Last year we already pretty much rode the entire coastal road in Croatia. It is definitely a fun ride, but we want to do something different this year. So last night I got out the laptop and plotted a route further inland, through the mountains. The OSM maps prove very useful, more so than the Garmin City Navigator maps anyway.
The first section is a pretty relaxed ride on tarmac, until we get to Karin. After that we pick a smaller road into the mountains. The road quickly turns into gravel and the views improve dramatically.
There’s quite a few signs to warn for mines though. And once in a while, in the middle of nowhere (100km from Split and 180km from Zagreb as the crow flies) you come across a rather odd sign.
As today’s route was only quickly plotted out I didn’t really know how long it would be before we reached civilization again. We probably should have fueled up before we turned into that gravel road… Oh well, in the end we made it to a fuel station. Albeit just barely. We can attest that a TR650 can go 370km without topping up and its 14l tank will take 14,5l of fuel.
We ride on until we find a nice spot to eat the pita we bought for lunch.
After that the route turns back towards the coast near Senj. Sofie absolutely wants to find a camp site on the island of Krk, even though the coast here is riddled with small, cosy and cheap camp sites. I make the mortal mistake of agreeing to it. All camp sites we visit on Krk are filled to the brim with caravans and camper vans, prices are double of the small camp sites across the water. But after we have been riding around the island from camp site to camp site for a good long time, we give up and just pick the next one that still has room for a tent.
Pizza, a short walk along the water and then off to bed. The overload of Dutch and German families is a bit more than I can cope with after spending the past 2,5 weeks traveling the back roads.
Today’s route:
Elevation: