Camp Nevio (Nathanial)

The day after our visit to Dubrovnik we drove north with no particular place to be, at this point we are just pointing ourselves in the direction of home and driving. We thought we were only stopping over at the next camp site as a stop break but it turned out to be so nice we stayed for almost a week.

I think I'll land here

Too cool to take his shades off!

It was another campsite with a short walk to a beach belonging to paradise, and to top it off it had a small swimming pool which the lads just couldn't get enough of. At 7 years of age, Tom has discovered the skill of sunbathing! He is now a lovely bronze colour.

Turn me over when I've cooked

The view from our camp site

Whilst here we had a great electric storm where the lightening came shooting out of the sky striking the earth. This was the first electric storm the boys had seen, it was very dramatic.





















Adding a cherry to the top of the perfectly iced camp site's cake, we met two lovely people 'Ian & Jaqueline' who we shared a couple of nights eating, drinking and swapping stories with, managing to upset a grumpy Dutchman in the process. Ian and Jacqui are also taking a break from life and have been travelling around Europe in their lovely T5 since last September. It's great when life throws these unexpected bonuses at you.

After our spell of spending far too long sunbathing by the pool we needed to head for a big town to buy a new laptop. Alfie decided we weren't being challenged enough by our budget so spilled a glass of apple juice over the 'old' one (which you may recall we bought in January to replace one of the two pinched in Alicante) subsequently killing it. Thankfully the hard drive could be saved, so we haven't lost any data.

We had already decided to take the ferry back across to the mainland (Camp Nevio is on a 'finger peninsular') to avoid having to travel across the twenty kilometres where Bosnia Herzegovina extends through Croatia along the Adriatic coast. Whilst trying to find out where to buy tickets for the ferry, I went over to ask a chap with a British reg plate. Beth walked over to us and recognized the driver as being Van Dog Traveller, a blog we had read bits of from early in our planning stage. Mike has been travelling for over a year now on a budget much tighter than ours, so hats off to him.


We headed for a town called Split and managed to find a laptop. With this mission over with, our next task was to head off to see some water falls.

Dubrovnik (Nathanial)

After having what felt like the whole of Greece to ourselves, and with Albania and Montenegro being so very free of tourists, it came as quite a surprise when we entered Croatia. Once we crossed the border, we were  only a few miles in when we came across a number of motor homes, a few of them even having GB on their number plates! It'd been quite nice being away from westerners for a while. I don't know why I feel this way, maybe I was just expecting more of the same from Croatia and not quite so many people. Suddenly there were loads of cars on the road again which I had enjoyed a break from........

Roads I've been used to

Then this happened 

We have been travelling through hundreds of miles of beautiful coasts with surreal turquoise seas, and occasionally through mountain forests which I have only seen the likes of on TV programmes with David Attenborough in. Croatia was carrying this on with even more stunning scenery along with little islands scattered all around the coast; it felt like we were travelling through a film set.

Feeling envious of the locals below whilst driving in the baking heat

And then, strangely enough, we did. As we came around a corner we were treated to an amazing birds eye few of Dubrovnik old town, which just happens to stand in as 'Kings Landing' in Game Of Thrones. I am a huge fan of the programme so couldn't wait to explore the city the following day.

Kings Landing Sorry, Dubrovnik Old Town

We found our campsite, which unfortunately wasn't great, but we did have a great view of the sea with a huge blue/orange sky and islands breaking up the Adriatic ocean in the distance. Plus it was only a short walk to a small secluded beach too, bonus.

View from the camp site, I can live with that

A room with a view

The next day we caught the local bus to Dubrovnic Old Town; the weather was stupidly hot though. The town itself is absolutely amazing and I could recognise 'Kings Landing' straight away. It is another town with a Venetian feel to it and is completely built with huge white stones.

Apart from big white stones, there's birds too

Someone's feeling nervous 

We spent most of the day walking round and covered the town in the baking heat. We bought our fridge magnet as proof of our visit and decided to call it a day.

Joffrey?

A perfect film location

Beth nearly had a heart attack walking back for the bus and decided to collapse in the van with Alfie when we got back. Me and Tom were having none of that, we spent the evening snorkeling. After sweating buckets walking round all day, it would have been rude not to have had a dip in the sea.

