Day 11: 4th September

Eleven days in Croatia and here we are, this is it, my final blog entry. Many miles later, and I am waiting for another plane in Dubrovnik Airport and wondering what would be a good way to conclude this trip. I suspect it is raining back in England although it will be nice not having to worry about sun cream, sweating and dehydration whenever we go outside. What might be less appealing is the fact the next time we get back in a sea kayak will probably be on a canal in Scotland in February!

What with this being a school trip and everything, I having expecting term to start for a long time now. So long that in some ways I am looking forward to it beginning. I think however that a good way to conclude this journey would be to quote the last verse of the Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner. However, I would substitute one word. I would change “sadder” for “gladder” so that the last verse reads:

“He went like one that hath been stunned,

And is of sense forlorn:

A gladder and a wiser man

He rose the morrow morn.”

Day 10: 3rd September

A lot happened today. Having left the place we were staying at and taken the ferry back to Dubrovnik, we drove to the Old Town. Today is the culture day (its popularity varies from person to person). The Old Town in Dubrovnik is hotspot for any sight seer and an essential destination for any tourist and believe me when I say that there are lots of them round there. The largest single part of the Croatian economy is all around you when you are there.

We all went off in groups of three to explore. Opinions varied over what to do. The gold group found a nice high cliff by the beach and spent the afternoon jumping off it, three of the silvers spent the afternoon in a restaurant and Major Billington chose the sun tanning on the beach option. As for my group of three, we had lunch and then chose to tour the Old Town.

We started by going through the Pile Gate. The draw bridge which you cross to enter the town was once lifted u every night and the key given to the Crown Prince. We shuffled through the crowds of tourists to the War Photo Gallery. This gallery seeks to “expose the reality of war...and the injustices committed to combatants and innocents alike”. They have a permanent exhibition on the Bosnian War and also had an exhibition on the Arab revolutions taking place at the moment. No photo will ever fully reflect the turmoil and suffering war creates I don’t think. A photo of a line Libyans praying with tanks surrounding them can only move you so much. However, if you take the time to look at it, to put yourself in their shoes, you can begin to appreciate the not so obvious truth that wars are always bad. The Bosnian man smoking a cigarette outside what remains of his shelled home reminds you how insecure what all are and easily everything you hold dear can be snuffed out. The Serbian soldier kicking the defenceless Croat in the head while the child looks on crying reminds you that even if you did nothing wrong the devil aint a loser and actually we have it all. The soldiers fighting in the rubble while above them “Welcome to Sarajevo” has been sprayed on like graffiti reminds you that this was once a great city before the fighting broke out, it reminds you that this could be happening here...

The walk along the walls of old Dubrovnik could not be more different. For one thing, the museum was air conditioned while up on the walls it was boiling! And yet, twenty years ago it was these walls which were being shelled, these walls which received 155 direct hits and it was 68% of the buildings within these walls which were damaged by it. However, walking along the top of them and looking out over the red tiled roofs of the old town and beyond that the turquoise sea, it looks like anything but a war zone. Repairing Dubrovnik cost a mere $10 million and it really makes you wonder what we could achieve if we were not spending literally trillions of pounds a year on “defence”. However, the walk along the walls is definitely worth the money and you can do a lot worse than gazing out over a UNESCO world heritage site for an hour or longer.

Unfortunately, we only had an afternoon to look around Dubrovnik which is a shame because there are so many places that are worth visiting. However, when all is said and done, not many people are too concerned about comparing the differences between Franciscan and Dominican monasteries and such like. Interestingly enough though, there was a wedding going on in one of the churches and two of the musicians performing were the same ones as had performed for us at the restaurant on Lopud on Tim’s birthday.

 Tonight we are camping at the same place we spent the first night at. Apart from certain individuals getting lost on runs (not me again), the day has run smoothly and I feel a good night’s sleep may be in order as we have a fairly early start tomorrow. It is a shame as I was just about getting used to the hot weather round here.

Day 9: 2nd September

Today was essentially a chance for us all to relax and recuperate. The gold group went out on a small paddle and came back with their three star kayak qualification. We have not spent enough time on the water to be assessed for it yet so we stayed on the island.

During the morning we played cards and met two very lovely ladies who were on their break from university at Durham. We decided to take the bus to the other side of the island so that we could have lunch there. We ate at the same restaurant we had eaten at the day before. (Did you know they sell blow jobs here for forty Kuna, though it is only another drink I am afraid). Dan the gaper had caught a wasp in a jar. It was the largest wasp I have ever seen. It was a good inch long and having it buzzing round the inside of a glass on our table was quite impressive. We decided to leave the wasp for the waiter to deal with as revenge for the long wait and tiny salad. However, in accordance with the law of Karma, the bus had left about a minute before we got there and it was not coming back for a few hours. The gold group had rented bikes for the day and good ride them back. In the end we were forced to walk.

However, having gone about 150 metres, a car drove past. It was not because we were lazy or because we were scared by the signs which warned of wild boars but because we simply thought that the man in the car needed company. So we stuck out our thump and hitched a lift for the five kilometres back to our accommodation. Walking that far in flip flops at 30 degrees might have been quite an effort.

It is easy to see on Sipan why the 15^th century Dubrovnik aristocracy built their houses here. The place is small and remote enough to be an escape and yet is large enough to grow food and not be dependent on the mainland. Driving through Sipan was actually the first time we had been inland for the whole of the trip and it was interesting to see it. Forests and shrubs seem to dominate the vegetation and there are no groups of houses except on the coast.

Day 8: 1st September

Yesterday, after we had finished dinner, we went for a quick forty minute night paddle. It’s very strange paddling at night; you are a lot more aware of everything around you. There was also almost no light pollution so gazing up at the stars yielded a much better view than almost anything you get back in Britain unless you live on top of a hill in a national park or something like that (or possibly Hull where they do not have electrical power!)  

Anyway, today was our last day of proper paddling. We did about six kilometres in the morning and a similar amount in the afternoon. I learnt two things today. The first one is this: A “Salade Caprese” is not a proper salad. A proper salad is a salad which is made up of lots pieces of lettuce with bits of tomato, mozzarella and such like adding flavour to it and has been covered in olive oil or another dressing. It is not supposed to be something that costs ten Kuna more than a twelve inch pizza and yet is made up of ten slithers of mozzarella and ten slithers of tomato and some olive oil to make it “filling”. If I ask for food, I expect it to contain more than one and a quarter calories!  Sorry if that is too much to ask for.   

Anyway, that was what happened at lunch today on one side of Sipan Island. In the afternoon, we paddled around to the other side of the island where our accommodation was. We, the silver group, are staying in a bed and breakfast about ten minutes inland by foot. Personally, I really like it. Unfortunately, I do not think that feeling is shared by our landlady. One hour was all it took for a complaint to be lodged against us following water being dripped on the floor and in a sofa bed, a person sitting on a table and a small(ish) incident involving myself, a loo and a lock on a door which no one could open except our now very annoyed land lady. That was the second thing I learned today: Do not trust loo doors which use key to lock their doors unless you want to end up like Norris in Coronation Street!