Here is Dave's exciting and inspiring motorcycle story in Croatia and environs, in instalments as a lot happened! Lost in the forest, punctures, police border probs, funtimes, barbecues etc...it's got the lot you will enjoy it!

 

The Next Adventure
At the beginning of the week it had been suggested by Mike that we go to the coast on Friday for a fish supper, his argument being that traditionally one eats fish on Friday. We agreed, but in the end Mike wasn’t feeling great so decided to pass. In the meantime Rod told us that he had a great off-road route that took us to within 30 miles of Split. He hadn’t got round to doing the last section, but had asked someone else to ride it and they had given Rod the gpx file and he said we were welcome to use it. Sorted.

It is about 100 miles on the main road from Rod's to Split and takes two and a half hours or thereabouts. Off-road it would take most of the day. The first track was just a few clicks out of town and we barely rode on tarmac after that. One of the positives of riding on Rod's trails is they are routes less travelled. This does mean that you have to pay attention to the line on the screen, which is not always easy as the way and the route can take less obvious turns. It can mean a little back tracking but it's all worth it to be on some marvellous trails.

 

Having reached the end of Rod’s route we embarked on the ‘new’ trail towards Split. It started as a typical stony track from a small road, passed a farm and up, up, up a mountain. However, once the track plateaued, the trail became much less defined and difficult to follow as the ground was very rocky with wooded areas that barely had a path at all. On the GPS, we were either directly on the navigation line or very close to it, but we had to keep stopping to walk about looking for more obvious tracks, of which there were none. Thus we carried on our slow and extremely arduous progress until, after a small rocky clearing, I came upon a much larger section of rock that we were not going to get over. On the other side of the rock there was a marked footpath going down the mountain. I would describe it as extremely rambling.

We conferred. It was getting late, almost dusk, we had eaten almost all our food and drunk all our water and we were pretty damn well knackered. Going forward with the bikes was not gonna happen, going back might be possible but it would take a very long time. There was a village of some sort at the bottom of the mountain so we decided to leave the bikes and walk down. Fortunately we had brought trainers for our night in Split so we could leave boots and crash helmets with our bikes.

It took about an hour to walk down to the small collection of farms at the foot of the mountain and by then evening was upon us. We had phoned back to base to report our situation. When Andy and I approached one of the farms it became clear that the warm welcome that had been suggested was not the response we were going to get. Mr & Mrs Farmer made it abundantly clear we were not at all welcome and as we walked back to the road Mr Farmer fetched the dog. We left the village pronto. The next village was several kilometers away. In the meantime Rod told us that the police in Croatia will come and rescue people in such situations. His other guest, Maya, is a Croatian lady and she had called the police, they told her we needed to call them ourselves. This we did and after giving details were told that someone would come. Instead of sitting in a nice restaurant on the sea front enjoying our well earned supper, we were in the middle of nowhere in the dark with no food or drink, getting colder and waiting for the cops.

 

Waiting for the cops
The bemused police eventually arrived,  three of them in a car. The older one spoke English and was initially suspicious but soon understood our dilemma and after conferring with his controller it was decided that we would be taken towards Split and a hotel found. The parcel shelf in the back was removed and Milky gallantly volunteered to sit there whilst Andy and I squeezed into the back with the third cop, all very friendly. It took the best part of an hour to get out of the mountains and to the coast. On the third or fourth attempt, our friendly English speaking cop had located a hotel able/willing to take us, his next concern was how we would get back to our bikes. No problem, he would arrange a taxi for the next morning and we should be ready at 9.00 outside the hotel.
By now it was close to midnight, so far too late to eat, but we welcomed the bottles of water, shower and beds. The next morning we made the most of the buffet breakfast and waited for our taxi. It duly arrived on time and, lo and behold, the driver was none other than the copper from the night before! What a guy, protecting the citizens of Split by night and taxi driver by day, and at least he knew the way back to the drop off point.

