First of all, sorry it's taken so long for me to get in touch - it's been really difficult to find internet cafes on this trip which are not extortionately expensive. I've reached Bosnia now, and am heading back to Poland. After over 1000 miles on the bike, I've started to take buses and trains in order to hasten my return to Poland - term starts next week ! It's been a fantastic trip, and it's probably best if I write to you in parts about what we've done so far...

A pleasant tail-breeze was blowing, a herd of sheep were braying by the side of the road, and the sun was beginning to move slowly but unerringly down towards the horizon; a glowing red disc that had warmed us all day as we had made our way over the boney, arid, hilly landscape of Pag towards its capital, Pag town. Following the green and luscious geography of Rab and Krk, this lunar landscape had come as quite a shock; the micro-climates of the Croatian island...

We spent a morning looking around Pula, which was very pleasant, with some old Roman ruins, an amphitheatre and a diverting old town. I decided to spend the afternoon lazing, for the first time on the trip, on a beach. There was a very cosy, though pebbly, beach, literally on the doorstep of the youth hostel, as I had discovered the previous night, so we decided to go back there. A bar filled with ice-cold, cheap Croatian beer made the prospect even more tempting...

On Tuesday Setember 9th, we left Italy after a mere 36 hours within its borders and headed south for Croatia. Such are the proclivities of the border arrangements in the region, we had to cycle for about an hour in Slovenia again before we were back on Croatian soil. My cold had not got much better, and I had a kind of cold, hungover sweat clinging to me from the start of the day. To make matters worse, the drizzle which greeted the day slowly became more persi...