So, the rain persisted as we left our pitch at Camping Kate last Wednesday morning and persisted until we’d cleared Dubrovnik’s northern limits – a tad disappointing as the view down over the city from the cliff road as it wended it’s way around was awesome but not very photogenic in view of the rain on the windscreen!

It was a pretty good day for a longish drive though, since the temperature had eased a little so we were no longer being baked alive in the cab. Naturally, this wasn’t to last and, as we tiptoed back through Bosnia Herzegovina, the sun reappeared and we began to cook once again!

A pretty uneventful journey, wending our way back up the same coastal road we’d driven down on, until we reached the town of Omiš – we’d driven through it on the way south and thought it might be an interesting place to stop for a couple of days, having an historic old town and a legacy of pirates etc PLUS, the campsite, Camp Galeb was only €17/night, got good reviews and was right on the beach – sounds perfect? It wasn’t! In fairness, the girl on Reception when we arrived did inform us that they were undergoing a lot of construction work and that most of the facilities were closed, so she suggested we have a look around before committing ourselves. By this stage, it was getting on and we were hot and bothered so we just nabbed a reasonable looking pitch, parked-up and checked-in. It was only later that we discovered the true extent of the building work going on – nothing but the small “family bathrooms” block was open and, in fact, the water was going to be switched-off from 9am ’til 4pm on Thursday. A walk around Omiš later revealed a pretty wee old town, right enough, but this was pretty much flanked by numerous, unattractive “Soviet-looking” apartment blocks on three sides and the place was full of “boy racers” zooming up and down the main road. So, with this our first disappointment since arriving in Croatia, we decided there and then that we’d be off first thing Thursday morning – back to the sanctuary that is Camp Marina at Krka National Park which, thankfully, was on our way up to Plitvice Lakes National Park which was on our “Must See List”.

As we sipped our morning cuppas before shipping out on Thursday morning, Harley was ingratiating himself with our neighbours – a couple and their small child who were heating muffins on a burner outside their car. One thing led to another and we ended up chatting with them. Two Argentinian ski instructors and their six year old son, they spend the winter months in Courcheval, France and the remainder of the year back home in Argentina. Anyhow, I told them about the wonders of Krka National Park and mentioned Camping Marina as a great place to visit on their way back up to France and they seemed quite lit up by the info. We bade them farewell and went on our way, as you do.

We opted to take the inland road from Split rather than following the coast – the road less travelled and all that. It was a great drive – little or no traffic, awesome views and, for the first time, we saw the terrible aftermath of The Homelands War – whole villages bombed and/or deserted as their occupants were either killed by or forced to flee the invading Serbian armed forces back in 1991-1995. A sad reminder of those dark days in the history of this beautiful country.

So it was, that on Thursday afternoon, a special day for us as it marked the 5th anniversary of the day we first met, we rocked-up at Camp Marina to find they just about had a decent pitch left for us! Happy days! A celebratory dinner of open-fire cooked fish in their awesome restaurant was a fitting repast for such a momentous occasion and, as previously, the food and the service were top notch! As we were finishing our meal, who should check in to the site? The nice young family we’d spoken to this morning! Naturally, we invited them over to Sebo for a drink and a chat and we spent a very pleasant couple of hours in their company that evening. If you’re reading this, guys, send me an email via the Contact page on here  – we’d love to keep in touch!

By this stage, the temperatures are reaching 30C by midday and Team Sebo are a little reluctant to do any major hillwalking (or anything at all, really!) so we had a rather lazy weekend lolling in the sun, swimming in the gorgeous little pool at the campsite to cool off and barbecuing our dinners every night! Though, in fairness, we did manage to schlepp the 10km round trip down to Skradin and have a bit of lunch on Saturday – last time we were here, we headed off into the National Park rather than visit the town so we thought we’d better pay our respects to it (and get some much needed exercise!) this time around!

Next stop – Plitvice Lakes National Park before hitting Zagreb later in the week and maybe Lake Bled before we head back into Italy early next week. We finally gave in on the “battle with the fridge” and have made an appointment with a crowd of “fridge doctors” in Trieste for June 6th – fingers crossed they have a cure!