it right..it was I.

No complaints from Julia, and it was beautiful. Just the ticket before we had to jump on the busy main road.  It required all our attention with cars passing in crazy situations and motorbikes absolutely screwing it, especially on the bends, leaning over and coming so close to touching us.

It was with huge relief we turned off the main road and found ourselves passing under the motorways and main roads several times, before coming to another lake. 

This wasn't as nice as the one we'd swum in, but it didn't look too bad on the photos we took.

The villages we were riding through were similar to yesterday.

A lot of older derelict buildings, some for sale.

Stuck between a rock and a hard place....or in this case, a dam and a motorway.

Once upon a time, this place had a primo spot with a clear river running below it.

Here's your chance everyone. One euro will purchase a three storey property, in the middle of Nowhere, Italy. No work or tourism opportunities, but a more than likely chance that you will be bored to death.

When that occurs, don't expect anyone to attend your funeral, it's just not a place you'd want to be found dead in. 

Cycled on to another village where we came to a roaring stop when we noticed “campeggio” on a signpost with a little tent sign pointing to the right. We weren't expecting any campgrounds for at least 100 km on our chosen route and had no idea where we'd be spending the night. This camp was 7 km out of our way, and up a hill, but we also knew thunderstorms were expected this arvo.  

So we decided to head up into the hills again, toward, yet another lake with a campground.

First question was, "Do you have internet?"

This one was, "Yes"....but, like so many, you have to be as close to reception as possible, standing on your head and doing impressions of Mussolini.

Price for this....Euro 46..= $92 

Had to get into camp to get the blog up to date as we were three days behind. There's only so much room left in our memory banks and we needed to write stuff down before we forgot it all.

However, we are seriously thinking of doing more freecamping. But then we have to keep the power packs recharged. These prices are ridiculous. 

Set up tent, then over to the bar behind reception and got stuck into catching up.

By this time it was 1pm and we were sweating from the ride up. Even that was an adventure in itself.

The road to this lake was so busy, it was like everyone in Florence had decided “hey, let's go to that little out of the way lake. I hear Pete and Julia will be heading there today!”

So in an effort to avoid all the traffic, that was cutting in far too close, we took a side road as indicated by Mapy.

Saw four other mountain bikers ahead of us so just followed them, figuring they'd be going the same way.

It wasn't long before the road disappeared and we were all pushing our bikes up a rocky track in the middle of the forest/scrubland (forest on it’s own denotes a place you might want to be in).

Then we saw them go through a small gap in the bushes which we most probably would have overlooked and after a quick consult with Mapy, saw this was indeed the right way.

So we followed along on this mountain bike trail, panniers bouncing, which did eventually lead back to road. We quit following them and stayed on small roads to the campground.

Straight to the bar so we could get wifi but figured we'd better buy something. Bought a coke between us and took some of the food we bought yesterday.

We sneakily ate our food at the bar area and currently have made one large coke last one hour and fifteen minutes.

I wonder what sort of look I'll get when I ask for their smallest ice cream and ask them to cut it in half...? 

It's 3.02pm.

The guy at the bar has just come to ask for payment for the coke, as they shut for the afternoon.

$10....WTF....

That has decided it for us.

We are heading for Slovenia.

Don't know if they charge like wounded bulls as well, but then we're heading into the Balkans anyway. 

This trip has been a real eye opener price wise. With the rate of the NZ $, we are paying double and more.

Next cycling holiday, Waitara - Taihape...but only if the campgrounds have wifi. In fact,... only if they have campgrounds. 

By 5pm, we had posted two blogs and were quite smug that we only had yesterday (which we planned to do later) and maybe today's.

Back at the tent, we had just crawled in when it began to rain.

And rain...and rain.

As the pitch they had given us was under trees, it didn't have a lot of grass. It had also obviously previously been soaked, and we saw the rain begin to collect under the corners of our tent.

At 5.20pm, the call came to abandon tent.

We hastily repacked all our gear in drybags and panniers for a quick dash to the toilet block, where we left everything under a wash tub and went to ask if we could pitch somewhere else, preferably with some grass.

It's times like these that you see how inefficient people can be. And this showed plenty. When we first checked in, it took two of them twenty minutes to get us checked in, and there was nobody else waiting.

To change pitches took three of them fifteen minutes. We just wanted a temporary placement overnight, on grass.

Then the owner takes us in his covered buggy to two more pitches, exactly like the first.... mud and with rain...more mud.

We saw a small grassy patch next to where he was pointing and tried to reason with him. In the end, I think because he was getting tired of us, he relented. 

There was another bikepacker camped by our intended grassy pitch and I spoke to him. Told him our predicament and hoped by moving nearer to his tent, it wouldn't cause any inconvenience.

No problem whatsoever.  So then we had to take out all the pegs, lift the groundsheet and tent in one lift and carry it to the new placement.

All positioned and tweaked and here we are in our new home.

Have noticed though that "Nessie" seems to be leaking from another spot now as well.  With the downpours we are getting, I'm not sure how long "Nessie" will be able to keep us dry.

Ju here. Well after the tent move, we thought we may as well cook dinner. Tonight we had two new things to try along with one sachet of white two minute rice. So I cooked that first, and then busted open our 2.99 paella, which just needed warming through with a bit of water. Had a small taste and it was about as fresh and tasty as you'd expect for 2.99.

Then I opened our small can that had a picture of Chilli con carne on the outside, but was in fact just the sauce. But it was quite tasty, so I mixed it in with the rice and cheap paella and served it up.

Pete, ever appreciative of what I can rustle up for under 10 euros, was particularly effusive in his praise tonight.

“I've tasted worse hon”, he pronounced.

Lucky we had enough milk for another delicious milky coffee and a GF tart followed by a pear.

Pete must have been tired from his lack of sleep last night, as he lay down at 9pm and fell straight asleep, despite the party going on next door.

I tried uploading the next day's photos for the blog but the connection from the tent was not up to the task, so joined Pete in the land of Nod.