Day 7 - From Potočnica (Pag) to Rtina

Crazy day. It started all pretty easygoing, not much traffic, elevation gain was fine. Until I reached Novalja. I dodn't know that it's also called the New Ibiza, a party place for young people. And there were hundreds of them with packed suitcases waiting along the road for their busses to pick them up when I drove through the city in the morning. I didn't like the place too much so I didn't even stop there and continued on a pretty nice well paved highway out of the town. Unfortunately, theany busses I just passed where soon to be passing me again, most of them won't even give me some space while driving by. 😒 It wasn't fun at all and at some point I even stopped to let them pass and get off the road anytime I saw one coming.
After a few kilometers komoot finally told me to take a turn and get off the highway to cycle along the coast instead. At first I was pretty happy about the decision, shortly after I found myself on a never ending gravel road with huge holes. Eventually, there was no road anymore and I had to cycle back to find an alternative road. It was boiling hot in the sun, my 2.5l water supply was almost finished and there was nothing there to refill and nowhere to hide from the sun. I continued until I finally reached a little town and paved road again. I was pretty exhausted so I stopped for swim at a pretty beach right at the road.

A while later I continued and met a cyclist from Seoul ( I can't recall his name 🙈) in Pag City, who was going the other way. He started about six weeks ago in Ankara and pland to go all the way to São Paulo. The first thing he said was "I'm so tired of mountains", since the southern countries are more hilly and expected. 🥴 We exchanged some knowledge about the roads to come and continued cycling im different directions. Again I found myself on a gravel path gor 7km. 😞 But that wasn't even the worst part of the trip.

About 1.8km before passing the bridge to the mainland again I was on top of the mountain ridge with an incredibly strong side wind blowing me off the road. This wind is called Bora in Croatia and it blows from the mainland out to the sea. It became impossible to continue cycling, I had to get off the bike and push it. Once I arrived at the bridge it has gotten even worse and I seriously doubted to be able to pass the bridge even as a foot passenger with bike. I thought about turning around but I didn't pass any camp site and I would have to get up the hill again the next day. So I thought I give it a try and made it, but I'm bruised up to my hips on my left side since the bike was constantly pushed against it by the wind. On the other side, I walked for another kilometer until the road was more sheltered from the wimd and cycled the last bit to the campground.

There I got a great pitch first row right at the beach. I was too tired for a swim though so I just did the regular routine (setting upy tent, cooking, cleaning) and had a nice chat with my tent neighbor Andy from London, who was also bikepacking in Croatia before going off to sleep.Read more