Croatia - Slavonski Brod

Packed and headed off with my trusty GPS showing me the way to my next stop in Croatia.Stopped at a petrol station to fill up and have a hot chocolate. No hot chocolate!!!! I'm forced to drink a herbal tea - primrose or something, just horrible. That will teach you to go to Europe and not drink coffee or alcohol😢.

A guy struck up a conversation....so where are you off to? Croatia I say, staying overnight at Slavonski Brod. Ohh, I'm a truck driver and know the roads well, you'll be crossing into Bosnia & Herzegovina the border comes up close to Slavonski Brod and the road goes through there. Are you sure? (Up very close to me, gets right face to face, but friendly) Yes, have driven many times before....2 border crossings for you my new Australian friend. Okay thanks, you don't happen to have any more garlic sandwiches by chance? Or have you just eaten them all? I have a look at the map and the border is pretty close, now I'm not really sure any more.

Hope on bike and head-off. Get to a border crossing, leave Serbia and enter another country. The border crossing says welcome to "Republic of Hrvatska". Great now there's a 3rd country thrown into the mix. Where am I? Did I head in the wrong direction (pretty sure I never saw that on a map!!! Now I've been lost before, wrong house, wrong street, even wrong town, but have never been in the wrong country 😲. I look at my passport...yep the stamp says Hrvatska, is that how they say/spell Herzegovina? It doesn't look remotely like the word Croatia!!! I say to the crossing guard (pretty stern looking guy with tazer and gun) - this might sound funny, but what country am I in? He looks at me, then laughs and says "2nd Australia today making same joke - go people waiting behind you". Great, well at least there's another dumb Aussie wandering around whatever country this is, maybe we can meet up and be lost together. I head off and then stop out of the guard's sight and have a look at Google maps (am a bit worried now, if this is B & H my vodafone roaming won't cover me and this might cost a fortune!!!). Well it says I'm in Croatia...whew, Croatia is called Republica of Hrvatska. It's their country, guess they can call it what they want.

Got to Slavonski Brod, found the hotel car park, and put the bike up on the side stand. Am still thinking, "the border was the first time language and really given me any issue". Spot the hotel and see three women come out of a hotel room door and walk up towards the reception area. Quick as a flash I'm across the road up the stairs and follow them in and close the door behind me. It didn't look like a normal reception, but it had a bar/counter and a lounge so after shutting the door I just sat and waited my turn. The women then realised I'd followed them in and shut the door behind me. First there were 3 blank stares with jaws sorta hanging loose, then a bit of talking between themselves rising in crescendo, a bit of backing away, then a bit of shouting. I offered to wait my turn to book in, then, hmm, took me a few long seconds to work out that this isn't a hotel. Actually, it's someone's house (that happens to be opposite the hotel car park) and these three women (I'd guess grandmother, mother and daughter) had a bearded bike sitting in the lounge room between them and a closed door leading to safety. Eventually we all managed to work out what had happened, we had a bit of a laugh, and I was on my way to the hotel about 40 or 60 metres up the road. True story - I took a pick of the house (first pic), it looks like a hotel doesn't it? Remember some of the hotels are converted houses - you could have easily you made the same mistake.

The hotel (Garten) turned out to be a quirky little place with room extensions running off everywhere, a restaurant full of old "stuff" and an exceptionally nice owner who, despite my protestations, gave me a home collected jar of her own honey when I left. She even put up a shade umberella to park my bike under in case it rained. Even the three women waived me good bye in the morning 😆

Okay..Zargreb next hopefully without any navigation problems.Read more