In 2013 we drove through Montenegro on our way back from Turkey, taking the coast road. From memory it was busy and the coast road was full of apartments, hotels with crowded beaches and a busy road with few places to pull over. We have been told that the best part of Montenegro is through the mountains, so this year being our “filling in the Gap Year” we decided to wind our way over the mountains taking it slowly and admiring the views. We weren’t disappointed as drove through the forests, gorges and mountain parks.

We had been 10 days wild camping and decided to treat ourselves and stay at a campsite for a couple of nights. The campsite we chose was in the mountains near the town of Zabljak, which during the winter is a resort town with plenty of rental apartments and huts. The place was basic but the main thing was that the showers were hot with good water pressure, something we miss while wild camping. We were the only motorhome at the campsite the others being, cars with tents, motorbikes using the rental huts, people on bikes with tents, a group of 49 scouts from Belgium and a French man traveling on his university break.

We met Antonio and Rose, he was Spanish and she was Dutch they were on bikes and had started their trip in Oman where they were working as dive instructors. They had already ridden through Iran, Turkey, Greece, Albania and a few other places. Along with Sebastian the French man form Brest we spent the afternoon drinking some red wine with bread and cold meat, sharing travel stories.
We found out that Antonio lives in Xabia which is the next town along from Denia where we will be staying for 8 days in September. We picked his brains as to where we can go and what we can do while we are there.

Saturday July 11th 2015

By far the most interesting and spectacular drive was when we left the campsite and took the small road through the Durmitor national park to the lake Trnovacko. This route was only 45 kms long but it took us about two and a half hours, this was due to the windy steep road and stopping constantly to take photos.

Will try another video. They worked fine on the computer and on the Samsung Tablet but was told they didn’t work on Ipads?  Let me know how this one goes?

The road was only one lane wide which made it interesting at times when oncoming cars approached to pass. Luckily it was a very quiet road and the weather that day was clear and sunny, the day before it was overcast with some showers, so we timed it just right.

 

After driving past the lake we came across the border into Bosnia-Herzegovina, we had become used to border crossings by now this being our 8th crossing. This border crossing was at a small one lane bridge with Montenegro on one side and Bosnia Herzegovina on the other. Upon entering Bosnia Herzegovina we had 15kms of road works as they were widening the road, a very slow drive with dust once again filling the inside of the “Bunyip”. More housework to be done!!

Malo Polje

I had seen in a POI that you could park overnight at Malo Polje, this was the site of the ski jump competition in the 1984 Sarajevo Olympics. This place is 35kms south of Sarajevo in a mountain forest region. The GPS on the site was not accurate and it was only after Jenny studies the map on the tablet that we realized we were about 3 kms away. When we arrived there were a few cars there and the café was still open. At 7.30 the cars had all left just leaving the “Bunyip” as the only vehicle in the huge carpark. There was another person on the site and that was the security guard for the complex but he didn’t seem worried that we were there, more curious.

The Ski jumps have long been disused but the site is still used for skiing in the winter. It was an extremely quiet place and in the morning when I arose I opened the door to see a deer running away, I obviously scared it off. After taking in the sights and snapping a few photos we headed off early to Sarajevo.

Koala makes an appearance

It has been awhile since the Koala has been sighted, the last time was at the Trevi Fountain in Rome. He has been a bit reluctant after being denied an appearance at the Acropolis in Athens last year due the place being a “sacred site”. Not sacred enough to charge people money and trample all over the place but sacred enough for people not to have photos in Koala suits!! Enough of my rant.
Here are a couple of photos of the Koala enjoying the sites of Malo Polje.

Lest we forget

Today 11th of July 2015 is the 20th anniversary of the massacre in Srebrenica. Over 7000 men and boys were killed because they were the wrong faith and in the wrong place. It was only 20 years ago but it still continues now in other parts of the world. In many places people remembered, below is some graffiti that we saw reminding us not to forget.