DAY 131 - ZABORIC TO VODICE: 21.1 MILES (42,200 STEPS)

29 August, 2011

Zaboric to Vodice

21.1 miles (Total: 1225 miles) 42,200 steps (Total: 2,383, 291 steps)

I set off for Vodice, but stopped in the beautiful coastal city of Sibenik for meetings and press interviews. It was hard going as the heat was intense. To get a taste of the beauty of the former Venetian city of Sibenik, just put ‘Sv Jakov, Sibenik’ into a Google Images search engine and you will get a feel. The heat was unbearable at times as confirmation came through that this was officially the hottest August on records in Croatia, with average temperatures above 40 degrees.

I meet up with my friend Kike Curavic, who runs a great NGO called the Global Underwater Awareness Association. Kike is relaxed and charming with the type of physique that I used to see in magazines advertising ‘Bullworker’ machines when I was a kid. He is noted not only for being the world record holder for diving under the Arctic ice cap, for holding his breath under water and being the love interest of many of some of the most eligible single female celebrities in Croatia, but also because of his work on the ecology. Kike organises dives to clean up great areas of the Adriatic coast—because of the crystal clear waters of the Adriatic coast those discarded items of rubbish are visible from the surface and also present a hazard to marine life and tourists. This is where GUAA comes in to clean this up—they remove tons of waste from the seabed, everything from cars to shopping trolleys to redundant lobster nets. It is an extremely worthy charity and we discussed how it might be possible to raise the profile of the group. I sensed Kike is a kindred spirit – even if we look physically like Popeye meets Homer Simpson – because we are both championing unfashionable causes.

I set off out of Sibernik and received an unexpected and wonderful call from my dear friend Rob Parsons, who told me that he and his wife Di had decided to come out the next week to support me on the leg between Zadar and Rijeka, which was going to be one of the most difficult of the walk to date. I was so excited about the prospect of seeing Rob and Di again and also the help of a support car during the 100 miles stretch of sparsely populated coastline, that I missed my turn to Vodice and ended up in Gradina before I realised that I’d taken a wrong turn. In the scorching heat I needed to walk back about 7km retracing my steps—I think I felt so incredibly low at that point, I confess my eyes began to well up because of the sharp juxtaposition of the great news about Rob and Di and then taking a three hour wrong turn in 40 degrees of heat with a full backpack.

I struggled on to Vodice, but arrived in very bad shape physically and emotionally. Although it was dark I did still go for a swim and that helped. I found a cheap room to let, but the meal I had at the cafe next door disagreed with my stomach—I don’t know whether this was the food—spaghetti bolognaise—or my total exhaustion. I slept very little that night. There was no air conditioning, so I opened the windows that meant that the mosquitoes came in and had a barbeque on my upper arms and legs. Again I had bad leg cramps and was relieved when the sun rose and I got up and  walked on.