Now, the bus journey. It was fairly epic. We figured out we could get the bus from the stop pretty much right outside our apartment; not bad. So it got in and there were plenty of seats to spare. Then we got into Pula and a few more people got on but not many. Things were looking good. We'd be travelling through the night and we may actually be able to get some sleep on this bus. Well, about an hour or so along the road we stopped at another big station and so many people crowded onto the bus. There wasn't a single seat spare and I think one dude had to go and sit on the bog. We had a few rest stops along the night. It was all quiet enough and a good temperature. There was no way we were going to sleep though. Especially not when there was a guy at the back of the bus playing "We no speak Americano" on his phone over and over and over...and over again! I'd recommend using boats to travel Croatia.

We got in eventually though. About 3:00am. The guys that owned our apartments also ran a taxi company from the same building, so they were able to pick us up at the bus station and take us out to the apartments. Ground floor. We were straight to bed, no hanging about.

We didn't get up too early the next day. This was maybe partly due to the shutters which com[pletely blacked out the room. We opened them up at some point and got a bit of a shock when the light came bursting in. Our accomodation was in a little place just outside of Zadar itself. Called Bibinje. So I asked the guys upstairs about the best way to get in. Obviously, he gave us the option of a taxi, but said its much cheaper on the bus. So we got some directions and took ourselves to the bus stop in the 'centre'. Our plans from here. Get some breakfast, chill, grab some groceries. We found the bus stop and sat ourselves down. And waited...and waited. We were getting pretty bloody hungry and nothing was coming. Until an old woman came and sat down next to us we were beginnning to lose hope completely. Then we waited...and waited...We were starting to lose hope once again, but at least the old wifey kept us entertained. She talked to herself a fair bit and even had a go at trying to communicate with us. A hell of a character. At one point she stood up and started to walk away. We thought maybe she'd given up waiting. But as she got a good distance away we heard her let out a big long fart! I'm glad she didn't come straight back too, we couldn't wipe the grins off our faces!

I think we were there a good hour and a half before the bus came in. Sitting in the heat with our empty tummies and an old lady who would frequently empty her own. After the last night's bus trip we never thought we'd be so glad to be sitting on another bus. But glad we were. We got into Zadar and, luckily enough, the supermarket was right next to the bus station. We passed this by for now though. We needed food! So we followed the Town Centre signs. The walk in wasn't all that great. It didn't seem like a very pretty town and we could find anywhere that sold food while giving free wi-fi. It wasn't too long before we hit the old town. The place was finally starting to get pretty. You hit the old town wall as you're walking down along the harbour. The wall surrounds the entire old town, which is actually quite a large area. We entered through the Eastern gate. Lots of old buildings here. Its quite a pretty old town, but we'd seen far nicer places, even within Croatia. Rovinj was much nicer. Decent atmosphere though. There was a nice little section with lots of restaurants and a couple of bars. We found this very quickly and filled ourselves up. Breakfast had pretty much become dinner by now so we had a nice big meal before nipping across to the bar to have a little drink and take advantage of the wi-fi available there. The meal was lovely. The wind started to pick up once we finished it though. My empty glass and bottle were blown right off the table. Thankfully, I managed to save the glass. Afterwards we went back to the shop, got a couple of bags full and sat at the bus station. For god knows how long! We got back in about 9 in the evening. We'd managed to take an entire day to travel ten minutes into town and back and have a meal! Bit of a nightmare. Even more so because I got a nose bleed at the bus station. I had a runny nose one second and the next I've got blood all over my hand. I've got no idea how that happened. I've never had a nose bleed before. More confusing than scary, but I didn't really know how to deal with it. Kate looked after me though. We would not be doing a bus tomorrow.

Next day we spent looking around locally. We followed the sign straight out of our apartment towards the beach. I think we should have followed the road but the signs don't always seem to point you in the right direction in this country. Sometimes they're beforer and sometimes after the turn. This one was just kind of wrong. It kind of took us in the right driection though. We just had to walk along the coast behind a lot of houses. It was a bit of a rough path. You can see it in the pics I have of Katie in the Zadar album. It was a windy day and the waves were coming right up onto the path. It was great fun. We walked past the beach and into the marina. Bibinje has the largest marina in the whole of the Adriatic and there are some incredible boats here. One massive boat called the Gladiator. It was certainly the biggest but there were some very fancy looking ones. I even had a look at a boat rental leaflet. They're quite expensive. Its nice to dream though. We'd been walking quite some time today and we really just wanted to chill a bit. At the end ofthe marina, the road never really went anywhere close. So we headed back home and made a couple of pizzas, from scratch. Very tasty. We hadn't had an oven for quite a while, so we wanted to take advantage. We spent the rest of the night on the laptop, playing Grim Fandango.

The next day we were good to go back into town for a proper look round. We were armed this time with a bus timetable. We had hope for an easier time. Suprise suprise, no bus. It was a weekday this time though. Buses were more frequent and there were more people waiting. It wasn't long before we spotted one coming down the road. But the road was blocked by a van. We watched the bus reverse away, round a corner and then drive off in the opposite direction. Then we watched the van drive off as soon as it was gone. b*****. Another hour sitting at the same bus stop. We did get through though. We always do. We had our map, numbered with all the sights. First stop was the gate. Not too bad, not as good as some others though. Certainly not worth taking my camera out. The second sight was the five wells square. Well that was fairly interesting. A square. With five wells in it. Don't see that every day. Not even if you're travelling. And then most of the other sights were churches. We didn't go into any, we're getting a little bored of churches by now and we certainly weren't going to pay to go into another one. They were a little different from the outside though. Got a couple of pics. By far the most interesting thing in Zadar is the sea organ. You get to a large open area by he sea. There are steps there and a load of small holes in the ground to let air in. As the waves lap against the concrete side and flow under where you are sitting some genius system of pipes and whatever else cause lots of different sounds to come out of the sides of the steps. If a boat goes by the waves are bigger and the sounds are far louder. Its an interesting place to sit for a while and just listen to the music made by the sea. A good place to finish up our little tour. And a good time to head to the tourist office and book an excursion. We've seen a lot about a national park called the Plitvice Lakes. Its not a cheap excursion but its the only way to see the place without staying overnight. The one we paid for offered transport as welll as breakfast and lunch though. We would get our money's worth.

