Sam and Sheena Cycle

Although we had waxed lyrical about how we wake up early in order to seize the day and all that, we were not up at 7am when Marjan and Branca left to on a weeks holiday to the Croatian coast. The 1am finish the night before meant we snoozed the alarm more than we had intended and we were not up until 7.30…. as when we arrived, their daughter was beyond attentive and made us coffee and offered breakfast as we packed our gear. Again, the insanely generous nature of the people we have stayed with has blown us away…. We had slept well, eaten until we were full and talked into the night about many interesting things.

After packing up we headed into town where we stopped for more coffee… our plan for the day was only to cycle 70km so we were quite relaxed and happy to take our time. Last night while leaning over maps, Marjan had suggested the best route for us to take which we did. Our morning consisted of an undulating forest road on the opposite side of the valley to the main road. The steep sides and tall surrounding hills made it very spectacular, small houses and churches perched high above us as the river passed below us. The scenery passed, the weather stayed cool and cloudy and we made good progress. Half way through the day we ended up on a main road which was testing, but fortunately Slovenian drivers are courteous to cyclists and there were only two ‘fuck you’ moments despite the large amount of traffic passing us.

Our day took us along mainly along the flat valley between what appear to be the foothills for the Alps. Abruptly to our right rise hills at least 1000m high which are thickly forested. In front of us, rapidly approaching, are the real beasts. With peaks surrounded by clouds, real mountains are now nervously close to us…. Tonight we are in a small campsite in a canyon, we are currently cooking our dinner next to a fast flowing river with a mysterious blue hue to it. Our thoughts are with the big hills we have decided to subject ourselves to!