Tuesday 12th June 2018

Dave posting,

Blinking eck, Cathy is up at 6am, it’s really cool and almost acceptable for us Brits! After Mrs E has drank her obligatory second cup of tea and plotting our route we quietly, ever so quietly left the free fortress car park and our friends, Jeanne & Tai, until next guys bye for now!

Osijek in Croatia is our destination; an hour later and we are at another border crossing at Backa Palanka, Serbia, although this time it was very straightforward with no waiting or problems. On the other side of the bridge we turned right and headed to the Hotel Danav near Ilok for a break. This part of north-east Croatia is surrounded by Serbia on three sides. We are so close to the border that our phones don’t recognise we are in a different country, which is a shame as our mobile contracts allow data useage in Croatia.

We rest here for a while, it’s very hot today. I suggest a coffee in the shade, hopefully there might be a breeze off the river and maybe we could take advantage of the hotels free wi-fi, well why not? loaded up with all our electronic devices we find a table and chairs with a view of the river and a power point! I did ask before plugging ourselves in! Two coffees and two glasses of water arrive and we read, write and research. The hours slip by and we become peckish, let’s have lunch here, it’s a pleasant spot, not busy and we can justify the cost as we intend to free camp here tonight.

We decide to move on and not stay here, nothing wrong with the location, we just wanted to get to Osijek, we set off at 3pm, maybe it was a mistake not to stay here, we are driving in to the sun and the heat intensifies as we travelled, Cathy was melting, we can’t believe it’s 37 in the van, the air con can’t cope, the air outside is hotter than inside, so there’s no point opening any windows. We pull over for fuel and a chilled drink from the garage, Cathy is not feeling well and we needed to stop. We can’t contain our excitement at spotting a LIDL, another reason to stop, shop and cool down! we love Lidl!

The forecast is 95-99% humidity, we are eager to get to Osijek, get out of our very hot van, set up camp & cool down at another free spot by the river. The car park is huge, it’s almost deserted, no signs about payment or restrictions, park where you want kind of thing, there’s plenty of grassy areas, it’s part tarmac, part cobbles, level and thankfully there’s lots of shade from the large number of trees.

Now it’s 10pm and it is still hot at 28 at this time of night! it is such a still evening. We are tired, a little frazzled and we can’t be bothered to eat, so we lie down on the bed and try to relax in the heat. The nearby fairground is pumping out music in to the still night. We are restless, suddenly at midnight the wind appears from nowhere blowing cool air through the trees, we lie there with the windows fully open enjoying the coolness, it feels so much better now! A storm quickly follows and as the temperature drops we fall asleep.

Bye

Dave