What we did on our holidays - Croatia

A quick guide to some bits of Croatia.

Zagreb: Worth a couple of days, no more.
The upper town (which is the old town) is charming and the lower town has some seriously civic buildings and  museums and parks. In between the old and new towns is the daily market- fabulous!
Favorite: The Museum of Broken Relationships.

Plitvice Lakes: an intagrammers' paradise! You can see it all in a day. Walk all the way to the top lake and then you can get a bus back to the gate - or vice versa.
It is very crowded - best tip, stay nearby and visit first thing in the morning.

Krka National Park: Spend a day here or visit as we did on our way from Zadar to Split. Nice walking tracks along streams ans past waterfalls. Same but different to Plitvice.

Zadar: A day or 2. A pleasant coastal town, not as touristy as some.
Best bits: the sea organ and the monument to the sun.

Split: Spend several days here. So much to see and do!
Wander the lanes of the Diocletan's Palace; walk, drive or ride a bike to Marjan Hill - a parkland with a view.
From Split you can take boat trips to access the islands - Hvar being a popular destination.
There are also car ferries to some of the islands and it may be possible to island hop that way.
Best bits: Hvar at the end of the tourist season

The drive along the coast from Split to Dubrovnik is stunning! although it is quite well-populated with holiday accommodation. You have to briefly pass through Bosnia and Herzegovina along the way.

Dubrovnik: It may be over-exposed but it is beautiful. If you stay in the old town, or nearby, you can get to the sights before the cruise tourists arrive and then you have the evenings and nights as well.
Walk the walls, catch the gondola up to the Imperial Fort overlooking the city and walk back down, cruise around the closest islands stopping off along the way, sunset kayak in the bay.
Best bits: Appreciating how Dubrovnik suffered in the Balkans war.

Pst: Dubrovnik isn't that far from the beautiful Bay of Kotor in Montenegro. You've come this far you might as well tack that on as well. You won't regret it.
Stay in Kotor town, climb up to the fortress, take a boat trip on the bay, swim in the blue cave.

How we travelled: We flew into Zagreb, hired a car and drove to Split via Plitvice, Zadar and Krka (not all in the one day!)
Picked up another car to leave Split (you won't need a car when you are in Split) and drove along the coast to Dubrovnik. If we'd had more time I'd have investigated the possibility of car ferries between the islands to get from Split to Dubrovnik.
Left the car in Dubrovnik and took a bus to Kotor as multi-country car didn't work for us as we were through-travelling. It may be possible to drive to Kotor and then back to Dubrovnik to leave the hire
 car.

*This is by no means an exhaustive tour guide to Croatia, it's just where we went in the time we had.

Tasting at the Tasty Cube. The d'Arenburg winery.

The Cube is stunning!

What an incredible feat of imagination not to mention construction and implementation.
Probably people told him he was crazy! Why bother? It doesn't suit...

But what a vision!
And you know what?

It works!

On average 1000 people visit every day.
It is open every day, and the weekends are understandably busy.
If I were you I'd go early on a Tuesday.

The cube was imagined by the winemaker at d'Arenburg winery - Chester Osborn.
Yeah, it's a funky Rubic's cube and inside is just as funky.

There's a room where you can smell all the aromas of wine.

The smells are in glass flasks attached to old bike handlebars operated with bike horns.

There is an art collection.

 You have to see the toilets!

 It's a bit hard to see but the circles are mirrors.

The tasting room is on the top floor.

It was very busy, but we felt well attended to.

The wine names are as quirky as you would expect.

There were a lot of these bright chairs. Love!

I can see your caravan from here!

You can buy a single version of this chair made out of old wine barrels.

You can find The Cube at the d'Arenburg Vineyard, Osborn Road, Mclaren Vale, South Australia.
It's open every day 10am - 5pm.
Costs $10 pp to get in including wine tasting.

On the Road to Kangaroo Island: Day 3

 Lots of rain overnight in Goolgowi but we woke to a pretty sunrise.

The mornings drive took us across the Hay Plain which is notoriously flat.

Last time we travelled this way, on the way back from Western Australia there had been a lot of rain and in places water lapped at the road.

Not today!

Although it wasn't as dry as it has been.

