Dubrovnik and Podgorica

City break time. On the way down, I made brief visit to Zagreb, Croatia's capital and had a quick look at the sights. Enjoyed a visit to the gallery of Naive Art, in particular.

Patrick whizzing around the city walls. 

In the second week of July 2014 I met up with my pal, Patrick, and we spent several days in Dubrovnik and a couple of days in Podgorica, Montenegro's capital. 

My son, Luke, was on his way to a music festival on one of the Croatian islands, so we also spent 24 hours with him in Dubrovnik. Dubrovnik being a resort was crowded, however enjoyed looking around the Old Town and the city walls. 

Patrick at rest

And then taking the cable car to the fortress on top of Srd and seeing the exhibition there of the photos showing the destruction and damage Dubrovnik received during the seige in 1991.

In terms of bagging that week it was limited to the highest point, Polacica (214m P214) on the island of Lopud.

Polacica summit 

Although only a short climb it turned out to be remarkably difficult trying to clamber over sharp karst limestone through close-planted trees and plentiful trailing plants covered in thorns. By time I got  back to the trail to the nearby fortress my arms were lacerated and bleeding and I washed off the blood with a sea swim.

Lopud

Montenegro is noticeably less affluent than Croatia. Crossing the border was not as difficult as I had anticipated as getting a Green card was quite simple. I hope it is as easy at forthcoming borders to other countries outwith the EU and no Schengen agreement. There seemed to be quite a large length of road in 'no-mans-land'.

Kotor bay 

Podgorica turned out be rather less attractive and uncharacteristically wet, with a lot of continuous heavy rain. If I say that possibly the most interesting experience was seeing a car back into the side of another one the reader may get the picture. The town used to be called Titograd and there is much evidence of the utilitarian style (or lack of style) of the Communist era.

Miljanov 's current view of Titograd

Marko Miljanov

Medun in the foothills of  the Kuci tribal area was more interesting. We were shown around the birthplace and burial place of  Marko Miljanov, national hero/ poet, who lead battles against the Turks in the late 19th century. 

Republika Hrvatska

How that gets to be pronounced as Croatia beats me. Maybe not the most precipitous range of hills but the Dinaric alps are fine to look at and ascend. I have had a go at a handful recently.

Croatia's highest point is Dinara (1831m P782) although it is not its most prominent one (that comes later). There is a small road towards the trailhead that leaves the village of Kijevo on the D1 road  at N43.96677 E16.36487.

Like other people I started from the unused bus-stop near Glavas hamlet N44.00556 E16.42150 - once upon a time there was a sketch map of the mountain on the side of the shelter, however, this is no longer legible.
The route is waymarked, though, all the way. If you are cheeky enough you could probably drive up through the hamlet to the end of the track by a blue building at 44.01105 E1641936.

From that point onwards the narrow path passes a ruined fortress and negotiates through rocky karst limestone and often through dense vegetation.

At one point I stood on a venomous horned viper - as it hissed and raised its head to seek revenge I whisked it away into the undergrowth with my walking pole. There are a couple of water/voda points and I found a trickle of water coming out of a pipe at N44.02806 E16.40670. I took a risk by drinking some and have lived to tell the tale.
Higher up the vegetation becomes more subdued and the limestone rougher. A number of large sinkholes have to be circumvented before eventually reaching the final pull up to the badly damaged trigpoint on the summit at N44.06251 E16.38288. The effort is well worth it with extensive views into nearby Bosnia i Hercegovina and further away islands in the Adriatic.

I descended more or less by the same route keeping a watchful eye out for the viper. However, all I met was the two very friendly dogs from the hamlet and they accompanied me back to the motorhome. These two dogs have been mentioned in other reported ascents of Dinara.

Dinara

Svilaja is probably the least visited of the three Croatian Majors of this trip. It has the fanciest trigpoint with the mostest information - no mention of the prominence, though. I suspect there are easier routes of ascent than the one I took. The true summit is several metres to the northwest west of the trigpoint at N43.79070 E16.48474.

Svilaja

I left the tarmac road at N43.75106 E16.52328 and drove up a rough track as far as the closed Dom na Orlovim at N43.76891 E16.52381. Shortly further up the track two routes were indicated to the summit. I took the one that left the track and headed up into the trees and karst rocks.

