Kristen
Okay. Yes, I admit it. We were meant to leave Boračko jezero yesterday. There’s no way around it. We got up, ate our muesli, packed all the stuff (how do we have so much stuff?!), walked off down the road and even started our GPS tracker. Yep, all guns blazing!
Callum
I’m one of those people who can sleep indefinitely in the dark, but snap irreparably awake with the slightest hint of sunshine. So when the first timid rays peek through Jezerce kuća’s lone window, my body wakes in seconds – though my brain takes a little longer. Twisting carefully so as not to fall off my narrow sleeping bench, I wriggle my sleeping bag over to check on the fire. Completely dead, but I’m gratified to see that it took most of the wood with it; my fires don’t go down without a fight.
Kristen
Back in our first week on the track, maybe day three or four, when it felt like we’d barely begun, I remember Callum saying that when we hit the forties, that’s when it’d feel real. We’re definitely doing this now. It seemed so impossibly far away, but here we are. Day forty. And it certainly feels more meaningful to say we’re on the Via Dinarica now than it did at day four.
Callum
It’s been four days – four glorious days – since last we hiked. Not that I don’t love hiking, but having single rest days all the time makes them seem a bit like Sundays; relaxing, but with the niggling knowledge that tomorrow you have to go back to work.
Kristen
(For all you Aussies back home, let me first just inform you that it’s pronounced Yab-lan-izia, not Jab-lan-eek-ah, as we have been referring to it for the past few weeks).
Callum
For Kris, sleeping in the tent is a way to really be a part of a place. The smells, the sounds, the grass poking up the sides – it’s all right there, around you.
Kristen
I fell asleep slowly last night in a contented drowse. Outside the little shelter, from behind the small, rectangular window, I could see a single tree in the foreground against a sea of thousands more, above which the grey sky unfurled like a bruise. The single tree was lashed sideways by wind and rain as I lay there, unassailed by even a draft. My eyes would close, but sure enough I would open them again, just to see out.
Callum
Were I to draw an elevation profile of the Via Dinarica, and lay it out beside me, I can only imagine that it would match the ground we slept on last night. We camped on the side of a mountain, so there were two certainties we could rely on: that we’d have an uncomfortable night, and that three-hundred metres up the track there’d surely be a site that was infinitely better. Both, we discovered this morning, were true.
Callum
I.
Ahh! It’s a beautiful day. After two nights at the beach, this campsite feels like home; here the sheltered cooking spot, there the dogged clothes line – everything in its place. I could definitely have another rest day here. It was too windy to go swimming yesterday, but already this morning I’ve gone for a dip in the turbid waters of Buško jezero (a lot grosser up close, to be honest).
bushnuts 