We checked out of our apartment in Split and lugged the suitcases through the old town to the Car rental agency. We hired a Peugeot 508 for our sixth road trip since leaving home in March. We squeezed as much of our luggage and the kids luggage into the boot as we could and then piled the rest of it on top of the kids in the back seat.

We drove for an hour to the Split airport and offloaded the kids and their luggage. It was then time for another goodbye. The last of all of our visitors during our trip. Of course there were the usual tears before Madi and Jye hopped their plane for London.

We returned to our car and drove on to the seaside town of Zadar. Our hotel was right in the old

Town which is situated on a small peninsula surrounded by a city wall with ancient gates built by the Venetians when they controlled the coastline here.

We had literally sat down in our room after checking in when we received a message from a New Zealand couple we had met in Apollo Bay last year at a B & B. Dirk and Ingrid just happened to be in Zadar at the same hotel and had also just checked in. This wasn't really a coincidence since I had given Dirk our itinerary and they had booked into our hotel so that they could catch up with us. We got changed and went straight out for a sumptuous seafood meal at a local restaurant. Dirk had just finished dry July and although it was still 31st of July in Zadar, he reasoned that it was actually already August in New Zealand and so took the opportunity to hit the bottle hard. It was a wonderful meal with great wine and even better company.

That night there was a massive electrical storm which did nothing to dissipate the heat. The lightning was so constant it was like a disco on our room. We had never seen anything like it. The next morning we chatted to our concierge about it and he was a funny man who explained that they had a similar storm last year where lightning hit a tree outside the hotel and a branch fell on the bosses Mercedes. He then said. "I was so happy. My boss is a b******."

We spent 3 nights in Zadar. It was still blisteringly hot but that didn't stop us from exploring this fascinating town. There are ancient Roman and Venetian ruins here as well as some modern structures such as a sea organ, which is an area where you can sit on the foreshore and the waves flow into holes that have been hooked up to organ pipes, which emit eerie whale-like sounds.

There is also a giant round area designed by the same artist which acts as a solar panel during the day and then turns into a massive led light display after the sun goes down.

From Zadar we headed to Pula. This was supposed to be a 4 hour drive but turned into a 5.5 hour drive because there was a four car pile up on the motorway which caused an 18 kilometre traffic jam where we barely crawled.

We arrived in Pula late and checked into our AirBNB which again was right in the old town. There was a soccer tournament on right next door and there were hundreds of people playing soccer and drinking. A temporary bar had been setup and they blasted music until 1:30am.

The next day we were happy to see that the tournament was over and everything cleared away. We explored Pula which again was built by the Romans. There is an amphitheater there that looks like a mini colosseum and it was beautiful. We enjoyed a beer at a bar on top of the hill looking right through this ancient structure. There are also ancient Roman temples and buildings there that date to 2,000 years old.

Our next stop was Rovinj which was fortunately only a 40 minute drive. We checked into a big resort hotel and were happy to enjoy the various pools and the ocean for the next 3 days. The temperatures were still in the high 30s and we were pretty much over the heat which had been consistently above 30 since 20th July.

Rovinj is a stunning old town built on a tiny island where the old brightly coloured buildings lead up to a beautiful cathedral sitting on top of the hill. We booked ourselves into various spa treatments in our hotel and I had a remedial massage where I'm happy to say I put the disposable undies on the right way around this time.

We spent our last two days in Croatia in Zagreb. We loved this beautiful city where the architecture is very French and very baroque. We stayed in a wonderful Art Deco hotel called the Esplanade which was built in 1925 to house guests of the Orient Express. They have kept true to the Art Deco style and the hotel is stunning.