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I arrived at the island of Brac with great expectations - the islands of Croatia were what I had been looking forward to most so far on my trip - and I wasn´t disappointed. I also saw my first nudist on Brac - I´ll bet that´s got your attention!
I caught an early morning barge from Split to Supetar, the main town on the island of Brac (whenever I see the world Supetar, I subconsciously think it´s called Superstar!). I had arrived at the ticket office in Split to purchse my ticket at 7:30am, and the lady behind the counter informed me that the next barge is due to depart at 7:45am. Excellent!... only I didn´t realise how far away the barge was actually docked. At 7:40am I began doing this walk/hobble/jog combination with my 15kg pack on my back, frantic at the thought that I might miss my barge (which would be a early blow to my Croatian island experience). Imagine a turtle getting up on two legs to compete in a 200m sprint race - the weight and bulk of its shell does not make for effective travel.
I can´t get over the smoking in Croatia, it´s like the anti-smoking campaign is yet to hit its shores. People here can still quite happily smoke in restaurants, they can smoke inside the cabin of the barges (which have air conditioning), and when I was in Zadar I had two 14 year old girls come up to me and ask me for a light. I can rememberer the first time I went out in Brisbane when the ´no smoking in bars´ rule came into effect - what a great night! I wonder how many years it will take for Croatia to introduce the same rules... I can´t imagine it will be very popular...
So, I had arrived in Supetar/Superstar at around 9am, a smokey haze still trailing me from the cabin of the barge. After an hour long bus ride across the island, I arrived in the town of Bol. First things first - I had to find some accommodation for the night. Me being the planning nut/control freak that I am, I was a little stressed at the thought of not pre-booking my accommodation for that night. The only reason that I hadn´t was that the hostel website that I use to book my accommodation didn´t list any accommodation in that town! I had been assured that it was very normal to arrange to stay in private accommodation (i.e. someone´s spare room) for the night, so after I arrived I nervously made my way to the local tourist office. The lady at the office found me a room at a home about five minutes walk from the town and beach, for 107 kuna per night (about AU$26). Now, when I say I was staying in someone´s home, don´t get the wrong idea like I did - this isn´t Couch Surfing! Basically, many Croatian families who have spare bedrooms do them up like hotel rooms and let them out to tourists - a very smart idea! They register with the local tourist office, so when people like me are trying to find somewhere to stay for the night, they can send me their way. When I arrived at my home for the night, I was quite surprised at what I found - a queen size bed!!! All to myself!!! Hooray for private accommodation! After a short roll around on what can only be described as TRAVELER´S LUXURY, I dumped my bags and hit the beach.
Actually, hitting the beach would bit quite a silly thing to do. It would hurt. While the rocky beaches of Zadar and Split weren´t exactly pleasant, the pebbled beaches of Bol were AMAZING! I have a thing about beaches - I love the concept, but in reality they frustrate me with all the sand that gets everywhere, the waves that dunk you every time you stand up, and the aquatic life that always seems to end up squelching/nipping under my feet. Bol´s beaches were covered in small, smooth pebbles, so no annoying sand to get stuck in your sunscreen bottle. They had minimal waves, just small ripples as a boat cruised by. And as the water was so clear, I could see that there wasn´t going to be any unwelcome creatures making friends with my feet. So wonderful. So perfect that I could just float around for hours, which is exactly what I did.
After emerging from the water, sufficiently shriveled like a prune, I decided that it would be an awesome idea to rent a bike and check out some nearby villages. There was a small village about a 5km ride from Bol, so I saddled up and set out on my new steed heading west along the ocean.
I don´t think I chose my riding partner very well - it´s seat was definitely designed with the needs of men in mind, i.e. it wasn´t very wide so as to not cause discomfort between the legs of men. I would have much preferred a wider seat, so as to not cause discomfort of my boney bottom. I still have bruises. While the road from Bol to this little village was quite rocky and at times difficult to ride on, it had an amazing view of the ocean and surrounding islands all the way along.
After making it to my destination I locked up my bike and headed down a path that lead to a secluded beach. It was here that I encountered my first nudist! ...But not the kind of nudist that you´d like to encounter (perhaps when she was 30 years younger...). I´ll bet that was a bit anticlimactic! Anyway, I had a lovely afternoon lazing around on the beach, reading my book and diving through the cool blue waters. It felt so good to be out doing things, enjoying nature. I had started to feel a bit couped up lately, always traveling through cities and visiting the interiors of old buildings. The Croatian islands were the perfect antidote to my cabin fever.
Before leaving the village, I stopped at its only cafe to buy a drink for my bum numbing trip back to Bol. There was a man and woman sitting outside enjoying the view of the ocean when I arrived. Once I´d picked a drink from the fridge outside, I handed my money to the woman who went inside to get my change. Hearing my conversation with the woman, the man said to me, it´s so nice to hear an English accent after all this time (his accent indicating he was English himself). I asked him how long he had been traveling - he´d been in Croatia for the last five weeks. He then asked me how long I was traveling away from ´the states´ - this man was very confused as to my origins! After making it clear I was from Australia, we chatted for a bit longer about traveling, where he´d been, where I´d been. Contrary to many of the people I´ve met, he actually thought five months was nowhere near enough time to see Europe - ¨My daughters took a year at least!¨. Unfortunately the Australian dollar can´t really match the pound, and it costs a hell of a lot more to get here in the first place! It´s strange the people you meet - it´s just so easy to find people who are up for a chat that I´m finding it more and more difficult to feel lonely.
I had so much fun on the ride back to Bol - it was mostly downhill. Weeeeeeeee!!!
After returning my traveling companion to its stable, there was still a little sun left in the sky, so I found a lovely bench on a small jetty to read my book and watch the sun go down. Bliss. Again, a glass of rosé would have completed the picture...
While I only had one day in Bol, it is definitely up there topping my favourite places in Europe. So peaceful, such beautiful beaches. There´s not many tourist attractions (e.g. museums, churches, oversized structures, etc), but I would be perfectly content spending a week lazing aound on Bol´s beaches - definitely the best I´ve encountered in my life.
So that´s Bol! Next stop - Hvar!
Talk to you soon!
Love Hayley xxx
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