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Day 29: Rijeka to Near Oltari, July 30th


It’s 14:15 as I write this. I’m in a café 60km into my day and my pen ran out, so I’ve nabbed this one. The café is dirty and run down, the coke I got was flat and had something floating in it, but it’s cool and I can use the bathroom and charge my phone. That’s good. I was up at 8 for breakfast. It wasn’t up to much, just bread, granola etc. I ate plenty, nonetheless. I packed, went back to Hostel Fun and picked up my clothes. There had been an intense thunderstorm early in the morning so I had to remove my seat cover and raise the seat. I ripped the cover in the process. I cycled back into town and went to a supermarket. Then, around 9:30, I was off, climbing up into the hills. Most of this morning has been climbing on tarmac roads with occasional stretches of relieving downhills. The scenery has been getting spectacular though. Always the blue sea is on the right, and the sparse, piny, rocky landscapes stretch out in either direction. It does not look promising for wild camping, being so steep. We’ll see what happens tonight.


Before I reached this café I found a working phone lying in the road. I sent a photo of the location to the first whatsapp contact, put it in a ziplock bag and left it on the side of the road. I hope that helps.




***


I cycled on from the café. The woman was not friendly. I asked if the bathroom tap water was drinkable, but she insisted I buy some. I decided to risk it as a last resort. Around 3:30 I stopped at a viewpoint overlooking the sea and ate my apple. [Here I picked up some metal tubing from a bin which I later (much later) used to fix my tent pole!] I continued on. There was a little downhill followed by endless uphill in the intense afternoon heat. My legs hurt and my water ran dry, unlike my body which was soaked in sweat. 


I was in the middle of nowhere so, when reaching a holiday house with some people playing in the pool outside, I asked if I could have some water. A german man led me in and let me fill up from the tap. This was a lifesaving move.


What followed was a little more uphill, then lots of bumpy, stony, gravel ups and downs. At last, around 7, I found myself atop a cliff with views of the sea and the sunset, and convenient rocks, forest, and soft grass. I was 10km away from my endpoint, but I stopped nonetheless. I set up camp in a spiky pine forest with stone strewn but springy earth underneath. Then I found a point overlooking the sunset, drank my coke, ate my crisps, read my book, and watched the sun go down. I thought about C. It would have been a great place to write poetry, but I’m still short a pen. Instead I took 2 wild poos.



I went to bed around 9. I had a fitful, half-sleep for a while and concluded I was dehydrated. After fixing that I slept well. The forest was safe and comfortable.


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