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On Tuesday Setember 9th, we left Italy after a mere 36 hours within its borders and headed south for Croatia. Such are the proclivities of the border arrangements in the region, we had to cycle for about an hour in Slovenia again before we were back on Croatian soil. My cold had not got much better, and I had a kind of cold, hungover sweat clinging to me from the start of the day. To make matters worse, the drizzle which greeted the day slowly became more persistent, making conditions less than enjoyable. We stopped in a beautiful port town called Piran in Slovenia for a break before deciding more or less to just cycle on till we reached our destination for the night, as neither of us were enjoying the weather. It was one of those days when the wet seems to permeate every pore and soak everything you're carrying, irrespective of how many plastic bags you've wrapped things in. So we made fairly good progress that day, covering 60 odd miles in the Istrian countryside and finally arriving at dusk to Porec, a renowned spot on the northern coast of Croatia. Having found a reasonable place to stay, and negotiated with the tourist information for about ten minutes (they insisted we had to pay a 30% surcharge as we were staying under 3 nights - something we would get used to over the coming weeks), we headed out into the gloom in search of food and nightlife. The first we found in the shape of a pizzeria, again something we'd get used to in the coming weeks, but the latter was sadly absent. Another early night, but not before several of the local beers were downed. On the way home, we met an Australian who claimed that he had heard the weather forecast, and that it was set to rain for the next week. Needless to say, we didn't return home in the best of moods.
The next day, to our pleasant surprise, turned out fine. The sun was out, and despite a blustery wind coming in off the sea (known as the Bura in those parts), it was quite warm. An enjoyable morning was spent exploring the old town, which was rich in historical and architectural points of interest. Many others had seemingly discovered this fact, as it was teeming with tourists. The whole Istrian coastline is geared towards tourism, and it is lined with purpose-built resorts and complexes, Porec in fact being one of the few old towns in the region. Still, we hadn't come to Croatia expecting it to be undiscovered, perhaps this being September we had come at a quiet time aswell. The afternoon we spent cycling to the next town of interest down the coastline which was Pula. This task appeared straight-forward enough; forty-odd miles with a tail-wind, should take no more than four hours we thought. Things were going fine until we decided we had so much time on our hands that we could take a detour and take in Rovinj, another coastal village with a lot of renown for beauty. This we did, but the detour went slightly wrong, and we ended up on dirt track with no signs, cycling more and more hopelessly in the wrong direction. We carried on in this vein, bumping along a rocky track for an hour or so, until we finally reached tarmac again and a sign for a village. Hurrah, we thought. Until we looked at the map (not a very good one, it must be said) and found we were still over thirty miles from Pula, and nohwere near Rovinj. Very frustrating. Had that been the end of the frustration that day it would have been fine, but things seem to come in threes, and it was not. Roughly ten miles from our destination, Henry got a puncture. We were just watching a beautiful sunset over the Adriatic and I was feeling quite calm at the time, a puncture would be no problem, I'd fixed hundreds before even if Henry hadn't. I confidently got out my tools and puncture repair kit and told Henry to watch carefully how this should be done.
An hour later, I had succeeded in removing his back wheel. His tyre, however, was refusing to budge. In the meantime, it had got dark and a crowd of onlookers had shown an interest in my growing anger and use of English profanities. Not that anyone was offering to help, most of them looked like they wouldn't like to raise themselves from their cappucinos if they were on fire.
Eventually, having gone through two tyre levers and nearly breaking a finger, Henry's wheel was removed and his puncture duly fixed. His tyre however still had to be put back on the wheel, and this proved about as difficult as taking it off in the first place. Another hour or so of fiddling around and we eventually got the bike on the road again...approaching 9pm. We still had a 10 mile cycle to Pula, and we got our heads down - the youth hostel was shutting at 10.30. We would have made it there fine apart from one further problem - Henry's tyre deflated again. Now it seems obvious, but with all the messing around, I'd forgotten to check his tyre for thorns or nails sticking into the innertube, a novice's error. We had to wheel the bikes the remaining five miles, and were in with a chance of arriving before 10.30, until Henry managed to leave one of his panniers behind in a petrol station and I had to cycle back a mile or two to retreive it. Things just couldn't get any worse...
We arrived in Pula tired, angry and hungry. And we still had to find a place to sleep. I decided to cycle the three miles or so to the hostel while Henry remained in a bar in the town centre where I would come to meet him if there was room there. Finding the place without a map proved difficult - the Lonely Planet guide providing only the scantest of clues as to the hostel's whereabouts. Eventually, after asking several people and getting lost several times, I found the hostel, on the city boundaries to the south, next to a beach, and full of school children. Not a good sign. The bar was packed, but the reception was deserted and closed. Hmm, I thought, shall I just drink several beers, get catatonic and claim I was kidnapped ? No, I was responsible, spent a further hour finding the whereabouts of the (drunk) warden, talking to him in broken English / Polish / Croatian, trying to persuade him to let us stay, despite it being full, and eventually prising from him the offer to stay in a nearby friend's apartment which would cost roughly the same. Great. Just one thing - I still had to find Henry. To my surprise, the warden offered to help me in this respect, and pointing to his 4x4 car, explained he could pick up both Henry and his bike. Despite the warden's obvious inebriated state, I readily accepted this offer, as I was in no state to faff around by myself anymore. We arrived at the alloted meeting point and Henry had disappeared. This was the final straw, and I just told the driver to take me to the apartment. Somehow, to Henry's eternal fortune, we found him as we were turning into the street we were staying in. I didn't even ask. As soon as we got in the door of the apartment, I fell on the bed into a deep and long sleep.
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