This one just can't get enough

Cooling off after a hot day exploring

Montenegro (Beth)

Having had troubles at the Albanian border with the insurance issue, we tried to read up a little about the crossing into Montenegro, albeit without much luck. What I read told us that certain items should not be brought in (food, milk, alcohol) and some might be liable to taxation.

We had purposely run our food stocks down but were less keen on guzzling three litres of wine and and large bottle of Baileys in quick succession. I suggested stashing them but Nathanial thought we might get searched and be in trouble for doing so.

Setting off for the border with some trepidation, we steeled ourselves for a long wait and perhaps a fine to pay. In the event, the border was really quiet and the atmosphere was completely different from the entry point. We exited Albania successfully and quickly then made our way over to the Montenegran barriers.

A guard asked us if we had anything to declare and we played the dumb card and asked what sort of things? We opened up the doors and asked the guards if they would like to look in but, seeing the kids we were waved on.

When the documents were checked, we were asked for our Green Card (the insurance that we don't have with our UK policy). I said that we didn't have one and could we buy it here? The guard nodded and pointed me over to a side office, where ten minutes and €18 later we were all legal.

All legal and ready for country # 6

All told, the crossing from Albania to Montenegro took less than fifteen minutes and, driving down the road of another new country, we were filled with relief. Truthfully, it had been a bit scary being in Albania without proper insurance, especially given the state of some of the roads and the driving style (and vehicular choice) of some of it's citizens. Although the Green Card would only meet basic third-party requirements it was good to be legal and with this in place we decided that instead of driving straight through to Croatia as planned, we would spend a night in Montenegro and have a drive up to Durmitor National Park to visit the Tara Canyon.

Montenegro is quite a small country and we easily made the journey from the Albanian border on the south coast to the National Park which lies up in the north, near to the Serbian border.

The roads and views were spectacular and definitely felt very different to Albania. Montenegro is predominantly mountainous and we had soon climbed above a thousand metres along more of my favourite twisty roads.

Still not watching the road, and he wonders why I'm nervous

We reached our destination within a few hours and were immediately glad to have made the decision to visit. Durmitor National Park was worth a look by itself, lots of sweeping views and really pretty houses. It must be even more impressive in the winter, covered in snow.

All of the houses were pretty but these were a bit special, much better than Albanian buildings!

A few tight hairpins later, we found what we had come to see. Apparently the Tara Canyon is the second deepest gorge in the world. It was certainly an impressive sight.

You'd better not look over here Mum

It really was this blue

That's close enough lads

After deciding not to take a trip across it on a zip wire (because of costs reasons mainly, we all wanted to do it) we went and had dinner at a hotel restaurant overlooking the canyon. Needing a place to stay for the night, we also viewed one of the hotel family rooms, but lack of either wifi, a double bed or a bath tub made the van the winning choice. We had seen a campsite on our way to the canyon, so after dinner we made our way back along the road, arriving at Camp Jatak just as dusk was falling.

We were the sole residents that night and were shown into a beautiful meadow to park up. The temperature up in the mountain was far chillier than those we have been used to, it dropped by about twenty degrees from coast to mountain top with the temperature reading only 11 degrees first thing in the morning. We have long since discarded Alfie's duvet, so he felt the chill the most, but as the sun came out the temperature quickly soared back into the late twenties.

Lessons au meadow

This one prefers to be indoors!

Descending from the mountains, the road twisted around the coast once more and after a final scenic journey we arrived at the Croatian border, where we could once again enjoy the benefits of having a fully-comp insurance policy and  breakdown cover!

Safely back in the E.U, we reflected that, tense though it had been at times, we had made a good decision to travel through Albania and Montenegro, rather than sticking to our previous plan of 'going around' through Bulgaria and Romania. We got to experience a different flavour of life (hopefully the boys took some of it in) and it has also enabled us to visit Croatia, as recommended to us by so many.

Albanian Adventures (Beth)

After a free night by the beach, of which we have enjoyed so many in Greece, it was time for us to say goodbye to this beautiful country that we have fallen in love with, yes, even Alfie. After a quick pit-stop to buy a new camera (ours was suffering from being abused on beaches, some of you might have noticed an irritating smudge in our most recent pics) we set off towards the Albanian border.

