It is not a coincidence that, as we sit on a pair of railway sleepers enjoying our packed lunch, our current home, Viking Kadlin, silently passes by in the middle distance. It’s true to say that today, like most, has been fully choreographed, however the actual lunch spot requires some reverse-engineering once we see Kadlin’s departure time and speed of progress on MarineTraffic. Even then plan A fails becuase the trees are too overgrown, but plan B is perfect, if a little rushed.
We’re in Croatia for just one day on this journey, but we have two ports in the day, so we decide to disembark at Ilok, and re-embark in Vukovar. It’s not our first River-Rodeo, we’ve done this twice before, although we were a bit younger in 2017.
Unlike the other two, today is road all the way, however we have no choice if we want to do a good walk. The little town of Ilok is pretty and the region is littered with wineries, which we see sign-posted frequently, but resist temptation.
As we leave town we join the D2 which will take us the entire route. It is also part of the Atlantic – Black Sea cycle path – who’d’ve thought such a thing existed? It does, and it runs for 4800km from Nantes to Constanta, and the Croatian part is pretty much our day out today.
Mr Google says it’s going to be 171m of climb across the entire route, but he’s wrong as usual, we climb 350m in total – elevation isn’t his best forte!
As the walk progresses, we love the quiet Sunday morning vibe, little traffic and absolutely no-one is about – we walk for hours without seeing another pedestrian. Instead we are treated to an arabalist’s dream. We recognise most of the crop, but it’s still wonderful to see mile after mile of: sunflowers; maize; the aforementioned vines; wheat; apples; peaches; pears; hazelnuts; sugar beet; soya bean – is that the same as soybean?
There are a couple of noteworthy moments – the first when I climb an observation tower, only to find there is a wasps nest at the top, I get away with just a few stings but for a while it’s bloody uncomfortable. Later, we nip into a maize field to have a wee, and emerge to find a couple of policemen waiting for us. They want to see our documents, which is a bit tricky because the boat still has our UK passports, fortunately the hubster has our Spanish documentation in his wallet. They are a bit concerned that we want to walk in the 35° heat, but wish us well. They insist that we walk into oncoming traffic, which is counter to what we had been advised earlier.
As we walk on we find the small town of Mohivo, with ice-age credentials. Woolley mammoth, woolley rhino and cave hyena have all been found here, dating back 30 to 20 thousand years ago. There’s an egg, which probably isn’t a mammoth’s egg, but it’s quite fun to look at!
Next it’s time for lunch. We have planned to get into the village of Opatovac in time to watch Kadlin sail past. Watching MarineTraffic carefully, all the maths is done, and we will have time to enjoy lunch, then wait a few minutes as our home floats past. Unfortunately the trees make it impossible at this section of the Danube, so a quick calculation tells us we can make it to another spot further on, but the boat will pass before lunch.
We hot-foot it, and are cracking open our sandwiches just as Kadlin shows through the undergrowth, and we have an excellent photo to prove it. We WhatsApp the Programme Director Mishi who is ecstatic with our progress.
From here we stride out and enjoy more scenery and vegetation. At the next town we decide it’s Ice Cream o’clock, and pick up more water as well. We pass the war museum, but it’s 3.5km off road so don’t really want to add that to our journey, later we find a different war memorial.
As we enter Vukovar we decide our hi-vis isn’t needed now, and continue on without. We walk past the old water tower which is now a war museum, then past the school, monastery, and into the old town. We learn that this town was 95% destroyed in 1991, and the recovery has been painful.
We finish off by returning to the boat, just one minute later than we planned!
Pre dinner we sit and enjoy champagne and Kir Royal at Aquavit n the sunshine. We go for the full Bernie Inn experience, prawn cocktail, rib-eye steak, and then crème brûlée. It’s pretty good, and they have both French mustard and horseradish sauce, so we’re both happy.
After dinner there is a Croatian trio to showcase traditional song.
