There were a few more beers in Zadar, and a couple of G&T's (and some.rakija too), before nother sad goodbye with friends.from home. Then after my first look at a professional basketball match and a return to a longlost chocolate cake recipe, it was time to get back on the road. It was just a short stint to Split which involved; more beautiful croatian coast, swimming at Krka waterfalls in the national park, meeting some beat-style hitch-hikers from Canada and the USA (busking for their dinner before finding there way to my hosts' flat), a few gentle beers with the maker of http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7AGOL1YXloU&feature=youtube_gdata_player (obviously feeling an affinity!) the old town of Šibenik, olive groves and a stop in Primosten. Here I met Ana, a fellow employee in the service industry and great company to share stories with about the ridiculous requests of tourists. She once recieved the complaint that the seaview from their hotel was spoilt by the uninhabited islands!

She sent me on my way with homemade roasted walnuts and carob rakija (for energy and inner peace respectively). I needed both, as in the last 24hrs before I arrived in Split, I smashed apart a tent peg (just after a friendly german camper had offered me a rubber mallet instead of the rock I was using), my sunglasses fell apart and 3 bits of my trolley sheared off and locked the wheel. Hot, bothered and probably looking like an over sentimental tramp I bodged my trolley back together in a bus stop infont of a shopping mall and limped the rest of the way to the hostel in town. The hustle and bustle of a city is always a bit of a shock to the senses after days of small towns and villages and hours alone on the road. It was also strange to hear different accents and languages amongst the mass of tourists visiting Split, for the last month I had mostly been hearing Croatian and German.

A local couch surfer and architect showed me around the old town and palace before a walk along an unusually choppy shoreline and a drink in a local bar. The 360 view from high up in the bell tower was amazingly well timed, looking out over the rooftops and harbour as the sun was setting, all be it in a fierce wind that threatened to blows us out of the tower! The following day I finally visited one of the 1000+ islands that make up Croatia and took the boat to Hvar on the island of Hvar! On the hottest and most humid day for weeks my climb upto the spanish fortress was rewarded with a beautiful view over the bay, complete with passing tall ships and 2 local guys smoking a huge joint! It had come recommended (the view not the smokers) and was all the more worthwhile when I found an abandoned pushchair on the way down with 2 perfect spare wheels for my trolley! A turquoise water swim as I waited for the ferry back and a twilight return to the city, before homecooked lemon mussels and rice for dinner with the spanish guys in my dorm, capped off a pretty good rest day.

I had been deliberating about where abouts to leave the coast and head inland and more easterly since I arrived in the balkans. Further south Dubrovnik awaited but inland a new country in Bosnia & Herzogovina was tempting me. I eventually opted for the chance to visit another country and said goodbye to the adriatic sea just south of Makarska, however it wasn't a clean break. The road inland climbed nearly 1100m over 30+kms so I knew I needed an early start to make some good headway before the heat got too much. Diligently going to bed early I soon found out that the small fishing town I was camping in turns into a Czechoelovakian pensioners disco frenzy after 10pm! Even with my headphones in I was being tortured by attempted (they didn't know the english lycics) sing-a-longs to the macarena, ABBA and a selection of dalmation and unidentifiable foreign language folk classics. Whilst trying desperately to block this din out with my own music, something fell onto my tent and was now sitting on my head through the inner tent - the campsite cat had discovered a new game of creeping between the 2 layers of my tent, then leaping onto the inner tent. The music thankfully stopped at midnight - the cat did not!

When my alarm went off at 6am, for the first time on this trip I just plain ignored it and sacked off walking for the day. I slept (when i wasn't kicking at a cat or spraying it with insect repellent - neither of which harmed it animal lovers) and lazed at the beach for one extra day. There is a big part of me connected to the sea, especially after living by it for 10yrs and we just needed 1 more day together. The cheesey disco and tormenting cat were in full swing again the next night so at the risk of further sleep deprivation and the brutal murder of a flying feline I responded to the alarm and headed up to the hills. Once over the first ridge of mountains (3hrs of sweaty huffing and puffing later) the sea view was replaced by endless rolling hills covered in thick deciduous woodland. Dotted around were tiny rural hamlets and tumbledown farm buildings, black-clad widows cutting firewood, old men squinting at me as they jiggled past on relics of tractors and fields of tomatoes, peppers and piles of potatoes waiting to be planted. It was a world away from the tourist and fishing village coast.

The following day I finally got that stamp in my passport as I crossed the border into Bosnia & Herzogovina (which for typing ease I will abbreviate to B&H) at the Orah checkpoint. The 2 very attractive female croatian officers were clearly selected for the job due to their size as the booth they were squeezed into was so small they pretty much shared a seat, one facing Croatia the other B&H. On the B&H side a pretty uninterested guy leaned out of the door of a shipping container serving as the checkpoint office and waved me on! For some reason one of the first things I noticed over the border was the rich, warm brown colour of the freshly turned earth in the smallholdings by the roadside - don't ask me why! My host for the night wasn't at home when I arrived but left a lovely note that made me feel right at home straight away. No surprise really as when I met her later it turned out she was english, living in her late husbands' hometown in the summer and heading back to blighty in the winter months.

