Day 31: One Night in Croatia
Saturday July 27 - Day 31 - 48miles – Total 1231Miles
Despite the loud music going on in one of the next door bars, we both slept well last night and we were up early as we had positioned the tent so the morning sun would hit it. Bruce went on a mission to get some coffee, since we didn’t feel like unpacking the whole kitchen pannier so we could make our own. Unfortunately the outdoor café at the youth hostel was still closed, with one person sleeping on one of the tables in a sleeping bag and two others in hammocks draped between tables…ahhh, youth hostels…….however he did find a vending machine that sold him two coffees for the equivalent of 0.20USD each….score!
Whilst we were packing up the tent, we started chatting to a cool Australian couple, called Margaret & Trevor, who had done quite a few cycle trips. They had started in Passau, Austria and remembered us from the campsite in Krems, Austria. Guess we make quite an impression on people! They had done a trans-Himalayan cycle trip on their 20th wedding anniversary from Lhasa, Tibet to Katmandu, Nepal – sounds awesome!
Stefan and Rebecca had also woken up early and were packing up their stuff, so we all set off together at about 8am, when it was already getting really hot out. After crossing the bridge back to the town from the campsite, we pretty much immediately got lost trying to get out of town! We navigated our way however, including stints on sidewalks and cobblestones but it wasn’t as easy as it should have been!
The route was all asphalt after that to the village of Dunafalva, including on the levee, although the locals seem to treat the levee as a cut through, as they drive their little cars on it at great rates of knots! This is a bit tricky as it is essentially a single track road, with steep sides, so there isn’t a whole lot of room to maneuver. At Dunafalva, the levee continues but it is dirt from there for another 8 miles to the ferry jetty for Mohacs. Unfortunately, the levee path is in really bad shape according to reports and 8 miles is a long time to be on a bad surface. It did look like they were working on improving it, but whether it was post flooding construction or not was hard to tell. We decided to take the asphalt alternate which detoured us inland and was essentially doing two sides of a triangle. So instead of just another 8 miles to the ferry it ended up being 15miles. However, it probably saved us time as it was all on asphalt rather than bad dirt. (We had all had recent experience on sand and dirt... and didn't want to repeat it...)
We did manage to find shade every few miles which was really nice as it was really getting hot out. The temp was about 35C/95F in the shade, so when we were cycling in the sun on the lovely hot, toasty, black asphalt it was well over 100F.
We just managed to catch the ferry to Mohacs (they held the ferry as the funny foreigners fumbled with their forints to pay for the tickets at the hidden ticket office before boarding!). We disembarked and went straight into the closest shop to find that they don’t stock cold water. What good is warm water on a 100F day? Stefan used his smartphone to find a Penny Market grocery store about 1/2mile away, so we headed there and hit the jackpot. It was air-conditioned!!
Andrea, Stefan & Rebecca spent longer than necessary buying some lunch food while Bruce watched the bikes outside, and then Bruce swapped with Andrea while in line for the checkout counter. (Gotta keep the big man cool...) We bought bread and cheese, cucumbers, pepperoni and cookies for lunch and made a picnic outside of the Penny Market in the shade of its canopy. Again we have given up caring what people think and I can only imagine what the locals must think. Imagine if you saw four Hungarians on a picnic blanket in the shade out front of the local Market Basket or Tesco…….
We had a few Hungarian Forints left and we were going to reach the Croatian border in about 10km so we used that as an excuse to head back into the air-conditioning for ice creams, bananas and chocolate to finish out our lunch!
We left our resting spot in the shade around 1pm and headed off towards our destination of the Croatian town of Batina. It was really DAMN HOT now, about 38C/100F in the shade. We huffed along and reached the border at Udvar, after paralleling it for about a mile. We got stamped out of Hungary and then stamped into Croatia. This was our first border control point since St Pancra’s station in London, where French immigration is set up for Eurostar passengers. The border guards were very pleasant and slightly amused to see us all pull up. They did make us cut to the front of the line of cars though, which was very nice of them, so we didn’t have to stand over our bikes in the sweltering temperatures.
After the border, we huffed along again and turned left to head back towards to the Danube river, now called the Dunav. We reached the village of Draz and unfortunately we had a bit of hill to climb here to get over a ridge before we reached Batina. This was a short (1.5km) but steep (100m altitude gain)
nasty little hill that took a lot out of all of us and we had to stop a couple of times on the way up in the shade of some trees to cool down and get our breath back. Did we mention how hot it was out today??
At the top of the ridge, there were gorgeous views back down to the valley and also over the Dunav to Northern Serbia, which, beautifully, appeared to be as flat as a bowling green. There were also peaches and nectarines in orchards on the ridge but all were behind barbwire fences... so Andrea couldn’t fulfill her pillaging desires.
The downhill to the village of Batina on the riverbank was just evil as it was a 10% grade with cobble stones all the way down. Our brakes got a serious work out…..
At the bottom of the hill we weren't sure how to get Croatian money or a place to stay when a nice old man in a white cap approached and babbled at us in Croatian. We said "Deutsch" and "English" and he responded with "How can I help you?"!! Apparently he was from or used to live in Australia!
He showed us the little shop in town, which was still open and sold COLD beer and COLD water and showed us the rental apartment in town which we rented for 54Euro for all four of us….and it had a washing machine! The lady who rents the apartment even gave us some homegrown pears as well as some local pastries for dessert. Wow!
Andrea and Stefan went shopping for dinner and then we route planned, did laundry, made dinner, chatted more etc. etc. It was a fairly early night to bed to try and get up even earlier to beat the heat tomorrow.
The World is Ours!
