This morning we were on. We felt that finally a great beach, crystal clear water and a campsite worth the money was within reach. We arrived early at the reception, before all the guests had checked out. It is high season and the campsites are quite full, but we managed to get a great spot 50 meters from the beach for 30 Euro per night. It feels great to park, roll out the mat and put up the sunroof and just relax.

Bathing shoes are great to have in Croatia. All beaches are rocky and pebbly, and there are some nasty, black and spiky see creatures that can hurt your feet. It is a bit tricky to get in to the water sometimes. But it is so worth it when you are there. The water is crystal clear, fresh and cooling +21° C.

In the afternoon we took a walk to the closest village. Stara Baska is a tiny, sleepy village with a few small restaurants, a harbor and a small beach, just as we like it.

The campsite is practically full all the time. As soon as someone leaves, a new guest arrives. There is a lot of German people here, but also some from Poland, Italy, Austria and a few Swedish people. The campsite is very well run. Toilets and showers are cleaned constantly.

Today’s mission was to fill up our stove with camping gas, to find someone who can put in eyelets in our sun roof, and to find some lock pins for our shower cabin and finally to find a shop to get some food.

We found a marina about 10 kilometers away. There we found the lock pins and a boat repair shop with a man who could help us to put in stainless eyelets. Three stainless eyelets was needed. And the man at the repair shop didn’t even want to get paid for job.

Next stop was the gas depot, twenty kilometers further away. But this was trickier. The gas bottle connections are different all over the world. We know that and have a small collation of connections by now. The men at the depot looked at our bottle and scratched their heads. After trying out some connections to make the systems fit, he sent us out of the shed to start fill up the bottle.

Then we heard a loud bang from the shed, the gas was flowing and out came the two men from the depot. One of them crawled in again along the wall to stop the gas from flowing. When he tried to tame the crazy tube hitting everything around it, he hurt his hand, his nail cracked and he started bleeding.

This was bad. Now have to try to find another solution. We found a hardware store, but found no suitable connection there. So we went back again to the gas depot to see if they could try another idea that we had. But unfortunately they were closed for the day.

We got new neighbors yesterday evening, a family with three very noisy kids. Already before breakfast we had moved to a better spot, right by the sea. A bit more expencive of course, absolutely worth it. It is great to sit here gazing at the sea. And this is kind of our vacation, before we start travel for real.

Catharina stayed at the beach today, while Bert made another try at the gas depot. This time it worked. He persuaded them to make it our way. The one we had tried before when we couldn’t get connections to fit. We let the floating gas slowly pour from one bottle to another. The first half is quick, but the second half takes hours. It takes some time but it works!

Today we have started to plan our route. There is a lot of things to consider. We have to read up and get information from a lot of sources to make our own conclusions.

Right now we feel like we have to ditch the route through Lebanon, Israel and Saudi, since the chance to get a 72 hour transit visa to Saudi is practically slim to none.

If we didn’t get a transit visa to Saudi, we would have to take the same way back again though Israel and Lebanon. That could be a hassle for us. Since the two countries are not the best of friends. Even if we don’t have an Israeli-stamp in our passport, it is not difficult to guess that we have been in Israel. On top of that we would have to make a return trip from Turkey to Lebanon with a ferry costing us like 1 000 Euro. And both Lebanon and Israel are expensive counties to stay in. All this taking in account we decided to find another route instead.

Today we continued to plan our route. It looks like we are going through Iran and Pakistan after all. It is difficult to evaluate the security situation. We have to try to keep us updated from now on. But our next big task is to get visa for Iran, Pakistan and India.

In the morning we packed our stuff and went for a quick swim at the beach, before we took off to Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina. We need to go there to try to get visas for Pakistan and Iran. It is 600 kilometers to Sarajevo, and it great to be able to divide it in to two days of travelling and still get time to visit the Pakistan embassy before it closes for the day. We need to get application forms and check out the situation. At website they say a visa takes 4-6 weeks processing time. And that really does not work for us!

As soon as we passed the border to Bosnia and Herzegovina, everything was more like an old Eastern Europe country. It is defiantly more interesting to travel in countries like this than in Western Europe. It feels like stepping back in time a few decades. Here they still drive a horse and carriage and the farmers are out in the fields with their animals in the countryside. Everywhere we also see a lot of abounded houses since the war.