Journey: Dornberk, Slovenia to Omišalj, Croatia
Distance: 135 km
Campsite for the night: Omišalj camping
YouTube link: Day 12

Sadly we are leaving the vineyard campsite that has been our home for the last three nights. But excitingly, we are off to Croatia, which was always our original aim — to drive to Croatia in the van.

We needed to go to a supermarket and stock up as a few days without any shopping at all had depleted most of our veg and all our tofu supplies. So we decided we’d try a big Slovenian supermarket and settled on a Euro Spar that wasn’t too much out of our way. It was a fabulous shop — it was calm with pleasant background music, it was well laid out and stocked with all sorts of wonders — although it definitely wasn’t the cheapest! It had a surprisingly good range of vegan foods as well as other essentials we needed such as coffee for me (nearly €8 so it better be amazing) and cereal (we found one that had peas in it!). It even had vegan magnums, but at nearly €10 for 3, we decided to try the No. 1 Italian vegan ice cream instead (disappointing cornettos was the verdict).

Normally when we’re in a supermarket in another country, we scan the ingredients looking for words that look like things to avoid such as milk, butter, eggs etc, but Slovenian is a very hard language to guess at. So here’s a few key ones to look out for if you’re vegan:

• Mleko - milk
• Maslo - butter
• Jajca - eggs
• Sir - cheese

After our successful shop, we went to get diesel, having heard it was very cheap in Slovenia (we have since discovered it’s actually cheaper in Croatia). Emma filled Bertrude up and I went into pay. I busted out my best Slovenian — šest (six for the pump number) and hvala (thank you), which are not easy to say, but managed to pay without incident.

Then we tootled off towards the border for country number four. We wanted to get as far as Zadar but didn’t fancy such a long drive in one go, so thought we’d visit Krk island for a night and stay at a campsite just outside Omišalj that had amazing reviews. When we got there, it was starting to cloud in but we quickly setup and made lunch.

So what does setup involve? Well Baroness Bertrude is the easiest van we’ve ever had, but because of the bikes, it does take a bit longer. So when we arrive, we take the bikes out — they are folded in big transporter bags — and either unfold them and chain them up, or put up the garage tent and put the bags straight in there and chain them together. We then turn the front seats around, move things like the steering lock into the footwell and plug in the electrical hookup. Then put the awning out, peg it down with storm straps, put out the rug, table and chairs and that’s it! We have got it down to a fine art and are set up in about 15 minutes.

During lunch, the clouds got darker and we could hear rumbles in the mountains and I saw one flash, but it stayed dry. Despite it not being that warm by now, we wandered down to the sea to eat our disappointing cornettos and entertained the idea of a swim. But instead decided to cycle to a large camping shop to get a new washing up trug and then on in to Omišalj. Check out the YouTube vid to see the splendour of our new washing up trug.

When we arrived in Omišalj, we discovered we were high above the sea and it was a long walk back down to sea level. We still don’t know how because we set off at sea level, cycled a mostly flat route (we thought) and then ended up a lot higher. Omišalj was not worth a visit at all. There is nothing there. It’s pretty enough but the coastline is spoilt by lots of industry, so we cycled back along the water’s edge, which was quite nice and definitely flat.

The facilities at the campsite were amazing, definitely the swishest showers and toilets we’ve seen but we didn’t like the site and decided to head to Zadar first thing.