The Third Time Lucky Tour: Day 19 - Plitvice Jezera to Zalec

An eventful day, to say the least.

Leaving the guest house early, we climbed away from the lakes into what I assume was bear country, as a number of houses had wooden cut-outs of bears in there front gardens. Only bear I saw though, was the Grizzly in my mirrors.

We were bowling along nicely, a mixture of twisties and sweepers, crossing a railway line 3 times and having to wait for the train, a long goods train, at one crossing. The sun was out, it was a nice temperature, then through a bend, the back end stepped out slightly on some gravel. That was a warning. A little later on, another bend and the back stepped out again, this time though enough for me to get a foot down. Despite the earlier warning, I hadn't seen anything. I put that down to the sunlight coming through the trees on the road, the dappled effect hiding the offending gravel. From then on, I was focused on the road surface at lot more. Further on there was some more but I saw that in good time and was able to avoid it.

As we had no brekkie, I'd found a petrol station that had a cafe, a few kilometres earlier than our planned fuel stop, so we stopped there for food and fuel. The cafe didn't do any food though, so we bought a bag of little cakes in the petrol station instead. They were enough.

On our travels, I have been surprised by the number of old tractors there are in use, more so in Croatia and Slovenia it seems, though tha's maybe because we've been more rural, anyway, if you are reading my blog Henry Cole, get yourself over here. Henry likes an old tractor. 😉

During our second stint, we came up behind some bikers at some roadworks. One shot off but the other, on a small 125 custom bike set a steady pace, about 50mph, that I was happy to sit at, thus not leaving Grizzly too far behind. At some points through twisty stuff, I would catch up in the corners. The sun was shining, I was having fun following this guy, when we came to a series of bends. I closed up through the first but as I went though the second, it tightened up. Not a problem for me, but the chap in front had gone it too fast and as I got halfway round, I saw he was on completed the wrong side of the road, almost on the opposite kerb! Luckily for him, there was nothing coming, else he would have been spread across a bonnet. Either that or it would have swerved and I would! Now I can't say what was going through his mind, was he trying too hard to keep me behind? Anyway, I backed right off to let him get away and thus take any pressure off him. You need to concentrate on the road, not what's behind. If only I could!

Another brief stop me made was at the Slovenian border. One has to have the photo there, eh?

Another new country for Ginny and I

We made a couple of more stops, a supermarket and then another petrol station to kill some time, as check-in wasn't till 16:00. The last stint was only about 25 miles but Tomtom said it would take an hour. It soon became apparent why, when we encountered the tightest twistiest road of the entire trip so far, taking us up and down the mountains. Still, it was good fun and I was enjoying the day, despite it being 29 degrees again. Thast was until I had a massive moment. It was my time to be lucky.

Coming into a roundabout, there was, on the inside, what I thouight was a red painted cycle lane on the road. Wrong! The red painted cycle lane was actually on the pavment, so as I went to straighten the roundabout, I ended up clipping the kerb! It's not the first time Ginny and I have had an encounter with a kerb at a roundabout but this was worse than before. I hit it quite hard. Once again my boot went down. There was a scraping, the centre stand on the kerb but Ginny stayed upright and we survived to fight another day. Grizzly got a grandstand view, as he was qiute close behind, for a change.

The rest of the journey was uneventful. 😂

Arriving at the B&B, it was locked up and deserted. I had to ring a number stuck on the window. A lady directed me to an envelope tucked away out of sight and said we'll see you tomorrow for breakfast! We let ourselves in, the only ones in the property.

Shortly, we walked into town, to the attraction that is the only reason we came to Zalec, its Beer Fountain in the park. They make lots of beer around here and to show it off, they have built an attraction that dispenses beer from 6 automatic taps, into a glass containing an activation chip. The glass costs €10 and gives you six 100cl tasters. Now it's not the cheapest way to buy beer but it's a brilliant experience and one I have been looking forward to for over 3 years.

The 6 beer dispensers

Is that all I get

We didn't hang around getting through the 6 beers, as we still had to find a place to eat. As it turned out, there was a kebab shop nearby, so we agreed that would do. Despite it being Saturday, a lot seemed to be closed. NOw I know what you are thinking but this kebab was nothing like the ones back home and provided a very filling meal. With that downed, we stopped by a bar to try a real size glass of a local brew.

Despite the near miss incidents, today has been a really good day. The scenery is fantastic, the weather likewise and the roads, though sometimes challenging, have been great to ride.

Wildlife Watch - Only a few things to report today. We now know that Croatia has badgers, as we rode by one lying in the middle of the road. 😞 They also have Jays, as one flew across my path. We also know they have great big green grasshoppers, as one nearly landed on Grizzly's head at the fuel stop.