11 August 2025 (sunny and very hot) 48km

Woke at 5am to no mist and made the decision straight away to push on to Drvar, 45kms away, but 600 metres of climbing.  Since we were surrounded now by tents galore, our pack up had to be as quiet as possible. 

I really don't know why, as there was a dog barking and running around the camp during the night. What a pain in the arse. Anyway, those tents around us would have wondered if there ever was a tent there. No talking whatsoever, only perfectly timed movements, in unison to complete a smooth, silent exit.  Julia saw Pippa to say goodbye to, but I just gave her a wave, as she was too far away.

Now on the empty roads, down past the village and on toward Martin Brod, a bit of a tourist attraction in these parts.  The road was great for about 8kms, when suddenly it turned to compacted gravel and lime, and diggers etc strung along a km long stretch of road.

That was understandable with tourists coming through, but it sprung to mind

"Just how long have they been working on this?" 

Back to tarmac for the last part into the village. The most expensive building in town...?  You guessed it, the brand spanking new house of God and an equally new residence across the lane for his "Deliverer of the word."

Rode through a very tired, dilapidated village, which apparently doesn't have a shop anymore, just a cafe/bar, of similar ilk to the village.  The one thing they call a tourist attraction, is a series of waterfalls.  We only took in the lower falls as the upper were too far to walk and we didn't want to leave the bikes.  We also wanted to cover as much ground as possible before the sun emerged from behind the hills.

The bridge is in need of a few repairs but I don't think it's high on their list of priorities.

The car park in front of one of many abandoned buildings in Bosnia.

Now came the hard part.  A 600 metre switchback climb out of the gorge.  So thankful as we proceeded uphill that we had left early.  The sun, still rising was for the most part not reaching us yet and we had plenty of shade. 

Looking back at Martin Brod. The distant view is nice but you can see the roadside rubbish in the foreground.

Great views are our reward for climbing.

Just don't look down.

The road condition got a little worse as did the rubbish at the side of the road.  Plastic, cans and general waste, just flung out the window, or tipped.  Forty years on and a war behind them, this former Yugoslavia, still hasn't learned how to use rubbish bins.  There is no recycling of waste, it's just dumped and in this region, then burned. 

Finally over the worst part of the climb and riding an undulating plateau, which seemed to go forever.

At one point, we rounded a bend to see a herd of about ten cows, strolling slowly down the middle of the road, with only a solitary dog guiding them.

Have no idea how he knew where to take them and the cows certainly weren't bothered.  Saw a dead snake on the road, probably half a metre long.  Better dead than the live one we saw in the water yesterday whilst swimming. 

It was now 10.30am and we were approaching the outskirts of Drvar.  Most towns have a Welcome to …. sign, but not Drvar. They like to do things a little differently. The town rubbish dump is unashamedly right by the side of the main road into town, only a wire fence stopping the rubbish from blowing all over the place. You can imagine how effective that was.

Drvar, which from a distance looks like a tree filled town in a fertile valley.

We had about a 2km long descent into town and our first stop was at the local garage for a coffee and the toilet.  The coffee was good and we enjoyed it while sitting in the shade.

Shop just up the road.  Didn't have much and no fruit or veges at all.  Off in search of a fruit shop.  We found the fruit shop and picked up some fresh figs, bananas, apples and prunes. Ate breakfast at a picnic bench in the shade.

Most guys in town are sitting in cafe/bars, like the two at the place we got our coffee, at 10.30am, and they were both drinking a beer. 

Whilst eating, we discussed our options.  We had another 33kms to Brosansko Grahovo, but no camp, no accommodation and according to Mapy, only a water spring at the edge of town. Two small shops. And by now, it was extremely hot. Ju put her foot down. We'd already done 48km, it was 38C and she was not going any further today.  Straight onto google, looking for accommodation in Drvar.  Nothing. Are you kidding me?

Decided to just rock up and ask one of the many accommodation places shown on Mapy. The first one on the list was just around the corner. Turned up and approached the guy.  He thought we were the people who had booked it, but through google translate, we told him we weren't.  Asked if there was any chance of pitching a tent in his garden.  By now, we were roasting hot.

