7 August 2025 (sunny and warm) 64km

After waking from a restful sleep at 11.39pm, to a young Dutch couple talking and laughing loudly, I yelled out to them to “Give it a rest" and they promptly did. 

Then I had this woman sleeping next to me moaning about shutting the flysheet door, because she was too cold. Because it was Julia, and because it dropped to 11C overnight, I did shut the door.

The tent, as you may imagine was sodden this morning, but over the course of a few hours, we dried it out before we left. Never heard a peep out of the Dutchies. 

Getting packed up at the Primavera Plitvice campground.

It was a nice relaxed morning chatting firstly with brother Dave and then with Brody. Great to get the news from the last week or so.

We had six eggs to use up so boiled them for our breakfast which I was able to put on buns. Ju just had eggs.

Finally, packed and loaded, we hit the road at 10.20am. 

Left Saborsko and cycled along the road where we had been picking up rubbish yesterday. Worked out that we cleared a 10km stretch of the Plitvice National Park forest road and it showed. How people can discard rubbish like they do is beyond belief. But at least for a while, their roads are cleaner. 

We then jumped on the main road into Seliste Dreznicko, where we bought our usual breakfast, to have as brunch. Not far along, still on the main road headed for the border, we ate in a bus stop, as it was the only shaded place we could find.

The traffic was crazy busy and as we sat we decided to take an alternative route on Mapy, which would keep us off the main road. 

To start that adventure, we took a small road which eventually had us arriving at a gate that we had to push and lift the bikes through one at a time onto a track on the other side.

This was looking decidedly dodgy and even moreso, when it came out in a camp and then at the back of a hotel. 

Julia asked a guy from the hotel if we could take a long road going downhill, but it had a Stop barrier blocking the way.

"Sure" said the guy "Down there."

Followed the road down to a bridge and a dried up river.

It ain't no Plitvice Lakes.

We wondered how this river had no water but Plitvice down the road was fine and the thought occurred the water from this river may well have been diverted to the golden goose of Plitvice. They couldn't afford for that to dry up.

From the riverbed it was an uphill slog and suddenly, we were in a tiny village. 

The church in the little village.

There was a turnoff there for Plitvice which we guess most of the villagers used as the road we took was deserted.

We rode that stretch of road for 15kms with only one car that passed us early on.

Noticing the closer we got to Bosnia, the worse the Croatian houses were.

A lot are just never finished and a lot more are simply abandoned.

Houses for sale would have no hope of selling as the owners have a subsistence lifestyle and there is nothing else around. 

Time flew by and soon we were 5kms from the border with Bosnia and rejoining the main road.

At one corner a truck came barreling down the road and cut Julia off at a corner as she was following the road round to the left and he screeched around the bend to the right, his wheels locking up as he did. Unbelievable that all he had to do was slow down a bit and he could have taken that corner safely, without endangering anybody else.

As it was, I bet he gave himself a fright as he almost lost it and burned a lot of rubber off his tyres and brakes.

Three kilometres later we arrived at the border to huge multi-lane queues. 

But not for us.....No sir....

We just rolled up to the front of the line, squeezed ourselves into third place and waited for the border control to put the appropriate stamps in our passports.

Then, with a wave, we were off again. 

So...the first thing I noticed was the quality of the main road into Bihac, the first main town.

It was smooth and a lot newer than Croatian roads. I asked Julia what she had noticed was different since crossing the border.

"I can't get over the amount of backyard rocket builders in this country.” 

“What?” I say.

“Yeah we've passed four of them and we haven't even been here an hour yet. There's another one she says,” and points over to a mosque we are cycling past.

Apparently the backyard rocket building was a fledgling industry in Bosnia but they were having far too many failures (as evidenced on the right of the above picture), so many of the old factories have been converted to mosques. Or so it goes on our historical fact finding mission.

Followed the main road virtually all the way to Bihac, where we settled on a bench to eat a couple of nectarines we'd bought earlier.

Got some nice shots there by the river and had a nice gesture laden conversation with a Bosnian lady and her grandson, who was eight and loved Real Madrid. 

Cycled on looking for a supermarket. First one, not much, so we carried on. Found another one, bought supplies, then to the campground.

Came to Hotel Ada, campground, with hotel. The hotel was showing its age, but had a great swimming pool and shower area.

The camp was basic, but we pitched tent. As we were finishing, down the driveway rides Jonas and his two sons, Yuri and Piet, who we last met in Ogulin, three nights ago.

As there was only one other couple in camp, it was especially great to see them. Their tent was already up as they arrived yesterday and had decided to have a rest day.

We all went across to the hotel for a swim. Over there we met Mariana and hubby Sasha, from Croatia.

She was telling us all about Victory Day and how the Serbs were slaughtering the Bosnians and Croats.

She was a little girl at the time but she still remembers people who were killed. 

Finally to end the day, over to the camp where we cooked tea in a big covered eating area, before calling it a day about 9.30pm.