18 August 2025 (sunny and hot 33C) 12km

Never one to shy away from admitting when I'm wrong, last night's music was all over by 9.30pm.

Let's move on.

Parked up on our paved verandah for the night, the wind was still blowing, but with less intensity. In all honesty, this is the spot we would have chosen, given the choice.

The Frenchies were good sorts and asked if we had eaten, or would like coffee. 

Once again we went to sleep, without an exit route from Europe, but with no fly on again tonight at least the wind kept the mozzies away.

Overall, a pleasant and quiet night. 

Awake just after 5am to strong gusty winds. Even though that was the case, our tent was sheltered from the "windblown dust and dirt" (first person to answer where that was from).

We went through pack up, but as we were so close to Frenchies van, we had to work in between gusts to make sure the tent or groundsheet didn't take off.

Bikes packed by 6.15am, but wind was too prohibitive.

Riding this coastal main road, with such strong gusts would be a recipe for disaster, so we had a coffee and then walked to the shops for breakfast.

We searched for flights during and after eating and finally booked three flights. 

A Ryan Air flight from Corfu to Liverpool on Sept 25th, arriving in Liverpool at 11.35pm.

Will have to fork out for a hotel that night and hope they have 24hr reception. Having said that, the Ryan Air flight will probably take us to Malta anyway. And if we do arrive in Liverpool, the baggage handlers will probably nick all our stuff. 

The big breakthrough was a China Eastern flight on October 20th to Auckland. We paid virtually $3000 ($1400 each) but I believe there is a guarantee of safety, as each plane has "Made in China" printed on the side of the plane and in brackets (no sweat shops were used in the making of this airplane). 

The third flight was to New Plymouth on Thurs 23rd Oct arriving 1.05pm.

Just in time for the results of New Plymouths rate review, whereby we hop on the next plane back to Bosnia, the only other country where our money has the same value... absolutely NOTHING. 

After securing those flights, we said au revoir to our French mates and they gave us some nougat to see us on our way, which was delicious!

Had a really nice bit of cycle path for a few kms.

The wind had subsided and we enjoyed our ride along the coast, some on main road, some on cycle path through beach bathing swimming spots. We did not go in for a swim.

Reason being was that we didn't leave til 11am and we wanted to get to a camp where we would be swimming anyway. 

Passed through Omis, a lovely, but extremely busy tourist town, with every vendor vying for your Euro. Some nice shots there.

The lady who took this photo for us, told us that this promenade was only completed this year.

After picking up lunch, we pushed on along the main road again, with less wind, to Autocamp Sirena (sounds like a German Stalag) but didnt feel like one in the slightest, (as shots will testify). 

There we ate, dozed and looked at hotels and blogged, strangely enough surrounded by German holidaymakers? 

Time is 3.45pm. Views are to die for.Pitch is literally rock, stone and boulders. So I'm picking we have the hard mattress tonight. Just about to try a swim. 

You'll  see the swimming spots in the photos. Beautiful. Water was a lovely temperature, by that we mean cooler.

Did some washing and with this wind, it's drying nicely. Probably buy from their restaurant tonight as the nearest shop means another trip on the main road.

We'll save that for tomorrow morning. 

It's 9.30pm and we've just got back from eating at the restaurant. Ju had chicken skewers with fries and salad and I had cevapi with fries and salad. Delicious meals and plenty of food.

We saw people helping themselves to shot glasses of six different balsamic vinegars and olive oils so we went up to do the same. Poured the first balsamic but it was quite red so got another shot glass and poured a glass of the browner one. Then a glass of olive oil, which seemed quite runny. So when we sat back at our table, we dipped our fingers in the glasses to have a taste. Lucky we did that before pouring them on our salads because they were actually schnapps.  We checked with the waitress and she said they were there for you to help yourself,  for free. So we both had another glass of the olive oil one, which was really tasty.

Couldn't be too many nicer locations to eat. They had two guys playing guitar and mandolin, playing Croatian folk music. Great instrumentalists. Been in bands for twenty seven years, so really tight. Great vocalists and harmonies. Been doing this type of gig for fifteen years.

Great sounds, good food, great night.

Ju here. This looks like paradise. It's the water that does it. So clear and when you dive down with your eyes open and look across, it's so incredibly blue. We get some days in New Plymouth when the water is super clear, when we haven't had rain for a good long while and when there's not too much swell stirring things up. But this also has that delightful turquoise colour at the edges which makes it look irresistible to me. 

The tent pitches too have been remarkable. Pitch perfect you might say. Of course, there's always something. Luckily we are well used to sleeping in the tent now, even though as soon as Pete got his new sleeping mat, mine started to go down each night. I threatened it with “Do you want to go join your friend in the rubbish bin?” That stopped things getting any worse, but I am starting to feel the hard rocks on most of the pitches by morning, even with a halftime reinflation about 1am.

Most nights mosquitos are a menace and even though you crave the soft wafting breeze that comes with an open zip, you dare not give the sneaky little bastards a chance to enter the inner sanctum.

Sometimes it's just flies that ruin things. Those persistent ones that just won't get off you. Or the ones that bite.

And then of course you've got the neighbours. Well Pete usually gives you a run down on that aspect of camping. 

But if you can get the basics right like being close to the water and plenty of shade, everything else is just a minor nuisance.