The bike ride to Slavonski Brod

Trieste is beautiful.

 The train gets me to Trieste. Trieste is a beautiful city on the sea. Large squares, all pedestrianised are linked by pedestrian malls. It's like Pitt St malls everywhere. The road goes up a mountain pass. It goes up and up and up and up and up and up. I get lost at a spaghetti junction, then keep going up up up

The Slovenian border is now just a sign and an empty booth. Slovenia here is mountains of magically thick horror movie forest. Everyone is off to fish, ride motorbikes or hunt it seems. Croatian drivers go too fast and too close. Klanatrans semis give me no space at all, while the Rijeka trucks kindly go into the other lane.

Rijeka, a lot like Trieste but with people living there.
After arriving at dusk, it was a relief to make it.

The Croat border takes forever, but eventually we get waved through. Every car has a different nation on the number plate. Finally now, it is down down down. The sign says 23km to Rijeka, then 100m later 21km, and eventually 6km, and after a long time, 8km. Asking for directions, the couple have no idea, but say I'm in Rijeka. When you hit the main town, it is obvious. After a little Katoomba, lord knows what road, there are Stalinist apartment blocks with strange patches, and a hospital with all the external blinds drooping or missing. A hero worker statue, dated 1965,  stands in front of the shipworks, gleaming metal in contrast to the housing. The train station is handsomely beautiful turn of the century style, surrounded by monster industrial stuff. Awesome!

Cleats, awful for hills when you want to walk it, border crossings and slow speed. After hitting a car part with the front wheel, the bike stops. I can't unclip quickly enough, and down I go in lane no. 1 of the main road. Not comfortable.

After this, Rijeka is a Slavic Trieste - the same large squares, and perfectly preserved handsome European buildings. Tourists drink, eat and wander around. It's great to be out of the Euro zone, and in the monopoly money zone. The ATM cheerfully spits out 2000 of them. Dinner is awesome.

Day 2
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Donja Dobra, am on track.

Brekky's included, snags, bacon, cereal. The hotel man says the way is up up up, and goes past the ski resort of Platak. Out of Rijeka, there are some cool Soviet factories, European houses, and a cluster of apartment towers high on a hill near the freeway. The bridge for the autocesta is built so well, it shows that everyone knows someone who can build a house. Everyone says "Utro", especially the other 1 or 2 riders on the way. The road is quiet enough. I can smell the pines. Stopping is necessary every 1/2 hour, as my arse is killing me. Damn this bike. I manage to fall again, while trying to stop going uphill.

Lokve is a magic little village packed onto a hill, with the church tower a bit higher than the rest. Lunch is at Delinice. There are cafes all around town. None of these serve food. All are full of people. I guess they're busy getting ready to slow down for lunch. At the only hotel, which serves food, the lightest thing on the menu is turkey stuffed with chestnuts and smothered in a cream sauce with gnocchi. I'm going to have a sore stomach and a sore arse. On the 50 note is Ivan Gundillic, a local Mozart, probably the forefather to today's Eurovision grade Croatio rock music, that can be heard everywhere.

The arvo ride is pretty damn good. The road is like the Bell's line of road, winding left and right, long gentle ups and downs. Clusters and clusters of mountains. Neat ranges of horror movie pines and war documentary trees. Often the road is fully shadowed by the trees.

Karlovac is awesome.

I pull into Bosanci for a drink because my arse can't take it anymore. After 30mins of sitting, it still feels the same. Before you know it, here's Karlovac. Time to get onto the footpath before being run over. Not for long - there are suddenly bikes everywhere again. Stalinist residential towers abound. All of them have nice lawns and trees between them, some with kids play equipment. All they need is some paint, and maybe fill in the bullet holes.

The inner city is in the shape of a star, with a green belt, in that shape. The people are nice and show the way to the centar. It is fully pedestrianised, except for bikes. I eat dinner in a parking space on a wooden platform with seating. Cycles pass every few minutes. Couples with a kid on the back, a boyfriend with his girl on the top tube, young kids, and heaps of oldies looking fabulous and graceful, just like in the Cocoon movie. Commie towers are not depressing when everyone gets out and has a nice time - like a proper holiday town should. Most of the bike path network is simply painted lines. That's all it takes here. The other streets are fine to ride too. This town has the skinniest people in the land. Hats off to Karlovac. You are a noble workers paradise and 10 kuna beers are the best.

All roads (all one of them) lead to Bović.

The Kupa river has a concrete wall with attractive art on it. A memorial to Vukovar, to 1986, to some rebels and even a fantastic portrait of a man in a beard. Much nicer than plain concrete.

Day 3
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To pronounce Karlovac, that's Karl with a growling R, o like OR, then vac is vutts like nuts. I have some bad tourer's legs this morning, so today might be slow.