A few days later and I was in Mostar, descending into the city as the sun was setting behind the hills and the evening calls to prayer could be heard coming from the mosques. It was the first time I had heard it and was a beautiful testament to how far east I had come. It also served as a much needed reward for a really hard day physically, when I just had no strength in my legs for any of the 33km, constantly feeling pain in my knees, ankles and achilles. Mostar is genuinely a tale of 2 cities, both with a long history and attracting lots of tourists. The main attraction is the Stari Most or old bridge, orignally built during the Ottoman occupation. It is the focal point of the old town and spans the river that seperates the 2 sides of the city. To the east is the predominantly muslim side and to the west is the croat side. They came together to fight against the serbs who besieged the city during the break up of Yugoslavia, but within months they turned against each other in a bitter battle that completed the near total detruction of the historical old town, including the collapse of the old bridge, and large parts of the rest of the city. Despite substantial foreign investment to rebuild the historical old town and the citys' infrastructure (the public buses were donated by Japan, the old town restoration recieved large donations from spain, Prince Charles was present at the opening of the rebuilt Stari Most) the divide remains ingrained. Some people still refuse to cross the river, there are seperate newspapers and police officers and when the 2 sides play football there is always a riot. My host in the city was a german guy who has worked throughout the balkans as an agricultural advisor from a germnan government organisation and as he said 'atleast they are not still killing each other'. Over dinner for a couple of nights he told me some pretty interesting stories about living and working in ex-yugoslavia and concludes that everyone lost out from the balkan war, either personally, financially or more often both. There really were no winners and there are plenty of reminders around Mostar, from the words 'don't forget 93' on building stones, to the dates on many of the gravestones, to the bullet hole spattered ruins of buildings deserted and still awaiting restoration or demolition. It took me 3 days to begin to feel comfortable in the city, not least because of the relative invisibilty of women on the eastern side. Just plenty of men hanging around.

Heading out of Mostar I wasn't entirely sure of my direction, just trying to make a general route to Montenegro. The scenery was a mix of large open plains with a town at one end, seperated by banks of hills and mountains. Almost all the cars are old VW golfs, Mercs or BMWs and the mountain valleys run for endless kms with nothing except a lone farmer and his 2 or 3 cows. Very much another world from another time and I bemused everyone I walked past, but was always said hello to and often offered lifts. One morning the weather turned decidedly autumnal without me being prepared and had I to huddle into my winter jacket to escape a cold, biting wind. My legs weren't so lucky though as my zip-on trouser legs were still stashed somewhere deep in my bag. That night was freezing cold and I woke to a crispy frost covered tent in a glittering white farmers' field. I had been woken frequently in the night by the haunting howls of the wild dogs in the woods and cold nipping at any exposed fingers or ears. The warm sun couldn't come and melt the frost quickly enough. Having crossed an open border into the Republic of Srpska (I have to admit to never having heard of it but did find it marked on my road map) I arrived in Gacko, 20km from the border to Montenegro. It was one of the most depressing towns I had come across, next to the huge eyesore or an open coal mine and power plant that had ripped up half the plain. There was 1 equally miserable hotel but with little alternative and feeling a bit uncomfortable 'englishman in New York' I checked into it. I spent a way overpriced night with no heating (it's not switched on until november) and sporadic power cuts (to the whole town not just the hotel) which seemed a bit ironic with the power station round the corner.

The next day, after a night of miserable rain (befitting the mood of the place) I headed out towards the border. Happy just to be out of Gazko and enjoying the intermittent sunny views across the plains and flocks of sheep I turned off the main road towards Montenegro. It seemed to take forever for the checkpoint to come into view and for the last hour I was plagued by having 'the lord of the dance' (complete with misunderstood lyrics "i am the lord of the dove settee" which were all I knew until I got my hymn book in class 3 and have stayed with me ever since) stuck in my head. But as the sun started to be beaten back by gathering thunder clouds I presented my passport to the border officer and eagerly awaited another stamp, instead he looked at it and said
"so ....United Kingdom ..... sorry but you can not cross here .... not international crossing here". My thought process was "ha, ha, funny man with his wry smile" but as it became clear this was no joke I.changed to "oh f*** - he's serious, I've just walked 20km for nothing" shortly followed by "no I don't think I can out run him and don't cry you big baby". I could have done though, very easily (cry, not run obviously - my trolley would even slow down Usain Bolt), I felt totally deflated and pretty angry. It would have been nice if a) there had been a sign earlier on this deadend (if you can't cross the border) road, b) any of the locals had pointed this out when I answered them that I was from england c) there wasn't a huge red and yellow sign just over the border mans' shoulder saying 'Welcome to Montenegro' - what's the point of a sign in english when no one from England can cross here!) The next nearest crossing point was Bileca, 70km away, I was pretty despondent to say the least, despite the border guys reassuring me there would be a bus coming back to the main road that they would get me on and making pleasant converstion. (as pleasant as it can be me when you don't want to talk to anyone, especially in a barely spoken foreign language.)

So I climbed off the bus at the same junction I had been at 5hrs earlier, now 55km from Bileca, with 90mins of daylight left and huge storm clouds (as if my mood was the weather) rumbling on all sides of the huge plain. I couldn't face another night in grotty Gazko so I turned left and headed down the long straight road, miraculously dodging the rain showers all around me whilst scouring for a camping spot.
A terrible non-nights sleep followed then an exploding yoghurt pot at breakfast (I think it may have been a bit warm for it to be jiggled around in my bag for 36hrs and the lid popped like a champagne cork preceeding a volcano of curdled yoghurt) and niggling blisters (probably caused by stamping a lot in my frustation as I walked) and I make it to Bileca (which turns out to be 13km from the border). And i am still waiting to get out of this country (wherever it is, officially B&H but they fly their own flag and only refer to the Republic of Srpska here). The rainclouds had finally decided to unload when I woke up this morning and show no signs of stopping. For the first time on this trip I can't wait to leave a country, I don't want to cast a shadown over B&H but on this trip it just hasn't gone my way, I've not felt comfortable here despite the beautiful scenery and moments of kindness in the countryside. I'll reserve judgement until a 2nd viewing, maybe when I'm a bit less tired, homesick and better prepared. But you can't win them all!