Smurfy Tjedan Dvanaest: Coastal week of Hell, Croatia
October 2010, by Gini
After leaving Slovenia and heading back over the border with a few suspicious looks and searches of the smoking van we were back in Croatia! We made our way very slowly down the coastal road towards Zadar. We topped up the oil every hour and stopped at a few campsites along the coast, one even turned out to be free as there was no one there to give our money to.
It was quite a stressful trip back with black smoke that followed us everywhere. So we called it the week of hell. But in the end we made it back to Zadar which we never thought would happen as Smurf was in bad shape. We dropped Smurf off at Marin's garage and checked ourselves into the local hostel on the waterfront for the week. Tom did a little bit of work, I read a few books, we even managed to get to the beach for another swim. We made another furry friend called Blue because of her blue tail and went for a few runs.
I managed to get an injection in my bum and then fainted for pain relief as I was suffering from a sore neck which we think was bought on by stress. Which all added to the week of hell and excitement!
Enough said it was a hard week of waiting but we got through it and by Friday Marin was ready with Smurf. He had spent all week pulling apart the engine and replacing parts left, right and centre. He wished us well and probably secretly never wanted to see us again.
But he did.
About 2 hours into the trip back along the coast north to getting the hell out of Croatia we started to notice an oil leak, a mixture of clear and dark oil, so we called Marin and this time he broke his weekend rule and he fixed our oil pipe leak on a Saturday morning.
So after 3 attempts over 3 weeks to leave Croatia we finally got back on the road and crossed the border for good.
G
It was quite a stressful trip back with black smoke that followed us everywhere. So we called it the week of hell. But in the end we made it back to Zadar which we never thought would happen as Smurf was in bad shape. We dropped Smurf off at Marin's garage and checked ourselves into the local hostel on the waterfront for the week. Tom did a little bit of work, I read a few books, we even managed to get to the beach for another swim. We made another furry friend called Blue because of her blue tail and went for a few runs.
I managed to get an injection in my bum and then fainted for pain relief as I was suffering from a sore neck which we think was bought on by stress. Which all added to the week of hell and excitement!
Enough said it was a hard week of waiting but we got through it and by Friday Marin was ready with Smurf. He had spent all week pulling apart the engine and replacing parts left, right and centre. He wished us well and probably secretly never wanted to see us again.
But he did.
About 2 hours into the trip back along the coast north to getting the hell out of Croatia we started to notice an oil leak, a mixture of clear and dark oil, so we called Marin and this time he broke his weekend rule and he fixed our oil pipe leak on a Saturday morning.
So after 3 attempts over 3 weeks to leave Croatia we finally got back on the road and crossed the border for good.
G
Bluey the cat