Starting out, the road is super flat. Getting to Sisak should be a breeze. The sign to Sisak is not obvious where to turn, so I ask a local, saying Sisak, pointing to the sign for Sisak. He looks confused, and I try with Sisuck, and then he says "ahh, seeesuck".

Stjepan, ex soldier, and man of mystery.

The flat road makes going quick. I had thought it was 60k so expected to be there by 12. The road starts to roll a bit. I photograph a chicken, next to a well, a shed and immaculate lawn. Out comes the owner to say hello, Stjepan who used to be a soldier in Belgrade. I whip out the phone so Marie can translate his story, but after promising help before, Marie won't answer now.

About 1/2 an hour or an hour after I hope to be in Sisak, I stop for a drink, and to ask for directions. I've stuffed it. I'm in Bović. I'm now actually 63km out of Sisak, and have spent the last hour odd winding around the wrong way. Looking on Google now, I'm really not sure how I should have gone. I really was following the signs to Sisak, and as per usual in Croatia, the road signs just aren't there for a lot of other junctions. In fact, after the first turn off, there were no other direction signs after that.

Sitting there having a drink with some guy called Dubravko(?), I'm gutted to think I've wasted a lot of effort going the wrong way, and coming up with a different route across the country.

A rest stop in Bović with Dubravko. Spent 20 mins
waving his arms and saying something in German.

I'm in Glina for lunch at 2 in the afternoon. This is bad news. I lost about 30k's, am off target and late. Dubravko laughed at me when I said I was going to Novska, and mocked me with a bike motion. After thinking about it, I'm keen to prove him wrong.

I'm off on a very minor road. Someone had doubled back just to help, amazing! After going through one wrecked villages, the villages look like pretty gold rush towns, houses close to the road, which gently curves through the places. Often the houses are made from plain dark wood. Many homes have been wrecked, not sure by which side. Vlahovic has more than most, including one that looks to be only 5-10 years old, with fresh paint, glass brick sections, a few major holes, brick sections smashed in, and half the roof down (see the pic. below). Some homes have menacing graffiti.

A sad sight - looks like a brand new home, which has
been wrecked to prevent the owner from living there.

Coming to a t intersection, there are no signs. I ask a driver who stops, but he doesn't know and his map is worse than mine. He offers to help if I wait, but I prefer to keep going. He goes left, I go right, find someone else, who sends me back left again. I find my driver friend again, who is in someone's front yard getting directions. They are curious as to where I'm from, where I've come from and where I'm going. I mention Slavonski Brod, and they all give a satisfying collective whoa. I love that, and it's more incentive to get to Novska. I can see now, I never had a hope though.

The song we've got tonight, who needs tomorrow, is cheerfully in my head for the next 10k's. I stop at a shop for water at Jabukovac, and the shop owner is friendly. Down the street, bullet holes are in the windows, from when? I see a sign for Petrinja. Oh f***, ***, ****!!! That's close to Sisak. Have I been going in circles all day?? The guys at the pub send me 5ks back to Jabukovac. The shop owner sends me back 5km past the guys in the pub again. It's another 15km wasted but at least I'm finally definitely on the way to Hrvatska Kostajnica. It's depressing and dawning on me that this place is winning, and I'm being conquered.

Magical lush farms and villages on my Glina-Petrinja loop.

20km further on, there is a series of punishing 10% inclines. I pride myself on going all day, but after 10 hours in the saddle, these hills have me walking. My legs are giving out, and my arse is killing me. The slippery cleats once again suck in the fight to get up the gravelly verge. I am not sure if I can get there. All the times I've cycled home to greet my kids now come back to me. With the mistakes of today, I feel like I've let myself down, and the horrible thought of the missus picking me up in the car is making the whole ride feel pointless.

After this, the touring gods smile on me with a flat road. I have a horrifying feeling that I'm now going south away from my destination, but a man tells me that Hrvatska Kostajnica is not far on.

The magic approach to Hrvatska Kostajnica. Over the
river is Bosanska Kostajnica. A mosque is to the left
of the pic, in the Rep.Srbska part of Bosnia oddly.

Coming into town is amazing, and makes the day worthwhile. It's high on a high winding down into the town, which sits on a river. This is the border with Bosnia. A large minaret is a comforting sight on that side of the river. It hopefully is somewhere that might not have been swept of it's population. I wonder if they are friendly on that side to the people on this side. The town is a bit shot up, and obviously one of the towns badly affected.

I say my standard 'do you have a room' in Croation for a laugh, but the guy answers in Croatian, and speaks no English at all. Oh well. We work it out. The hotel is an amazing European period masterpiece in the shape of a wedge, fitting the roads.

The small pizza for dinner is huge. It is not possible to lose weight here, even if you cycle for 12 hours.