riday 12th – Monday 15th JuneMlini – Melunat – Camping Monika :Fine, warm and sunny.(perfect)
After doing some shopping at one of the larger supermarkets, we headed down the coast to find somewhere to set up for a few days. We drove down the coast to a small seaside village called Melunat and found our campsite down a hill by a small cove. The campsites were terraced on the side of the hill so all had a great view of the bay and outlying islands. We quickly set up our camp under the ever-present olive trees and got in our bathers to go for a swim. The water was again beautifully clear and not at all cold. We also found that the filminess that we experienced in the other bay wasn’t there so our goggles worked very well. The bay was full of small fish and sea plants on large areas of reef, so it was another lovely place to use our snorkels and mask. I particularly liked the way the small schools of fish would hang just below the surface and you could swim almost among them but they just kept out of reach. We had a wonderful time in this campsite because it wasn’t particularly busy and we found if we walked around the side of the bay over the rocks we found quiet places to enjoy by ourselves.
We again found some other campers that some interesting travel plans, one couple who were English from Oxford, Anne & Michael who were revisiting their honeymoon in celebration of their 40th Wedding Anniversary. They were on their way back after visiting Greece and they had some very interesting tales to tell of their travels. We also became acquainted with a Belgian couple, Patricia & Serge who were spending 3 weeks in Croatia and they were great company including their lovely Labrador dog Pipa. We were rather sad to leave again as it would have been nice to spend more time there with them as they really seemed quite fun.
Thoughts of Croatia.:We very much enjoyed Croatia’s beautiful coastline, majestic hills and mountains. The countryside was full of Olive groves and vineyards. There was a relaxed feel to the people and we found them to be very friendly.
A couple of funny things we found: Around the hills of Trpanj there are Jackals, these start barking in the early evening for a few minutes and sometimes later at night. These Jackals were brought to the area to control the mongoose that in turn were brought in to control the snakes. They are very shy so it is hard to see them but we did manage to see one on the road when we rode out bikes back from visiting Jane.
Monday 16th:
So it again was with regret that we had to move on as we were due to catch the ferry to Dubrovnik on Monday evening. We packed up again after a lovely swim and snorkel and headed off to Dubrovnik after lunch. We thought we could find somewhere to park and rest for a few hours and found the only place with shade that was easy was a large Cash & Carry Supermarket. We parked ourselves in the only shade we could find and tried to have a nap as we knew we wouldn’t get proper sleep on the ferry as we didn’t book a cabin or the “flight seats”. Our ferry to Bari left at 10 pm and it was very quiet.About 25 passengers, 5 cars, 1 camper (us) and 1 motorbike on board. We found a spot to sit in the café area and sat for a while reading and we also watched a TV program on the computer.It was very cold in the café area and so we looked for somewhere to have a sleep and found the only spot was in a corridor where others were set up for the night. We settled down on the floor between the wall and a couch and were able to have a few hours sleep although I still found it quite cold to feel really comfortable.
