CABIN FEVER

Cheeky! Us gleefully heading down to the beach near our accomodation in Paklencia and me loosing my sarong at an inopportune moment!! we charged into the water to discoveron the way out it was infested with sea urchins!! amazing fluke noone got speared!! Sea urchins are very common incroatia and if you getone of their needle like tallons in yourtoe you will sure as hell know about it! Alfie was one unlucky victim and despite our best attempts with tweezers and various other extraction methods it stayedfirmly in place.
Bella the resident pup of the house where we stayed in Paklencia pictured below
The rambling old mansion where we stayed in Paklencia- too cool! And this is the view from our Balcony...

Looking up at the rest of the crews quarters- Rapunzel Rapunzel let down your golden hair....
I thought this was too good just to passby a great example of some of the quirky homes in Zadar
My last day in Zadar was spent blissfully here on the steps of the sea organ-an amazing idea! music comes through the slats in the steps- as the waves lap they strike the notes of the organ concelaed below creating a constant eerie medley of pipe sounds- absoloutley beautiful. You can see my orange striped sarong and backpack.. I got my morning coffee on the house from the friendly bar owner Robbie who let us leave all our backpacks in his garage offered us a free nights accomodation any time and entertained me with stories of his friend who is a witch from who lives in Australia and various crazy travellers tales! I then sunbaked read and spend my time floating on my back in the ocean in time to the organs music- tough times!
The Bells of the Zadar bell tower!
View from the top of the Bell Tower in Zadar- see below..
This is me fulfilling a Croatian dream! I had spied so many of those church bell towers dotting the Croatian horizon and was determined to be able to go up inside one and climb to the top and for 2 kuna in Zadar I was finally able! I dont know if it is just flab and a flattering angle of the sun but check my Arnie-esque backpacker bicep!! hehehehe
Me standing out the frontof an old Monastry in Zadar. the ladies specialise in Doilies and little knitted booties i really wanted to send some home for you poor melbournites battling the winter chills but they only came in small sizes!
Verity and Jini in the courtyard at our place in Zadar. Our second and last day. We spent the first night in a crazy Croatian ladys house she spoke only german and her persistant body odour had the most impressive staying power wed encountered- one breeze in and out of a room was enough to taint the air for the rest of the evening.. hence our new digs at this place. the three of us had to share a bed but we figured a small price to pay for thefreedom of our nostrils..


Aye aye me hearties! Me as captain for about ten minutes hehehe lots of fun bit hairy when other boats come and youre trying not to capsize but we masde it back to land ahoy

Sarah Simone and I munching into a whole watermelon which we bought from a stall down on the street corner. Stock standard local produce seems to be Moonshine or Raiki as it is locally known -wine by the litre and an assortment of fruit. Pretty much anyone will sell you a litre oftheir home made brew in the very special packaging of a recycled plastic bottle. Needless to say there have been quite a few casualties from the old Raiki..











Me chilled out on bed after a big days hiking in Paklencia We ended up walking in peack heat for most the day but the hike upto the caves was well worth it. temperatures inside were a deliciously cool 10 degrees! a lovely respite from the heat before setting off the day again.
LAST SUPPER
this is our last meal together at our accomodation inPaklencia before Simone andI left at 11.45pm to try and flag down the bus back out to Zadar. Paklencia prooved to be a Croatian version of HOTEL CALIFORNIA -you can check in but you can never leave.. details of that sorry story to come but the risotto Simone whipped up for 9 hungry mouths was scrumptious !
Bon appetite!
Simone sans baggage at Belgrade in Serbia Montenegro. We were so relieved to make it to this point! By this stage we had spent an hour hitchhiking with a Truckie -please dont freak out dad we were left with no choice!!-half a night sleeping on a bus station floor with the cockroaches and a bunch of aussie backpackers and then nine hours on a bus. We are here sinking beers in preperation for the ten hour overnight train to Sofia in Bulgaria. So this is about a third of the way into the epic journey to Istanbul.

To explain the hitchhiking.. basically none of the bastard bus drivers would stop for us. we left ourselves with three buses as we thought it could be risky relying on the last one to stop for us given the very unhelpful nature of croatian bus drivers and our reservations poroved well grounded- we had a choice of the 11.45. 12.45 and 2.00am so wecould be back in Zadar to catch the 7am bus to Belgrade. The first bus went past pulled over then drove off the second stopped arguedwith us for fiveminutes and drove off- it seemedit was too much hassel to put two girls and their bags on the bus at 1am in the morning so we cut our losses and took up the lorry drivers offer of a lift. He was an old Croatian who spoke no english and whos single profession turnedout to be driving trucks and thankfully not chopping up backpackers stupid enough to hitchhike in the middle of the night. there was a brief panic attack when he took the wrong exit duringwhich my mind quickly turnedfrom relaxed self-congratulation at beating the bastard bus drivers to oh my God what have we done we are going to be tomorrows headline and tonights prize for some truck drivers stopover.. but he was really just missing the tolls. It was a great way to travel! you get a fantastic view and it beats paying for the bus!

Do we look relieved__!!! Neither of us have had any sleep at this stage..

At least the Serbian beer was yummy..
Simone and fellow couchette bunker Alesshandro. He turned out to be a very valuable addition to our cramped sleeping quarters for six on the train thankfully the next room was free so the German man who was also meant to shack upfor the night moved next door- was very cosy in there! Alesshandro spoke several different languages so was our translator and therapist for the trip- he was ableto soothe our nerves when passport control took off with our passports then cameround asking for them again! we thought we had been robbed but it was just a rather messy system.. Our train rideincluded all the adventure you could expect*- we were robbed by gypises ripped off there was a dramatic arrest of smugglers and I was hideously sick with a combination of travel sickness sheer exhaustion and the remains of the infection from my flu- i have never been so comatose since that infamous wisdom teeth operation and somehow i had to intermittenly saddle up with backpack and bags and catch buses and trains and get around -so so grateful for saintly simone who dragged me about and kept me lucid enough to make the journey!!
The sunflower fields of Bulgaria and Turkey- this photo doesnt do the view justice but thankfully you arent privy to the smell-the rivers that we passed provided a rather fragrant backdrop the trip... best not to think about exactly whats surging along those stinky channels !!


Fairy tale Istanbul!
woops so jsut remembered that images loaded first will be last to appear on blog so better change order.. although now i have remedied situation you will be reading this in right order and this whole spiel will unnecessary jibberish- thanks for listening
This is Simone standing on the street in turkey which leads to our


OK so just to step back in time a little .. here are
some more pics from Croatia.. no commas so bear with me while everything is followedby an ellipses no idea of spelling of that either hehe .. OK so this is me and half of Alfie sailing the seven seas at Hvar we hired a boat for the day and despite near capsizes caused by larger faster boats powered by a whole herd more horses than our little putput we managed to get out to a few islands and back again no worries mate