 

The number of trucks on the road is noticeably huge!

May hay trucks heading east. From? Western Australia?

Morning tea and lunch: rest areas on the Sturt Highway.

Big thunderstorms around Balranald but we missed the worst of them.

There is a quarantine checkpoint near the Victoria/South Australia border and they are very strict.

I had cooked and frozen our remaining onions, capsicum and squeezed and frozen lemon juice, eaten all the rest of the fruit.

This is to prevent to transmission of fruit fly into South Australia.

They went into the caravan to check that we weren't hiding any forbidden fruits and veggies.

We topped up our shopping in Renmark and also gained half an hour of time!

Got to camp at Lake Bonney at 4pm. Camped right on the edge of the lake. There are 3 other caravans here and a car.

We remembered that we had been here before - just stopped for lunch and a guy in a caravan wandered over and we couldn't get rid of him!

It is quite windy and the water is lapping against the shore.

On the road to Kangaroo Island: part 2

Day 2.
It was soooo quiet in Gulgong.
After a shower and breakfast we hit the road. It takes us about 2 hours to get going, and we didn't even unhitch the caravan.

The road from Gulgong seems to follow the ranges through Wellington and onto Parkes. It's a bit of an up and down, winding road.
We caught up with friends Mick and Robyn in Parkes, people we knew from when we lived there 30 years ago.
An hour and a half later we continued.
Through Forbes and on to West Wyalong for lunch in a pretty park in town.

We have some not-very-good-memories of West Wyalong....when G was playing cricket for Parkes in WW he was fielding in close and, yep, got hit in the face by a cricket ball. It wasn't pretty and we spent the rest of the day in West Wyalong hospital.

Not such disasters this time.

A quick photo stop in Weethalle -

to admire the beautifully painted wheat silos.

We arrived in the cutesy little town of Goolgowi at 4.30.
A community-run campground with the cleanest showers. We hat to go to the services club to pay and get a key for the amenities.....so had to have a little pre-dinner drink too.

Distance: 469kms
Total time: 8hours 20 mins

On the Road to Kangaroo Island.

Day 1. 
Today was a bit of a long slog. First one of 3 long, for us, days. 
The intention is to cover a bit of ground quickly and get into South Australia soonish. 3 days. Towing the caravan we don't travel fast, between 80 and 90 kph. Yes, we are THOSE annoying people!
We left home a bit later than intended due to not being totally organised. What a surprise! 
In our defence we've had a busy few days. 
We left home at 8.40 First stop, as usual, The Greenhouse in Nabiac for coffee. That's about 1 and a half hours away. 
Lunch at the new(ish) rest area at Branxton on the Golden Highway that goes up through the Hunter Valley. 
Quick stop and change of drivers at Cassilis rest area. Last time we were here early last year it was just after a bushfire and the whole place was decimated. 
It looks better now as the picnic tables and toilets have been replaced but the bush is slow to recover. We pushed on to Gulgong, to the showground and our first campsite.

We love the showground camping and community campsites in these country towns. It's the next best thing after National Park and reserves.

Distance: 548kms
Total time: 7hours 50 minutes.
 

We went to Siberia! In New Zealand

This could well be the highlight of our journey in New Zealand.
Who wouldn't love to go to Siberia?

This Siberia isn't in the wilderness of Russia but in the wilderness of the west coast of the south island of New Zealand in Mount Aspiring National Park.
This is a notoriously rainy area and we stayed for a few days at the small township of Makarora to sit out the rain. Luckily for us the weather cleared enough for the little plane to be able to take to the skies.

Yep, that's it.
A little 6 seater.

We flew up the valley and over some mountain tarns and then landed all too soon in the Siberia Valley.

Once there we had to cross the swift, icy but shallow river. The pilot took his boots off too to help one of the passengers.

Not far from where we crossed the river is the Siberia hut which you can stay in. It is a basic backcountry hut.
It was a nice sheltered spot for morning tea.

I love this alpine country!

Then we walked down the valley, into the forest and up over a gorge section.

Until we got to the Wilkins River and our jet boat pick up.

A quick zoom down the Wilkins and then up the Makarora River back to where we started.

Spectacular!