Mountains and lakes, scorpions and snakes

We've moved on a long way from the last update, and it all seems a bit of a blur. We've stopped for a bit of R&R (rest and recuperation, not rock 'n roll!), but more of that later.

Not ones to do things the easy way, we left 'Camp Flyover Construction' and decided to head across country avoiding the obvious Autoroute. Italian autoroutes are an education in human nature and to be avoided for a pleasant life.

We ended up Arsie, sorry, I mean we ended up in Arsie. No, that's even worse. We ended up in a campsite in a town called Arsie (Italy). What a beautiful site. Lakes, mountains, and a friendly, well-travelled english couple called Jim and Doris who plied us with teabags, wine and tales of back-packing in Afghanistan.





Walking in the mountains we saw a huge snake swimming across the lake and stumbled across some romantic old abandoned houses. Not so romantic in the winter maybe, hence the state of them.



At the top of the walk, there were half a dozen beautiful houses miles from anywhere with a stunning view. Mama was washing the salad at the pump and papa was shooting the breeze with anyone walking by. As seemed to be the case everywhere we went, he could speak german but not english.





We pressed on the next day to just over the border of Slovenia. The weather had been getting hotter each day, and it was in the 90's that day. We stopped in Smihel just over the border from Gorizia, and flaked out. No photos, no memories. We must have been more tired than I thought.

From there was pure, unadulterated biking heaven. We chose the coast road instead of the Autoroute and found 'the road of a thousand curves' (my name for it). The surface was perfect too! Nibs! Get youself down here! After a stop in the most basic campsite in the world (their back garden) that will will forever be called Camp Scorpion, we got up and did another 200 miles of twisties - 400 total. Oh yes! I spotted another snake slithering across the road - big, black and shiny, and on the one bit of Autoroute that we took, there were signs before the tunnels warning that there might be bears and wolves sheltering in them.



The scorpion in the loo incident. After squeeking and shouting for me to have a look, Anita mashed it with her toothbrush handle. Nice. It was a wake-up call that we were getting into hotter climates and needed to check shoes before putting them on. We couldn't believe the birdsong either. It's something that's normally in the background unnoticed, but this was tropical sounding.





We've now stopped in a campsite in Zaostrog on the coast just a half hour from the Bosnian border. We decided to treat ourselves to a rough cabin for a couple of days to charge the batteries - in all senses. The sun is shining, it's roasting hot and the beach is just over there. Onwards through Bosnia, past Dubrovnik and into Albania in a couple of days.