We had done some research about Albania, having previously thought it a bit dodgy to visit but had been reassured by many people about it's safety, especially along the southern coastal roads. Our van insurance doesn't cover us outside of the EU, but we had been told we could buy border insurance.

The border was very quiet and on the Greek side we were ushered through quickly after a cursory glance at the passports. We asked about insurance but were told to ask in one of the duty free shops (?) which we did to no avail. On the Albanian side, our passports and V5 were checked, but nothing was mentioned about insurance. We tried to ask but there was a definite language problem and we were shooed away from the border office. Looking around, we could see no obvious place to get insurance, just several cafes and a Western Union. Quite a few dodgy types were hanging around and a few approached us, seemingly keen to try out their English, but not understanding what we were saying. By this point, Nathanial felt we were making ourselves an obvious target and decided that we'd be better to push on.

Our first views of the country were pretty impressive. More lush mountain scenery, possibly greener than Greece had been, with wide open spaces and very quiet roads. The sat-nav decided to give up altogether soon after the border, so we relied on our European map and navigated by looking for signs to places along our intended route, which served us pretty well wherever the signs actually existed.

At this point Nathanial kept saying he should be on a motor bike

We got a bit lost around Sarande but eventually found our way out, after visiting a cashpoint to stock up on the new currency, the Lek. I hadn't a clue how many Lek you get to the Euro, and I had a choice of withdrawing between one thousand and one hundred thousand. I opted to take out ten thousand, which was delivered in two notes.*

The roads really started to test the vans suspension

It was no fun getting lost with out the sat nav

Ever prepared as we are, I had done a bit of research on campsites, but not actually written down proper directions, just the name and town of the one for the first night. It was getting late in the evening when we finally arrived in Himare and found the right beach road. As we drove along, we spotted a lone camper and a few tents in a field and were waved in by the owner to park, just in the nick of time.

Antonio and his wife appear to live in the tent to the left of this photo

After a quick introduction from Antonio, we settled in to have dinner and watch a film. After a while, a knock on the door revealed Antonio with a dish of potatoes, freshly dug up and washed by his wife as a gift, which we thankfully received.

The little allotment on the actual camp site

In the morning Nathanial and I had a long chat with Antonio, who proved a fascinating raconteur, covering a wide variety of topics including his work history (for Siemens we think?) and that of his grandfather (a miner in France and Italy) a history of his region, local and world politics, the rules of Octopus fishing, religion, the creation of his campsite and plans for future construction and the Bermuda triangle.

We're loving waking up to these views

After perhaps an hour of this 'conversation' (we made occasional 'really?' or 'wow' noises) in the baking heat, Nathanial and I were glad to try out the shower block, which was an interesting looking shed with open drainage onto the soil. However, despite my reservations, the shower proved to be hot, powerful, clean and spacious. Much better than many we have used on this trip.

Al fresco potwash, drainage onto rocks!

A very nice shower actually

We waved Antonio a cheery goodbye a little later, armed with business cards to deliver to other campsites along the coast. Seeing these cards, we realised that the reason the campsite hadn't quite matched up with what I remembered from the internet was because our intended destination had actually been further along the beach; Antonio had poached us from the road! Never mind, we're really glad we stayed with him. It just meant that as we had been without the expected wifi on this site, we didn't have a definite destination to aim for, just another town where we knew a campsite was located.

The drive out of Himare was spectacular and soon involved one of my favourites, a twisty mountain road! Luckily, the view was mostly on my side, so I kept the camera away from Nathanial and concentrated on photography. My pictures do not begin to convey the vastness of the view. As we approached the summit along multiple switch-backs the view was akin to being in an aeroplane.

At this point it felt like we were on a Scalextric track 

You can see the road we climbed up snaking all along the coast and then upwards.

The road wound its way up the mountain in the distance

On the descent, the road wasn't quite as good but the scenery was still fabulous and green.

The road had actually fallen off the side of the mountain 

Slightly scary!!!!

In addition to the usual roadside dogs, in Albania we have been seeing cows, donkeys and even the odd tortoise!

As we travelled, we found ourselves on a mixture of roads, some fantastic, others not so great. Outside of Durres, where we knew a campsite was located, we made a massive wrong turn down what seemed like a smooth dual carriageway, but what turned out to be a dead-end road which had been used as a tip, complete with foraging pigs!