After twenty minutes of Google Translate, he led us to his back garden, which had a good covering of cut grass and plenty of shade.

He offered it for free, but we gave him some money anyway and also bought some of his homemade cherry whiskey, which he had given us a glass of as a form of welcome.  This is definitely a custom in these parts. He then called his sister-in-law, who was in town, from Liverpool, New South Wales, Australia.

She had emigrated forty years ago and was in her seventies.  Spoke great English, self taught and we asked her if she could let her brother- in-law know that we would be leaving at about 5.30am tomorrow morning, once again, to beat the heat. 

Eventually the people who had booked the place turned up, settled in and our host said goodbye.  We ate lunch and pondered over supplies for tomorrow and dinner tonight. Julia had a snooze and I read more of the book she got me for my birthday. It was so very hot and we were lucky to have shade.  If   we'd have carried on, there would have been none. 

Mustered up the energy to walk into town. Got to the local takeaway which had AC (although not that effective), where we had two cokes and sat and discussed tomorrow.  We have decided to go back into Croatia for at least a day. The two road options we have to choose from if we stay in Bosnia have no shops or accommodation for 60km and the roads seem very isolated. Very few people living on them (if any) and no water sources, which in this heat is scary.

We have booked a room in Knin for tomorrow, apparently with air conditioning. I hope it's good but not really holding out much hope.  Expecting 38 degrees wherever we go .  They have posted a severe heat warning, which is why we are getting up and on the road by 5.30am.  It is so draining and we wouldn't cycle here again in these months.

Our distance tomorrow is 70kms with 700 metres of climbing, which thankfully is at the beginning of the ride and we hope to have out of the way by 9am, before a downhill to our accommodation.  Will still have to find shade for a couple of hours as check in time is 2pm.

Back to the guys house, where we had pitched the tent and stored our gear.

I know, I know, we're always taking photos of churches. But they are always the most impressive buildings in town.

At 3.45pm took a stroll into town to check out eating places and pick up some fruit for tomorrow. We grabbed an ice cream, then the fruit and took a few photos.

Ju here. Well a few of you who read our Gravel Cycling the South blog, will remember Waihola. Well, Drvar is Bosnia’s Waihola. They had a sign on the main road simply stating DRVAR (like it was Hollywood or something) only they had replaced the A with a ❤️. In Bosnia, vowels are overated anyway, because they force you to open your mouth and if you do that, well, you're halfway to a smile and people might forget you've been through a war thirty years ago.

I have found the Bosnians in the north to mostly be very dour and not welcoming at all. A smile can be easily conveyed in any language, but unfortunately so can dismissiveness. 

All abandoned buildings (and there are a lot!) are filled with rubbish.

The amount of rubbish here is also next level. Every rubbish bin is overflowing unless they have one of those cunning self-emptying ones. They have varying designs, like no top on it, no bin liner inside, vertical slats far enough apart or rusted holes where the slightest breeze is soon going to have rubbish out of the bin and sailing across the landscape.

The one saving grace is Bosnia is cheap, so we decided to go out for dinner so we could bask in some air conditioning, enjoy a cold drink and use the toilet.

We decided upon the Hotel Drvar, thinking they might be used to out of towners. Well, we dipped out on the air conditioning but did get cold drinks. The meals were basic so we ordered cevapi (meatballs in pita bread), French fries and vegetables (which were obviously out of a can). It was alright and filled a gap. But then I went to use the toilet in the lobby. The ladies had four cubicles, two out of order. Mind you, I could only see this because I had my phone with me as there was no light. I tried the light switch which was hanging out of the wall, wires exposed, but so much for “who dares, wins”....nothing. My phone also revealed absolutely no toilet paper. It's a sad state of affairs when the local garage has better toilets than the town hotel.

So that was our night out in Drvar. We walked back to the garden and the sanctuary of our tent and lay on top of our sleeping bags, hoping for sleep to come quickly so we could wake up and leave.