We headed back up the steep ramblers route to our bikes and started the task of retracing our way over the various obstacles and back to a proper trail. It wasn’t extreme enduro stuff but it certainly wasn’t trail riding. Some of it would have been a challenge on a mountain bike, at least for me. The plan was simple and cunning, we would take one bike at a time through to the next tricky section, with the other two assisting when required. The first two got through the first section OK, then it was my turn. It was only when I pulled away and the others both shouted that I realised I had a rear wheel puncture, there was a three inch rusty nail through the thickest part of my brand new tyre. Where the f*** did that nail come from? How did it get there? There was absolutely nothing apart from rocks, grass, rocks, trees and more rocks for miles! Anyhow it needed to be repaired. Thankfully the tyre was fairly easy to remove and replace which turned out to be useful because there was not one but numerous holes, some tiny weeney. In the end I ran out of glue so a spare, skinny 21 inch front tube went in the 18 inch rear and I kept my fingers crossed.

 

Eventually we made our way back to where we left the sensible trail, all the while questioning how the route could ever have been plotted? We have our suspicions.

 

It was an easy decision to head back on tarmac. I was keeping to 50mph due to inner tube anxiety. We stopped at a town called Knin for coffee, in reality we didn’t have much choice. On the road in, there was an unusual build up of traffic, it looked like there was a violent demonstration occurring at the top of the road. Turned out to be a wedding celebration with a cavalcade of horn blaring cars, people on car roofs waving flags, smoke bombs and general noise and good humour, that brought the town to a full stop for a good while. Apparently, it’s a thing. We sat in a café to spectate.
When we finally got back to Rod’s there was a bbq happening. My goodness we were happy to sit there with a glass of something cool and refreshing and some fine dining.

Other bits
Knin has a very turbulent history right up to the 90’s and now has a large military base. In the hills above the town there is an area used as a firing range with numerous old rusty tanks used for target practice and signs warning of unexploded ordnance. Andy surprised (and worried) us with his extensive knowledge of the old tanks and what might have caused the different size holes in them, he recognised the shell cartridges lying around and told us about the weapons that had fired them!

 

On another day, high up in the hills, we met a couple of other riders. We did a double take as one was on an Aprilia 125, the other on a fully laden T7. Turns out they were father and son from Germany, they had been in Italy but the weather was rubbish so decided to head to the Balkans - a very long way on such a little bike. The son was 17 and restricted to the 125 but looking forward to turning 18 and getting something bigger. Looking at the two bikes, the 125 looked infinitly preferable for some of the more “technical” trails.

A recommendation from Rod was to go to Slapovi Zrmanja to have a lunch of trout from the river. We couldn’t say no and following a nice ride found ourselves at an idyllic spot overlooking waterfalls and enjoying the most pleasant lunch. 

For our last day of riding we thought we should do something that mixed riding and culture. There is a museum for Nikola Tesla, the inventor and engineer, (the bloke the car is named after) about 50 miles from Rod’s. It included a section of the ACT route and it was a short ride over the hills to the coast, so we had a good day planned.
Mr Tesla was born in the small town of Smiljan, where the museum is. I knew barely anything about the man, turns out he was a bit clever, inventing among other things, alternating current, he also had loads of insightful things to say about society and had plenty of prophetic ideas. Worth checking out if you don’t already know.
Our ride to the coast included a ferry to the island of Pag before heading back to Gračac for one last evening.

Croatia and beyond
We spent nine days riding out from Rod's and there was plenty more riding to be had in Croatia and beyond. We spoke with other folks along the way, and heard about how good the trails are and how welcoming people are, not only in Croatia and Bosnia but in Montenegro, Albania and North Macedonia.
That is a lot of trails to cover and a long way to get there but well worth the time and effort.

Croatia is very green and that is partly because it rains. It rained a few times on us and it rained hard, very hard but not for long. Our trip was in the middle of May. The weather is great in June but starts getting too hot in July and August and the place is also a lot busier in the summer season. For us the roads and towns were quiet, little traffic and very friendly. The food is quite basic, except on the coast, and in general, things are pretty cheap.
I would certainly go back and go further.