Friday 25^th May 2018

Cathy posting,

We entered Montenegro yesterday and are at the posh beach bar and restaurant for breakfast after our free spot last night, we are going to use their wi-fi and write a blog, they also look like they do good coffee mmmm and we love coffee, we pop down there and make use of the loos and get the menu for breakfast choosing an omelette each with tomato and cheese, oh boy those were the best, deep red juicy tomatoes and salty feta like cheese folded inside nice moist thin omelette, the egg was not overcooked, I’m nearly always disappointed when I order omelette as many overcook the egg, this has put a smile on my face for the day, can you tell?  that and the view.

We can’t seem to find many camp sites in Montenegro near our current location as we want to go north, the omelette may have been the best thing about the bar as the wi-fi is pants…. We head for the hills and oh my what steep hills they are, think Scotland on steroids! The scale of the mountains is impressive and Montenegro is so verdant, I’m thinking they must get a lot of rain as its so lush, huge flat plains in the valleys with little red-roofed houses spaced far apart each seeming to have very large garden and vegetable plots, it’s a sort of Alpine Legoland, we later learn that these are Ethno Villages, growing organic food and living life the old-fashioned way,  we’re heading East towards Budva then north to Cetinje we take the M2-3 which is the Cetinje to Podgorica road we climb very steeply for 31 kms or more the views of the Mountain range getting bigger and bigger, if Carlsberg made mountains I thought? Pogos head is in the clouds when we see an opportunity for a great view-point so we stop for a photo, there are 3 guys from Spain there too who have flown into Dubrovnik and hired a car for a 3 day road trip in Montenegro, as always we get onto the common language of football, Dave discusses the Real Madrid vs Liverpool champions league game, they want Liverpool to win!

Off we go again, we need to get some fresh water as we’ve free camped and need to empty the Loo, Dave stops for fuel and asks about a water tap, no problem, go behind the garage and there is fresh water and you can use that, he doesn’t ask about the loo he just takes the cassette and his disinfectant wipes and goes in search of that which is also hidden out of sight, job done!

The roads are better than we expected especially this one which has brought us to this aerial spot, not so good about the drivers hereabouts though, we’ve had a couple of near misses, now it’s time to head to Skadarsko lake, we turn off at Meterizi (GPS N42.382660, E19.103025) and the road to the view-point overlooking the lake, (GPS view point N42.362364, E19.056794) it was mostly single track and Pogo had to breathe in a couple of times and once had to reverse back downhill!

Turn right here and take this road to the view-point, it is wider and better than the previous right turning 4 kms back

The oncoming coach wasn’t budging for us and we passed with millimetres to spare, the drop is on my side and my bum was clenched! One idiot in a car rounded a bend on our side, Dave braked heavily and a few curses were spouted too, thank goodness we’ve had those brakes fixed, the views down over towards Rijeka Crnojevica, Skadarsko at were worth it though as we saw a magnificent horse shoe lake with mountains hugging it all around and what we thought was a deep layer of algae from our position we subsequently learned were lily pads, I wished we had taken a boat tour also with hindsight.

Cathy surveying the beauty of skadarsko Lake

It’s really hot again today and our lack of planning means we are not sure where we are going, I want to go into Podgorica the Capital but we haven’t found  a site near the city, Dave doesn’t want to chance finding somewhere to stay so we continued onwards and Northwards towards Niksic which is another large town, the point of the large town is that Dave wanted to see the Champions League final between Real Madrid and Liverpool, well we should have free camped near the lake as we were driving around looking for somewhere and it was getting dark and raining heavily looking like there was going to be a thunderstorm, we are now on the M6 it’s not quite as bad as the UK’s M6 but it’s pretty busy, we spot a restaurant at the side of the road so we pull in and Dave goes to ask if we have a drink can we stay in your car park , yes no problem, that’s sorted then were staying, we had a couple of drinks and a meal of lamb and potatoes which was very yummy and much-needed as we were a little fractious earlier, we’ve only had 1 domestic since we left home! and number 2 looked like it was about to arrive, the meal and wine calmed things down.

free sleep spot Niksic

Dave asked the manager if he thought we could see the football in Niksic, he said you could have watched it here but I’ve got live music and dancing on tomorrow however there are many bars in Niksic which will show it, ok I said to him can we stay another night if we have coffee in the morning, yes no problem again, we love these people nothing is too much trouble.

Good night

Cathy x x