Day 10: From Ljubljana (Slovenia) to Rijeka (Croatia) (130 km, 1925 vm)

The day started quite rough. My room in Ljubljana was on the ground floor with the window to the street. But it was so hot that I had to keep the window open. I don't know how many times I was woken up by a speeding car or people talking. When my alarm went of at 5:30 I felt like on the first day back to work when you have been getting up late for weeks and all of a sudden you need to be up early again ... just not ready to get up. I forced myself out of bed. I would sleep another hour or two I could not make it to Rijeka. Thankfully I had everything packed up the night before and already prepared my lunch.

At 6 I was on the bike. According to an online map my tour for today was about 125 kms and about 2000 vertical meters. When you are on trips like that you never should think about how long you still have to keep going because it is always too long.

I tooks some time to find a bike path to get out of Ljubljana but when I was on it the ride out of the city was pretty smooth. It always takes some time to get out of bigger cities with lots of intersections and traffic lights. After about 7 kilometers I turned of the main street and the traffic there was significantly less. It was a nice flat ride. Perfect to warm up. After about 17 kilometres I turned of towards Ratikna, a town in the hills which I had to cross. The first few kilometres of this 700 meter pass were very steep then it got a bit easier. After about 400 meters up I got to a road block. I immediately thought "Please don't let this road be closed today. I don't want to cycle back down and find another pass". When i arrived at the block the man there told me to wait about 8 minutes and that I have to watch out as the road is very wet. I did not quite get how the road could be wet with a week of Sahara heat. I took the time to have a quick food break. I knew that I did not have much time to takes breaks today so if I had to wait I wanted to make use of it. Shortly after I was allowed to pass I passed a fire truck which was in the middle of the road. Water streams were running along the side of road but there was no accident. I passed the truck and saw a really load quad bike approaching from the front. It blew out massive amounts of smoke. When it passed me I had to stop because I could not see my own hand in front of me. Once the smoke settled I cycled on. The next person I saw standing on the side of the road I asked what this was all about. Turned out that they were filming the new commercial for Volkswagen Vans. The road now had an almost surreal atmosphere. With the smoke clouds still hovering in the air and the wet road it really looked like misty morning.

When I reached Ratikna I bought some more water and then headed on. The road went up and down and up and down before it dropped to Cernica the next and last town before Rijeka on my route. I had about 50 kilometres now. I went into a supermarket and bought some more food and water. I thought I was overbuying since I hadn't even eaten most of my sandwiches I made but it turned out that it was smart idea to have more food after all since the next 70 kilometres were almost any human contact. I ate while I continued riding. Shortly after moderately climbing the maps I had prepared via online tools and that I had taken pictures of told me to run into a little road. Up to now it was easy to follow these maps because there was always I town as a destination which I could navigate to using street signs and my bike GPS. Now the next indicated town was Klana in Croatia. The road that I had to turn into was a gravel road into the forrest. I checked my GPS and there were load of those little roads with regular intersecting paths indicated. It was hard to see which one to follow. There were also no signs. I stopped at every intersection tried to compare the planned map with my GPS. I also used google maps. Essentially I tried to make sure that I was continuously heading south. If I got totally lost I would have just to turn around.

The first kilometres of this mountain forest road was very steep. My balloon tires do not have too much profile so on steeper parts with lots of gravel my back wheel did not quite grip. After a while it got a bit better. I knew that the highest point of my tour was at around 1200 metres today so I regularly checked the altitude. But every now and then the road would drop 100 metres again. After about 7 hours I took a first real break to eat something. I needed it. I had already done 1300 vertical meters and my legs demanded rest. Even though the sun was till shining through the trees I could hear a thunder storm approaching. Great. I am heading to my highest point for the day when the weather is about to change. I could not see any clouds through the high trees though. At some point I arrived at a sign to a town which name I did not recognise but next to the sign was a run down little hut, almost like a control station, and written with faded red colour I could make out "Klana - 40 km". On the one hand I was extremely happy that I was on the right track. On the other hand 40 kms at this point just seemed very long. I kept on cycling with these mixed feelings. The sounds of thunder were getting closer so I was trying to speed up a bit like I could outcycle an approaching thunder storm with a 45 kilo bike on an uphill.

When I finally arrived at the boarder the forrest cleared and I was on a big high plateau. When I crossed the boarder I could not find a sign or indicator that I was entering Croatia. I was a bit disappointed as I was looking forward to a selfie with the sign - sign selfie. Only some run down military bunkers with trees growing out of them indicated that there must have been boarder at some point. Now I could also the the front of the thunderstorm hovering right above me. I felt a bit saver now since I knew that from now on the road would mainly drop with the exception of a few little climbs. About 5 kilometres later the gravel road turned back into a tarmac road. What a relief. I had been bouncing around on my bike with no suspension for the past I don't know how many hours and the smooth ride on tarmac was a real gift now. When I got to plana I stopped at a little bar and had a Coke. When I paid I remembered again that Croatia has no Euro. And I hand no Kunas. Thankfully the waitress accepted 10 Euros and gave change back in Kunas.

I was now back in civilisation. The closer I got to the mediterranian sea the further away I got from the thunderstorm, too. And in one unexpected moment I caught a glimpse of the the sea in the distance. What a feeling. I took pictures and continues on. I dropped down the last 400 vertical meters to the sea and arrived in Rijeka. The tour was probably the hardest so far but I still enjoyed it a lot. I am actually really glad and happy that I took the direkt way to Rijeka and through the mountains rather than cycling around them. I will stay for 2 nights now. It is time for a recovery day, especially after a tour like this one.