Saturday July 27 - Day 31 - 48miles – Total 1231Miles
Despite the loud music going on in one of the next door bars, we both slept well last night and we were up early as we had positioned the tent so the morning sun would hit it. Bruce went on a mission to get some coffee, since we didn’t feel like unpacking the whole kitchen pannier so we could make our own. Unfortunately the outdoor café at the youth hostel was still closed, with one person sleeping on one of the tables in a sleeping bag and two others in hammocks draped between tables…ahhh, youth hostels…….however he did find a vending machine that sold him two coffees for the equivalent of 0.20USD each….score!
Whilst we were packing up the tent, we started chatting to a cool Australian couple, called Margaret & Trevor, who had done quite a few cycle trips. They had started in Passau, Austria and remembered us from the campsite in Krems, Austria. Guess we make quite an impression on people! They had done a trans-Himalayan cycle trip on their 20th wedding anniversary from Lhasa, Tibet to Katmandu, Nepal – sounds awesome!
Stefan and Rebecca had also woken up early and were packing up their stuff, so we all set off together at about 8am, when it was already getting really hot out. After crossing the bridge back to the town from the campsite, we pretty much immediately got lost trying to get out of town! We navigated our way however, including stints on sidewalks and cobblestones but it wasn’t as easy as it should have been!
The route was all asphalt after that to the village of Dunafalva, including on the levee, although the locals seem to treat the levee as a cut through, as they drive their little cars on it at great rates of knots! This is a bit tricky as it is essentially a single track road, with steep sides, so there isn’t a whole lot of room to maneuver. At Dunafalva, the levee continues but it is dirt from there for another 8 miles to the ferry jetty for Mohacs. Unfortunately, the levee path is in really bad shape according to reports and 8 miles is a long time to be on a bad surface. It did look like they were working on improving it, but whether it was post flooding construction or not was hard to tell. We decided to take the asphalt alternate which detoured us inland and was essentially doing two sides of a triangle. So instead of just another 8 miles to the ferry it ended up being 15miles. However, it probably saved us time as it was all on asphalt rather than bad dirt. (We had all had recent experience on sand and dirt... and didn't want to repeat it...)
We did manage to find shade every few miles which was really nice as it was really getting hot out. The temp was about 35C/95F in the shade, so when we were cycling in the sun on the lovely hot, toasty, black asphalt it was well over 100F.
We just managed to catch the ferry to Mohacs (they held the ferry as the funny foreigners fumbled with their forints to pay for the tickets at the hidden ticket office before boarding!). We disembarked and went straight into the closest shop to find that they don’t stock cold water. What good is warm water on a 100F day? Stefan used his smartphone to find a Penny Market grocery store about 1/2mile away, so we headed there and hit the jackpot. It was air-conditioned!!
Andrea, Stefan & Rebecca spent longer than necessary buying some lunch food while Bruce watched the bikes outside, and then Bruce swapped with Andrea while in line for the checkout counter. (Gotta keep the big man cool...) We bought bread and cheese, cucumbers, pepperoni and cookies for lunch and made a picnic outside of the Penny Market in the shade of its canopy. Again we have given up caring what people think and I can only imagine what the locals must think. Imagine if you saw four Hungarians on a picnic blanket in the shade out front of the local Market Basket or Tesco…….
We had a few Hungarian Forints left and we were going to reach the Croatian border in about 10km so we used that as an excuse to head back into the air-conditioning for ice creams, bananas and chocolate to finish out our lunch!
We left our resting spot in the shade around 1pm and headed off towards our destination of the Croatian town of Batina. It was really DAMN HOT now, about 38C/100F in the shade. We huffed along and reached the border at Udvar, after paralleling it for about a mile. We got stamped out of Hungary and then stamped into Croatia. This was our first border control point since St Pancra’s station in London, where French immigration is set up for Eurostar passengers. The border guards were very pleasant and slightly amused to see us all pull up. They did make us cut to the front of the line of cars though, which was very nice of them, so we didn’t have to stand over our bikes in the sweltering temperatures.
After the border, we huffed along again and turned left to head back towards to the Danube river, now called the Dunav. We reached the village of Draz and unfortunately we had a bit of hill to climb here to get over a ridge before we reached Batina. This was a short (1.5km) but steep (100m altitude gain)
nasty little hill that took a lot out of all of us and we had to stop a couple of times on the way up in the shade of some trees to cool down and get our breath back. Did we mention how hot it was out today??
At the top of the ridge, there were gorgeous views back down to the valley and also over the Dunav to Northern Serbia, which, beautifully, appeared to be as flat as a bowling green. There were also peaches and nectarines in orchards on the ridge but all were behind barbwire fences... so Andrea couldn’t fulfill her pillaging desires.
The downhill to the village of Batina on the riverbank was just evil as it was a 10% grade with cobble stones all the way down. Our brakes got a serious work out…..
At the bottom of the hill we weren't sure how to get Croatian money or a place to stay when a nice old man in a white cap approached and babbled at us in Croatian. We said "Deutsch" and "English" and he responded with "How can I help you?"!! Apparently he was from or used to live in Australia!
He showed us the little shop in town, which was still open and sold COLD beer and COLD water and showed us the rental apartment in town which we rented for 54Euro for all four of us….and it had a washing machine! The lady who rents the apartment even gave us some homegrown pears as well as some local pastries for dessert. Wow!
Andrea and Stefan went shopping for dinner and then we route planned, did laundry, made dinner, chatted more etc. etc. It was a fairly early night to bed to try and get up even earlier to beat the heat tomorrow.
The World is Ours!
Bruce, Rebecca, and Stephan on the ferry to Mohacs, Hungary
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