Heading for Dalmatia – or not

Wednesday 3rd October

Today we are heading off down the Adriatic Highway to Dalmatia – or so we thought. Like many of our previous travel days we had planned our route to take best advantage of the beautiful scenery that coastal Croatia has to offer. These routes then get transferred to our satnav where all of the good work starts to unravel. Today was not going to be an exception.

Before heading off though we needed to walk the dogs and pack up. Today the weather was not as nice as it had been, it was a little cooler and there was quite a breeze. Heading off through the old town to find that dog friendly beach, we noticed that the sea was a little ‘fresher’. Yesterday when we didn’t have the dogs, the old town was quiet, today, when we do have the dogs the town was really busy. I think there had been a coach load or two dropped off and we had just hit town at the wrong time. We passed through the town and out to the other side but never did find that beach. It was probably just as well because the sea was a little choppy and probably not the best day for playing ball on the beach.

So, back at the site, we finished packing, paid our dues and set off out of Krk for our intended destination in the region of Trogir. Before we left the island we stopped off at one of the local supermarkets for some  more provisions. There are a few supermarkets to choose from just on the outskirts of Krk town. Stocked up, we trundled down the road and turned on the satnav. After a short while, our satnav beeped and informed us that there was a 3.5 tonne weight restriction on our route! Ruth did her best to extract a little more information from the satnav as to where this might be but it was clear that we needed to stop and re-assess our route. We continued to just the Krk side of the toll bridge and pulled into the viewpoint car park. Here we pondered our predicament that indicated we couldn’t go down the Adriatic Highway as planned. This just seemed bizarre, this is a major route, the E65 – a European highway, and it has a 3.5 tonne weight limit, surely not.

By this time we had come to realise that what with a lazy morning, our supermarket sweep, and now facing a diversion to our plan, that we would not stand a chance of making our intended target. We could go back to Camping Bor, but that would be an admission of defeat. The obvious answer was to find a campsite somewhat nearer campsite and research the mysterious weight limit overnight.

We ended up staying a Camping Selce – we will not be going back. Now the place itself is very nice and we had a stroll along the promenade which has obviously seen a complete make-over in recent times, but the campsite! I might be being a bit harsh by likening it to a war zone but there was this air that everyone had left in a hurry and not quite managed to collect all of their things before they left (I guess that this would be the seasonal pitch holders) The ACSI card covered us for the whole site apart from the premium pitches at the bottom and bordering the promenade. They were the level pitches with crushed stone bases. The others, and we had a good look around, were mostly fairly dire. Some were very uneven, OK if you had a caravan with leveling jacks and a reasonable supply of blocks you might stand a chance, others were just too low for us with over-hanging trees, some were just too tight to get into to. Of the few that we might have made work, these were just patches of dirt and we could see that with a bit of rain that was forecast for tonight we would be in mud heaven.

So, a premium pitch it was. Even with a premium pitch we had to negotiate the safety hazard that was hooking up. The first one I tried didn’t work but the second was OK. The amenities were all there but some of the blocks had been closed, presumably to save on cleaning. We were to find out that this was a practice that seemed to have also extended to the open blocks.

So, a quick overnight stop it is and then we must be away.

Researching the weight-limit issue was interesting. The satnav had given us a route, knowing our weight, but insisted that there was an ‘unavoidable weight restriction’. We couldn’t get much further information from the lovely little device but had established that the weight limit was around the Senj area. So, Google Maps, and Street View it was. It transpires that there was no problem at all and that our satnav had routed us correctly. The problem was that there is sign in advance of one of the junctions advising of an upcoming weight-restriction which presumably the mapping software has interpreted as the start of a weight restriction. Hooray for Google, boo to Garmin. I do just ponder the arrival of driver-less cars and wonder how long I might have been stuck in the middle of the road waiting for a map update to remove my unavoidable restriction!