A bit of misery before the Coast

We have now arrived at the Croatia coast, and are making good progress along the coastal highway. Before you think it is all fun and games though, let me tell you a bit about the past few days.

Yesterday I was extremely pissed off. This is because the day contained a couple of large climbs, all the while threateneing to piss it down on us. One pass was 888m, which is like climbing Scarfell Pike. With a bike, fully loaded for a 4 month tour. We are dragging around 40% of our bodyweight, and those climbs do not come easily. Add to this that it was freezing cold, something we were not expecting. In fact, we had no idea we would be spending so much time at altitude. The one thing climbing is good for, the descents, are brutal with a 60 kph wind chilling your bones, while you can`t produce heat because it`s a windy path and you can`t peddle.

If the idea of climbing Scarfell twice with a heavily loaded bike isn`t enough for you, imagine doing it after an 80km ride through rolling hills. If this still isn`t enough, we hadn`t had any sleep to speak of for the past 2 nights, one night I woke up for a piss at 4.30am and I discovered we were in a freezing cloud. The violent shivers made sure we didn`t get a wink past 2am.

Still not enough? Imagine doing it day after day for 5 days, with little food because all the towns are tiny little villages (one guy we saw was about to slaughter a goat for food. Some of these villages are basically just subsistance farmers), and even the few tiny shops were closed because it was a Sunday and also it was May Week weekend.

None of this stopped us covering some serious distance, in part because there is absolutely nothing else to do when all the shops are closed, and we have no money anyway. It takes your mind off the nagging hunger.

Body fat is now non-existent. We are surviving off biceps and deltoids.

This evening, Duncan is pissed off instead, so we are having a bottle of rum to sooth our tired bodies and minds.