Day 17: From Milna to Rogotin (110 km, 1300 vm)

Last night I woke up to a massive thunder storm. I put my ear plugs in and kept on sleeping. When the alarm woke me at 5:30 the temperature outside was nice and cool. I ate the breakfast I prepared the night before, got ready and was on the bike at 6:15. I had talked to some people the night before who said that I can cycle through the tunnel of the main road. I was very keen on taking this option because it would mean about 200 less vertical metres. So I stayed on the main road until I got to the tunnel. The sign at the entry clearly marked that bikes are not allowed but at this stage I didn’t care. I was not going to cycle back. There was also not that much traffic. With a bit of adrenalin I went into the tunnel. I had my bright head lamp fixed to my luggage on the back facing backwards to make sure that I was seen. The tunnel was about 2 kilometres long, but since it was flat I got through fairly quickly and only got overtaken by one car.

Once I got out on the other side the scenery had completely changed. I was very green and with the clouds out and the mist from the rain from the night before I felt like I was in another world. Once I got to Starigrad and Jesla the road went uphill again. The views were again stunning. The lush green mountains against the sea in the background made me stop multiple times to take pictures. With the fairly moderate temperatures it was also a pleasure riding.

Shortly before the ferry I met to Czech mountain bikers who I cycled with for a while. Despite their poor German and my poor Czech we communicated fairly well. We road together to Sucuraj where I wanted to catch the ferry back to the mainland.

On the ferry I met another German cyclist, Kai, who started in Split and wanted to cycle through Montenegro. Once we arrived on the mainland I overthrew my plans of finding a place to stay and I cycled a bit with him. We got through some quite busy and touristic beach towns on the way where I did not want to stay. I checked the map and decided to stay at a town called Ploce. This is a harbour town which offers me a quite flat route to Bosnia along a river.

The ride to Ploce was quite interesting. Once we left the coast line the landscape changed. We climbed a bit (there was a lot of climbing today) and got to a nice view point from where you could see the karst lakes of Ploce. Again another beautiful and stunning view.

Ploce on the contrary was very disappointing. It was a fairly new town which had nothing more to offer that a big industrial harbour. I definitely was not going to stay there. Problem was that I was already on the way for quite some time and that the heat was really kicking in again. I took a break, said goodbye to Kai, and took some time to study the map and find a place. My decision fell on a little fisher town called Rogotin. It looked like it had a beach and I found a really cheap accommodation there.

Once I checked in I went and had a swim in the bay which was not all that clean. I then went to the supermarket to get breakfast. On the way there I had, what you would call an encounter of the third kind. A local guy called Tony approached me. We had the usual chat ... Where are you from, what do you do here ... . Then he invited me for a beer. He bought it at the supermarket and we drank it right in front of the entrance. One of his friends was there as well. He spoke German, Tony English. I ended up sitting in front of this supermarket for about 2 hours chatting to these guys. Amazing.

Tomorrow I will probably go to Mostar. I have been there before but I would like to see it again. Even though it is not a very long ride it is a great place to have a stop. But let’s see. I have changed my plans so many times along the way. Maybe I will end up in Dubrovnik instead.