I had originally arranged to stay in the town of Veli Luka on the island of Korcula, booked accommodation for the next two nights and everything. However, after pulling into the port after the 45 minute trip, I did not like the look of what lay before me. It looked like a bit of an industrial town. Poo. I was so torn as to what I should do - I knew that there was a bus that would take me to the other side of the island to the main town of Korcula in about an hour - but do I risk throwing my plans away? Practical, organised Hayley was screaming, no you fool! What happens if you can´t find accommodation for the night? You´ll be left on a park bench with drunken sailors, forced to share their Croatain beer and cured ham! But then the new, adventurous Hayley was screaming, screw it! Give it a go! You can always come back if you need to, and being down season, I´m sure you´ll find somewhere to snooze for the night. And who knows, those drunken sailors might have some interesting stories to tell! The new, adventurous Hayley won out in the end, so I jumped aboard the bus waiting at the port bound for Korcula town.

I love European drivers - they make hour long trips fly by so quickly (just like the scenery out the window!). Our bus driver must have had his favourite dinner waiting on the table for him for when he got home, because he was stopping at nothing to get the Korcula town as quick as he could! We absolutely zoomed through the countryside, causing the elderly passengers on board to ¨woop!¨ everytime we took a corner. We came up against a bit of a road block about half way into our trip - a rally of day trippers in their rental cars, putting along and soaking up the countryside. Nothing was stopping our bus driver from getting home while his dinner was still hot! Our bus driver overtook five little hatchbacks within the space of about ten minutes, while still expertly (?) handling the many seemingly insignificant corners on the road to Korcula town.

The private accommodation vultures hadn´t been fed that day. As my bus was one of the last buses to pull into Korcula town that night (7pm), they descended upon our bus with teeth bared, hungry to snag that elusive tourist who was silly enough not to have accommodation lined up for the night (hands up!). As I was getting my pack out from under the bus, I spied another backpacker heaving their lime green home onto their back (she looked more like a turtle than me!). I recognised her - I had seen her getting onto the same ferry as me from Hvar. As we battled through the flock of vultures, who were getting hungrier as more people emptied from the bus station, I turned to her and said, have you got accommodation for the night? She smiled and said, no, you? So we decided to find somewhere together. Her name was Codi, from Colorado, USA. She had just been spending time with a friend in Croatia and he had left that morning to go back to London, leaving her to complete the last five days of her trip solo. We headed towards the town centre and walked into the first tourist office we saw. Turns out they had an apartment right above the office that we could have for the next two nights at only 110 kuna each. Were we interested? HELL YES! The woman took us up the some stairs to our room - huge (with three beds), with windows that looked out onto the old town, a big bathroom, and the cherry on top - a huge balcony that looked out to the harbour. We couldn´t believe our luck. We felt like someone should come steal our passports, because no one can have that much good luck in one night! There was lots of delirious giggling to be had that night, and we toasted our good luck over dinner by the harbour (how cheesy are we?).

The next day Codi and I had a very cruisey day - we were both a little bit tired and worn out from traveling, so we caught a ferry to nearby Orebic island to spend the day on the (according to our guidebooks) ´sandy beaches´. HA! I think that Croatians should embrace their rocky shores, I´ve never seen anything like them anywhere! Australia just has boring, annoying sand beaches, I´d much prefer the pebble variety. So anyway, we headed to this supposedly sandy beach, and I was pleased to find that when they said sandy, they just meant ground up rock and pebbles. Hooray!

I love the how Croatian geriatrics are so into water (and naturism). While it has the terrible side effect of making their once youthful skin resemble a leather handbag, I find it so refreshing that perhaps out of all of the people in the community, the elderly aren´t the least bit shy of baring a cossie (or not!). Beer guts, cellulite, liver spots, fat rolls, scars, and boney joints float around the ocean without a care. I love it! So there´s a challenge for you, Nan and Mamma...

After a choppy ride back on the boat (*vomit noise*) Codi and I had a look around the old town before heading to the supermarket to buy the ingredients for the gourmet dinner we were planning that night. Codi and I are quite the food pair - she´s a celiac, I´m a vegetarian. Makes for an interesting dining experience! We stocked up on cheeses, bread (for me), salami (for Codi), tomatoes, and WINE and set up our dinner on the balcony overlooking the harbour. What a perfect night. Just to top it all off, Codi tried some Vegemite and even told me that she kind of, sort of liked it! Well, that just made my heart soar. We all know how much I love sharing my love of Vegemite. But being the celiac she is, and being that Vegemite is concentrated YEAST extract, she had to take it easy (and I´m also running a bit low on my black gold...). We got quite a bit giggly after a bottle of wine, and decided to check out this swanky cocktail lounge we´d read about.... just for one drink, right?... We headed to this amazing cocktail lounge called Massimo. You will have to look at my photos to believe it. It is this amazing bar that has been built into one of the towers of the old town wall - instead of infantry patrolling the tower to ensure the safety of the city, drunken young backpackers sip cocktails and contemplate how exactly they will make it down the law suit inducing ladder to the ground. That´s right - after enjoying numerous alcoholic beverages, you then have to climb down a ladder that is almost vertical. Codi and I investigated alternate means of decent. We´re not overly opposed to climbing the ladder to get up the tower (unless you´re wearing short skirt), be definitely agreed that management should consider a fire man´s pole to get down. We plan on putting it in writing and see what they can come up with. Our drinks were delivered to us in the most unique way - the barstaff would write our order down on a piece of paper and send it down a piece of rope to the bar on the first level. The staff down there would prepare our drinks, then put them in a basket on a pulley system and hoist them up to the rooftop of the bar! Very clever.

Safely back at our apartment, Codi and I were serenaded to sleep by the country band playing ballads at the pub next door, their mournful tones wafting through our open windows (how poetic am I?).

Early to rise Sunday - we had a ferry to catch! We boarded at 7am, and made the relaxing journey down the coast to Dubrovnik, known as the ´jewel of the Adriatic´.

Talk to you soon!

Love Hayley x