8/8/99

I was awoken by the dulcet tones of Jeremy proclaiming 'Well, at least it isn't raining today'. Unsurprisingly within 5minutes it was pissing down. We all toddled off for breakfast in the hope that it would stop, but of course - it was a real tropical storm rainy thing. Eventually we gave up waiting and packed up & headed off. The rain stuck with us most of the way to the Slovenian border. Just before the border we stopped at a petrol station which had an automatic payment thing which you stuck notes into and it dispensed petrol - probably most helpful to locals but to us foreigners with damp scrunched up notes it caused absolute chaos. Half an hour later we had a set of full tanks and were rolling to the border.

It was a surprise how easily we crossed into Slovenia, just a quick passport check and we were on our way. Here a number of us decided that we wanted our passports stamped and to the confusment of the guard he was then presented with a queue of ten Englishman, who he'd already let into the country, trying to get theirs stamped too.

Unfortunately the roads were still wet and so the lovely roads down the mountainside were taken somewhat cautiously. The scenery was truly stunning. The mountains put the western Alps to shame, with their seemingly endless tree-lined ascent to the sky. Soon enough we conducted our first compulsory U-turn and the GPS was called into action to guide us in the right direction.

We rode for a while along the side of a river which was steaming - REALLY steaming as if it was boiling away, unfortunately we never got around to stopping to find out if it was hot.

Soon we came to a mountain pass and at the first bend I was greeted by a sign ominously bearing the number '55'. Surely not I thought, but yes there were 53 hairpins over the pass. The first 25 or so were fun twisting up the mountain face. Then we arrived at the top to be greeted by an irate parking attendant who was determined to stop us waiting in his beloved parking area. Using the universal language of shouting we attempted to convey we'd only be a couple of minutes, failing miserably. Soon enough we were all gathered together in the mists at the top and set off in search of the remaining hairpins. We discovered these soon enough in the form of wet cobbled downhill ones all the way to the bottom. These were most certainly not fun and we crawled down to the bottom.

There we stopped and were greeted with the news that Jims back brake had failed - thankfully after the last of the hairpins.

We pulled up in a petrol station and all filled on sandwiches, crisps & 35p per litre petrol and were soon on our way again. It was now time to make some progress since in the past few hours and 55 hairpins we had progressed about 3km's.  The highlight of the decent was passing through a group of cows happily grazing on the road - including one who had decided a stray hubcap would make a great snack.

We decided on a revised destination of Zagreb as our target for the day. The rest of the ride was uneventful and we crossed into Croatia with no problems.

I was pleasantly surprised by the state of the two countries in that they appeared (on the surface at least) to be fairly affluent. Not at all the poverty I had been expecting.

When we convoyed into Zagreb a local biker from the 'Hollister MC' pulled up alongside Jeremy and they had a good old chat. It then appeared that we were following the local and we tried to decide if we were being led to a campsite or to their hideout for a beating. It turned out that we were taken to their clubhouse where they supplied us with drinks and there was a continuous arrival of club members coming to gawp at us It appears that VFR's are the desirable bike of the region and for the first time it actually appeared to draw attention over the other bikes present.

The people were really friendly and searched out a campsite for us. After a while we set off after presenting them with an Ixion T-shirt. They guided us to the campsite and then negotiated a cheap rate for us. We all pitched up in the mossy infested grass and then headed for the bar in search of food.

This most of us found and scoffed bowls of nondescript stewy stuff. This was then followed by a beer session of cheap Croatian beer, which tasted great at the time

This led to the invasion of a wedding by myself and Marvin. Thankfully I was just about sober enough to prevent the deployment of the UCL.