And we did. We had to leave early to make sure we got to the bus in time. And we barely made it. Just 5 minutes before it was due to leave. I think they would have waited a a bit for us though. The tour guide introduced herself and the driver. There were a few different nationalities on the bus, but the guide could speak all of them very competently. German, French and English. And she repeated everything she said in each language. Pretty cool. The bus took two hours to get to the park. Katie was a bit smug at this point as she'd decided to have a bit of brekkie before leaving. I had to wait til we got off the bus. It was a great breakfast they gave us though. A big bag with bananas, a sandwich, water & juice. Plenty to keep us going. KKAtie got the veggie option which she'd stipulated when we booked the tour. It was great for them to cater to her, but she wasn't too impressed with the food itself. The salad was warm and the red cabbage wasn't holding up too well. She was glad of her earlier breakfast.

Now, the park was incredible. It was beautiful, outstanding, mind-blowingly awesome. We loved it and I don't think I could ever really put down in words how impressive it isto see. I'm gonna copy-paste the Wikipedia description for the facts though -

The national park is world famous for its lakes arranged in cascades. Currently, 16 lakes can be seen from the surface.[3] These lakes are a result of the confluence of several small rivers and subterranean karst rivers (kate remembers that 80% of this water is from the subterranean rivers). The lakes are all interconnected and follow the water flow. They are separated by natural dams of travertine, which is deposited by the action of moss, algae, and bacteria. The particularly sensitive travertine barriers are the result of an interplay between water, air and plants. The encrusted plants and bacteria accumulate on top of each other, forming travertine barriers which grow at the rate of about 1 cm per year.

The sixteen lakes are separated into an upper and lower cluster formed by runoff from the mountains, descending from an altitude of 636 to 503 m (2,087 to 1,650 ft) over a distance of some eight km, aligned in a south-north direction. The lakes collectively cover an area of about two square kilometers, with the water exiting from the lowest lake forming the Korana River.

The lakes are renowned for their distinctive colors, ranging from azure to green, grey or blue. The colors change constantly depending on the quantity of minerals or organisms in the water and the angle of sunlight.

That'll do. Look at the pics i took. There's so many I just popped them into their own album. We're very glad we went and as i said, we definately got our money's worth. We walked for a while along the upper lakes before taking a boat across one of the largest ones to have a short break. The boat ride felt like we were in Jurassic park. All the green hills and the blue sky. We half-expected to see a flock(?) of pteradactyls flying over our heads. We were desperately in need of an ice-cream but there were about a thousand kids there and we just didnt have the time. We got going again and saw some more great sites. Into a small cave and then we finished the tour with a look at the highest waterfall in the national park. It's not as impressive as some other high falls and it certainly didn't stand out when compared with what we'd already seen here. But it is the highest so kind of an essential sight. The walk up to it certainly had one of the most impressive views of the day. Looking right over the lip of one of the falls. I think one of the best parts about the paths through the national park is that they are all constructed right on top of the water. You can see it running below your feet. And sometimes feel it OVER your feet. The water was so clear too. Apart from being the most amazing colour you could see all the fish in there (a lot of fish) and all the trees corroding at the bottom. One bad point was that the paths were so crowded. Hundreds of people walking to and fro. You'd often be walking at a snail's pace as you caught up with another group or you would stop completely to let others pass in the opposite driection. It was quite late in the day when we realised we hadn't seen any wet people. The paths are quite small. People must fall in at times! I personally didn't trip on anything until we were on our way out. Far from any water, thank god.

We got on the bus for our way back, but beforehand we would be getting our meal. As well as a suprise behind the restaurant. The suprise turned out to be a pair of big brown captive bears. We were quite disappointed. Not to see bears. Bears rock! But to come out of a National Park where absolutely everything is protected and even the trees can't be moved from the water, it wasn't entirely pleasant to see bears in a cage. Especially when the guide spends about 15 minutes trying to get them to do tricks for food rewards. They looked healthy though, quite happy. They were apparently saved as cubs as they didn't have a mother. We wondered if maybe the mother was killed by the same hunter that found them...There were a few stuffed bears in the restaurant...

The food was good though. A nice big chunk of Scnitzel with nice potatoes on the side. Katie wasn't left out. Her meal was better than she expected. Not one of her favourites though.

After that we jumped back on the bus for our return journey. Our guide gave us a lot of info about the Yugoslav Wars. It's suprising how little we know about it considering how recent it was. It was good to learn more about it, considering that we've been travelling through the country for a while now.

The Plitvice tour was our last full day staying in the Zadar area. It was great to see the National Park. The city of Zadar itself was slightly underwhelming. Split is next on the agenda. We've heard a lot of good things about it. And it is a very nice place. Different again from the rest of Croatia as we've experienced it so far...