Day 28 - Say Hello, Wave Goodbye

We both woke up at 2.30am & stayed awake until we got up at 6.15am. I read up on Montenegro our intended destination & everything seemed to be ok for our entry during Covid, despite the country currently having its national elections & disputed results. Russian interference perhaps.

We showered, packed & left at 7.00am, earlier than planned to catch our scheduled 9.30am ferry. It was a single narrow winding 38 mile long road to take us to the other end of the island. I was glad to take it at a leisurely pace, because for most of the way it was a deep drop either side of the road & no barriers. It took a lot of concentration. If we had left the road, the car would definitely have been trashed or worse we were goners. When there wasn’t a deep drop, the road was flanked by sharp jagged rocks waiting to rip the car bodywork open.

We arrived at Sucuraj ferry port at 8.15am unscathed to find a ferry being loaded up. Jackie ran to the ticket office to buy our £12 fare. There were 2 cars in front of us, but only one space left on the ferry, but luckily for us the 2 cars were travelling together & didn’t want to separate, so yet again we were the last car on & just in the nick of time. No sooner were we on & the doors were up & we were off.

35 min later, we docked at Drvenik, back on the mainland. We then drove south for 99 miles down Route 8 heading to Montenegro. We passed through Gradac, ugly Ploce & around the fertile Opuzen region at the mouth of the Neretva river. The route then took us back along the Adriatic coast & into Bosnia & Herzegovina for just 12 miles & through their one & only seaside resort of Neum. With just cursory looks at our passports at both border checkpoints we were soon back into Croatia & chugging down the coast passing Dubrovnik & its old walled city.

At 1105am we arrived at the border with Montenegro. It consisted of 2 border checkpoints with a no mans land area in between.

At the Croatian border checkpoint they scanned our passports & waved us through & out of Croatia . We then drove a couple of hundred yards down the no mans land area to the Montenegrin border checkpoint. The immigration officer took our passports then demanded to see our green card for the car. He pointed at a sign that referred to local car insurance. I handed him our car insurance, but he handed it back with a “Non”. There then followed a stupid conversation with him & colleague. Eventually we ‘sort’ of established that we needed our car registration document & then we would have to get local car insurance to drive our car in Montenegro.

He asked where we were staying & for how long. For a moment we thought he was going to let us in, but instead he said drive down the road & turn round to get on the road to exit the Montenegrin border. He refused to give our passports back until we had turned around. So we entered Montenegro & immediately left again. The cheerful (not) immigration officer walked over & handed our passports back. We drove back through no mans land & confused the hell out of the Croatian immigration officer who saw on his records that we had only just left. We didn’t try to explain & luckily he didn’t ask & he let us back into Croatia!

Bugger. That had ruined my itinerary for the next 7 - 10 days.

We drove back to the nearest resort of Cavtat & parked up. We went to a bakery for an iced coffee & jam doughnut each & to take stock of the situation. If we had any plans to stay there in Cavtat we soon dismissed them when we realised most of the tourists were British.

Over our snack we made the decision to head to the Peljesac Peninsular & possibly onto the Island of Korcula. We headed north back up Route 8, past Dubrovnik & finally turned off onto the Peljesac Peninsular. Suddenly the pace of life seemed to slow down & a feeling of calmness descended.

We passed oyster farms in the calm waters & saw a big sign with pictures of the different harbours on the peninsula. We chose to look at Trpanj towards the other end about 30 miles away. We passed through Ston with it’s amazing fortress & city walls, but we were just too fatigued to stop. We will go back.

We arrived at Trpanj, which seemed quite quaint, but the whole appearance of the place was ruined by a huge digger on part of the beach. It would seem that they were building a new beach.

We stopped in a bar for a beer & to carry out further research. We established that it was cheaper to stay in Orebic just 12 miles away, so we booked a place for 3 nights on Booking.com. We then checked out a decent looking beach 6 miles away at Divna (or Divna.....aaa) as it is known because it is a very steep road down to it. The beach looked ok, but dark clouds were looming.

We drove for another 30 minutes to Orebic & to Apartments Two Olive Trees. We were greeted by a little old man who didn’t speak English and worse didn’t seem to be expecting us. We had our 2nd stupid conversation of the day, which was not what we needed after pretty much 11 hours & 250 miles of driving, especially as we were both getting bitten by mossies. Luckily we were rescued by a couple of young Croatian holidaymakers who translated for us. The apartment is nice, but there is no toilet paper. I tried to ask for some, but couldn’t make myself understood!

With thunder & lightning out at sea, we went out & had a meal at Konoba Andiamo on the seafront. I had the recommended wild boar with homemade macaroni, whilst Jackie had a whole grilled Sea Bream with vegetables. It was very nice together with a litre of local wine.

We got home to bed before the wind & rain started lashing down.

Song of the Day : Say Hello, Wave Goodbye by Soft Cell.Read more