Wow, this road is really smooth and really quiet!

Ooo, that's a bit of a mess

Beth, are you sure this is the way?!

Bloody hell woman, where have you brought us ??!!!

Hastily consulting the sat-nav, which had at this point woken up, we could see that our final destination in Albania was actually only another hour away, so we decided to push on. However trying to turn around in the narrow strip at the end proved disastrous as the van got stuck on the central reservation (to the left of the above picture). After some to-ing and fro-ing Nathanial finally got the van free, he was too scared to look under the van to see what damage had been done. It was definitely one of those moments where panic was close to setting in, we really didn't want the van to be stuck in the absolute middle of nowhere with no insurance, and a language barrier, in a very rough looking area.

We think 'Shiten' means 'for sale'. We saw it a lot.

We arrived in Shkoder the promised hour later, but were unsure where to go as we had not been actually written down directions. Spotting an internet cafe, I decided that it would be best to log on to the campsite's website, so I ventured in to be confronted with a roomful of chain-smoking, gaming twenty-something lads, who looked at me as though I had dropped out of the sky.

I was shown to the only available computer and logged on, feeling the stares of a dozen pairs of eyes at my back. I quickly found and wrote down our directions and went up to the desk to pay. The chap told me the cost was 20 Lek. I brought out one of my 5,000 Lek notes and the chap grinned at me, before informing me that he would make an exception for tourists. As I thanked him profusely, turning redder by the second, one of the lads commented that "it was his pleasure". I made a hasty retreat.

This was one of the more conventional modes of transport we saw!

A further ten minutes along the road we found the campsite, arriving just as the sun was setting. The site was everything that the website promised and after checking in we had a quick brush-up to make ourselves presentable and set off across the grass to the restaurant where we enjoyed a fantastic meal for under €30.

Lake Shkodra Resort

Albania's version of that famous print

The following day we got back into relaxation mode, having decided to take advantage of the time saved by getting to the site earlier than planned. In the afternoon we used the sites kayak for a pootle around the lake and also got out the frisbee and the badminton racquets.

Paddle faster Dad!

Left a bit Mum

Prompted by some information at reception, the following day we decided to set out for the 'Mes bridge' by bike. We had been told that we would cycle through several villages and witness rural life. We weren't disappointed.

We saw several ladies taking their cows out for a walk, one helpfully pointed us in the right direction.

Not a combine harvester in sight

They were almost as fascinated by us as we were by them.

Almost everyone gave us a cheery wave

Another cow out for a stroll

You wouldn't believe how much noise these make

Man, wife and horse ploughing

The campsite map was more a back-of-fag-packet type affair, so we made a few wrong turns and had to ask for help a couple of times. The friendly chap below was more than happy to accompany us a few kilometres along the road. He knew everyone we saw along the way and called out a greeting at every house. He chatted away to Nathanial throughout about who knows what, but we did gather that he had been fishing and was proud to show off the catch in the basket on the back of his bike.

Our friend with the big fish

The splash you can see was made by a young lad jumping in this water

The boys had done exceptionally well to cycle so far, but both were flagging by the final stretch. Nathanial ended up going ahead to scout the bridge while the lads and me ducked into the shade. Nathanial came back having seen the bridge but the boys didn't want to look at yet another pile of bricks, so we turned about and headed back.

The heat was getting to him

Mes Bridge, as seen by Nathanial only.

Most of the gardens were beautifully tended with veg, not many flowers

These bunkers are all over Albania, left over from a paranoid communist dictator

When we got back to camp we all sagged gratefully into our chairs and lapped up another few hours of sunshine. Tom had made friends with the two English/Albanian children of the owners and they were keen to get back to their Lego construction.

The universal language of seven year old boys.

Today we have enjoyed our final day at Lake Shkodra. For our four days we have had a mini holiday within our big holiday because we have eaten out every night, spending the equivalent of three days budget on food and the campsite over the time, so quids in. Tomorrow we are up early to try our luck at the border with Montenegro, which we hope to cross in a few hours to arrive in Dubrovnik tomorrow evening. Wish us luck!

*For reference, a euro is worth about 140 Lek, so my ten thousand was worth about €70, or £50 and I tried to pay the roughly equivalent 10p for the computer with a £25 note.