It was obviously not a commonly used path, but I persevered. The route perversely ended up being a switchback ride as it went through the middle of a series of heavily vegetated and deep sinkholes.
The disadvantage of all the vegetation was that it made the going a bit tiresome at times. The advantage was that I had the pick of the plentiful wild strawberries to myself.
Possibly in days gone by these sinkholes could have been cultivated but there was little evidence of that now. Finally the path broke out on the easier upper slopes and then on to the broad ridge, pocked by large sinkholes.

For the return journey I went back to a junction of paths at N43.78405 E16.49425, turned left and descended by a steeper but much more straightforward path through the woods on the northern (allegedly still land-mined) face of the mountain to meet the gravel road at N43.78558 E16.50286 where there was space to park at least one vehicle. There followed a trudge back in the hot sun  and no strawberries round the mountain to the start.

Sv Jure mast

Sveti Jure

Sveti Jure is Croatia's most prominent mountain - 1762m P1164. I thought I would not be able to get to the summit (N43.34204 E17.05384) because of fencing around the comms mast and no excuse about climbing over the high gate as the warning sign said no entry in five languages. However, someone had kindly dug a tunnel under the fence round the back. To tell the truth - the rest is a drive-up, where any exhaustion comes from frequent turns of the steering wheel at the many sharp turns in the road for 21 kilometres.

What's man?

Been a while since I last posted on the blog. Does not mean that in the meantime I have not gone up a hill and came down. On the contrary, I have climbed quite a few - mainly in Scottish Highlands and on Scottish islands. However, as I have now reached Croatia in my 2014 European tour I thought I ought to resume. Having driven through seven countries to get here there has been rather more motoring than summit bagging. Nevertheless, there have been a few hills on the way.

Watzmann rockery

Firstly, there was Watzmann (2713m P953) a Major and the highest point in the German Berchtesgadener alps that had a very rugged finish, especially with an entertaining section of klettersteig/via ferrata between the subsidiary top, Hocheck and the main Mittelspitze top. It is a long haul to do the whole mountain in one day from Wimbachbruecke and most people stop overnight in the Watzmannhaus hut - not me, though.

Watzmann summit

The next summit was Reisskogel (2371m P1390) the highest point in the Austrian Gailtaler alps. Not as long a walk from the trailhead or as much ascent. However, the route involved some awkward scrambling and following a long ridge that was often less than a metre wide and very exposed on each side. There quite a few black lizards on the upper parts of the trail.

Reisskogel waymark

This was followed by two frustrating days trying to reach the summit of an Ultra in the Italian Julian alps - Jof di Montasio (m P). On each day I was forced to give up because of the thundery weather before reaching the infamous and swaying Pipans ladder. As the Jof is a must do I will be back - maybe later on in the season in the hope there will be less old step snow adding to the difficulty of getting to the foot of the ladder.

Jof di Montasio view

Joe and Sophie's wedding

17-08-2013

Occasionally, there are things that are a lot more important than going to the top of a hill. This is one of those moments - the marriage of my son Joe, to Sophie.

Just a few pictures:

Signing on the dotted line

Arriving at the reception

 

The groom's parents - that's me not wearing Scarpa boots

The first dance

The morning after

Two Sues

Back in the UK for a big hill

 13-08-2013

Arrived in Dover with brake problems, which took most of the day to sort. So whilst the garage waited for parts to be delivered I jumped on my bike and went looking for the nearest hill. That is, if you can count this as a hill? Looks more like a ploughed field to me.

Swinge Hill, 173m P62 

 

 
I eventually managed to get back on the road and head home re-learning how to drive on the left. My goal - whilst I was away someone had decided that Northamptonshire had an alternative County Top and that it was also a Hump=.

So, after all those European and African Majors and Ultras I was finally going to tackle a Big Hill (236m). No messing around with fancy names like Pic, Puig, Pico, Jebel, Mont, Torre or Tossa - in England we describe our hills as they are., not.
By the time I got to Daventry it was beginning to get dark. Never mind, I could still have a go at finding both the summit and the Staverton trigpoint 500 metres further on.

Big hill summit - bit less crowded than Sancy

Staverton trigpoint

 

 

 

Perseids? No, Boveids

Overnight in A45 layby, Daventry (142m)