Callum
As usual, I’m feeling a little ungainly after our rest day. With my pack at its heaviest and my legs at their stiffest, it’s all I can do to waddle out of our apartment and into the blaring sunshine of the main road.
Kristen
The road is long.
We wake at 5 am, and are walking before 6.
Each kilometre ticks past, treacherous as a slow clock, the arrythmic brute. Tick… tick… … … (tick?).
Kristen
As forecast, it’s been a wet night up at Crnopac sklonište. In the morning, the rain finally peters out, leaving the forest floor shiny with wet leaves and the limestone a brilliant, glistening white. I’ve slept badly (again), so I rise slowly while Callum puts on tea. We read some more Howard’s End. Mmm.
Callum
We’re three weeks in to the Via Dinarica, and in many ways it’s just getting easier. My boots have softened, my skin has tanned, and, with all these mountains, I’m the fittest I’ve ever been.
But if the physical challenge has lessened, it’s only so that a mental challenge can take its place.
Kristen
Stap is my favourite shelter so far. It’s beautiful and has great character, it’s loved and tidy, and I never want to leave. But today is an auspicious day, so walk on we must! Auspicious because it’s our twentieth day of walking, which is the longest either of us has ever hiked continuously.
Callum
Before starting this hike, we bought ourselves a Trangia stove, assuming that methylated spirits, the fuel of choice, would be as easy to get in the rest of the world as it is in Australia. Apparently not. In fact, that fuel seems to be more or less illegal here.
Kristen
The Winter room at Schlosserov dom is so dark that I don’t wake until 8 am. It’s drizzling outside. Andy is pottering around, but Thomas is still asleep along the full length of the table like a blue caterpillar. Being too tall to cram into a bunk bed, he took his pick of the other furniture. Andy, slightly shorter, took the lower bunk, and Callum and I top and tailed above.
Kristen
From Hahlić dom, you can see the ocean. The sun sets over it in a pink and purple blush. I can see all the way down the dark green coast of Croatia, curled up like a spindly dragon. We’ll be walking along it’s spine for the next month and a half. It sounds like a long time, but what strikes me from here is just how small these countries are.
Callum
It’s been a long day. Kind of a hard day really, the sort of day that makes me question why we do this, why we hike.
Kristen
Today’s hike was a navigational schmozzle. Only 21 km, but very long. However, I write this from a warm, comfortable youth hostel called Ars Viva in Podcerkev, so I can’t say it ended too badly.
bushnuts 