A frustrating but ultimately successful day. Were away up the hill at 8am heading north on a big loop inland, south and back up the coast to look at immigrant sources. We started in Makarska, a bright cheerful resort town 6km north. Free internet, so we checked a few travel details, failed to find any glasses, and failed to find the bus depot. By pure good luck, our yesterday’s bus was based here, and we had thought to try the depot for our lost goods. We had updated our 2009 GPS with new maps acquired from the internet, including Croatia, and it all worked just dandy. We would hate to travel without it, as navigating becomes a breeze instead of a nightmare.
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| Tough terrain inland at Kozica |
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| Lunch Stop |
Inland on a smallish road through interesting country. We didn’t really have any idea what to expect, but the interior here is quite like parts of inland turkey. Very sparse vegetation – trees hanging on to bare rock and presumably taking decades to get to a few metres tall. First stop was a bakery for supplies, then to Kozica. Tiny wee settlement with a few houses still occupied, and small vineyards and vege patches cleared out of the rocks by years of heavy labour. No wonder people emigrated – there is so little here and life must have been brutally hard. Next on a swanky toll motorway to Vgorac, then back out to the coast and heading north again. A really enjoyable drive, and easy with so little traffic on the roads. Most of the little source settlements were a few hundred metres inland, and either nothing at all left or a few abandoned buildings. Tourism has meant the locals have rebuilt on the coast, with
sobe or
apartmen for rent.
The entire coast appears to be for rent, and apparently it starts to come alive this coming weekend, more next weekend then they get going properly. Right now there are hordes of people wielding paintbrushes, brooms, welders or what have you getting their properties into shape for the season.
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| Abandoned village next to Podgora |
Now here comes the amazing bit of the day. We had put more petrol in the car than we need to return it with so returned to Makarska to see if we could find the bus depot again. We finally found where we thought it was, but it turned out to not be the depot anyway so as a last thing thought we’d find a phonebook to get their address. However back along the road, we recognised their purple corporate colours. I asked at the desk, fluked someone who understood English OK, and who was prepared to make a few phonecalls, then she mimes a book to me and says the driver has the glasses and the book and will be here at 5:45 (2 hours away)!! What were the chances? We figured they were basically zero.
We filled the 2 hours fruitfully working out ferry and bus times, picked up the glasses and phrasebook and were on our merry way back to Podgora shaking our heads in wonderment at our good luck, and vowing never to use bus seatback pockets again. Before the sun got too low we checked out the old church and hamlets of Podgora, then back to our room for a well-earned drink and dinner.
