We were very sad to be leaving Lovcen National Park, it had felt so peaceful and beautiful – in some ways it reminded me of Namibia with endless views over mountains and plains, just a little greener
Our next destination was to be the cruise-ship capital of Kotor but we took the long way around – we had to go back to Podgorica to collect our CTIS spigots which had just arrived at Mercedes. Would this mean we would finally have our central tyre inflation system working again? We tried not to get too excited about the idea, it would take a few days before we had chance to fit the new parts and test it out.
After collecting our bits we went to visit the KTM motorcycle store to while away the afternoon dreaming of being on two wheels – there must be something about living in a UniMog that makes us pine for a bit of speed.
We spent another quiet night back at our airstrip eating more great pizza
And making friends with the locals
Then set off on our long drive to Kotor – the direct route would have taken us down the Kotor Serpentine road which would not have been a happy experience with our problematic gearbox, so we went south first and followed the coast road north.
But when we arrived we found road signs banning motorhomes from most car parks and our park-up app was full of reviews warning about police moving people on and issuing fines. It seemed all too reminiscent of Switzerland and our reaction was similar – if they don’t want us then we don’t want them.
We drove straight through the town and out the other end without a backwards glance. If travelling for nearly five years has taught us anything it is that there is far too much world out there to worry about missing out on the odd town or castle here and there.
But as we drove away, towards the mountain passes that lead to Fortress Goradza, both of us were still feeling unhappy. The thought of negotiating those steep, twisty roads with our clunky gearbox was filling us with dread. So at the last minute we took a left instead of a right and headed for the port town of Tivat instead.
As soon as we had made that decision it felt as though a weight had fallen off our shoulders. Just keep it simple, life is for living, it’s not meant to be a mission!
Tivat is a prosperous town with a world class marina full of super yachts. As soon as we heard about it we knew we had to go. And we weren’t disappointed
From our park-up place in a tennis club car park, we ambled along the pretty beach towards the harbour
We could see the yachts in the distance
And as we approached we found our first exciting vessel
A P-821 Heroj submarine, part of the Yugoslavian Navy from 1968 until the 1990s.
We bought tickets for a guided tour starting in an hour or so and went off to ogle at the boats
It was a gorgeous day, the sun was out and the sky was blue
The boats ranged from the impressive
To the down right enormous
But we couldn’t get close to the super yachts, they were too far away under lock and key.
Back at the submarine our guide was a lovely lady whose father had been a captain in the navy. She had such a passion for everything naval and made our visit very entertaining
I have to admit that I struggled a bit inside, just looking at the tiny bunk beds hidden in corners and stacked on top of each other made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up
Apparently people spent up to 40 days living in this, deep under water. And as for the smaller one next to it, apparently you can’t even stand up inside
Unlike Bosnia and Serbia, we were becoming quite selective about what we did in Montenegro. Much of it was very touristy and full of rules – we couldn’t just amble around and enjoy ourselves, we had to plan meticulously to make sure we didn’t make a mistake and end up with nowhere to park up, even during the day.
We were also finding that there wasn’t a lot of variety, everything seemed much the same, so there was no point trying to do everything as we normally would.
We decided to ditch quite a lot of our plans around the Bay of Kotor, weeding out the places that were going to cause us the most headaches – so no boat trip to see the Blue Cave or submarine tunnels, no visit to the towns of Herceg Novi or Gornji Stoliv nor Prevlaka Island or the Risan mosaics.
Were we tiring of travelling or were we just tired of being tourists? Montenegro was beautiful, safe and friendly but just not very exciting – a bit too much as though we were on a treadmill.
So instead of following the bay all the way to the west we went east instead and wound our way along the coast to Perast.
We found a parkup place in a layby on the mountain road above the town. It was very busy but after chopping a few branches down with our machete we managed to fit the Mog in behind a line of parked cars.
Perast was lovely
It was a small town full of historic old buildings dating back to the Ottoman era
Dozens of little boats along the front offered to take tourists to the Church of our Lady of the Rocks – a small church perched on top of a manmade island
We chatted to a couple of them and chose the one who was the most friendly then hopped aboard
It was only a 5 minute ride out to the island but the views back over the town were picture perfect
We passed another church on a natural island but our captain said the Church authorities don’t allow tourists to land there – they say it is to safeguard important graves but we heard it was more to do with the monks wanting the island to themselves where they can often be seen swimming and sunbathing in private
It was a very relaxing trip
We spent half an hour poking around inside the church
Then returned to the mainland where we treated ourselves to a rather expensive lunch at a posh restaurant overlooking the water
We had enjoyed mooching around Perast, especially when we came across some of BigMog’s distant cousins
But after lunch there was little else to do
So we hiked back up to BigMog and drove a little way out of town to a viewpoint where we could parkup for the night
It was noisy with passing cars but the views were spectacular
We sat on a wall and gazed out over the bay as the sun started to go down
In an attempt to get off the tourist trail we decided to visit Gradski Park – a war memorial in the village of Grahovo. Grahovo itself was destroyed by an earthquake shortly after the memorial had been built and now only a handful of people still live there. It sounded ideal.
The memorial was interesting to see
But standing at the top and looking out over the remote and isolated village away from all the crowds was the best part
Keeping off the tourist trail in Montenegro is, however, quite hard and we soon found ourselves firmly back on it at the viewpoint over Lake Slansko
It was beautiful and we sat on oversized, concrete sun loungers basking in the sun and enjoying the view
Before continuing on towards Ostrog monastery
This had been one of my highlights whilst I was planning – a monastery perched high up in the cliffs and built into the rocks.
When we arrived we saw it in the distance, it looked a long way. We had been forewarned – it was a steep climb through the trees and would take some effort. I was keen to get going but James had hurt his knee and as we started up he was wincing with every step. Before long he decided he had seen enough monasteries and turned back to take advantage of being parked in a smooth, flat tarmac car park to finally change the CTIS spigots.
It was a decision I had every sympathy with and my sympathy only increased as I marched higher and higher into the trees, my lungs starting to burn and my legs putting in a formal complaint. Fortunately there were plenty of other people walking up alongside me to keep me going and everyone was exchanging knowing smiles as some clung to the railings and others were bent double, hands resting on knees, trying to catch their breath
I finally made it to the top and took a moment to recover, looking down over the valley trying to spot my boys below
The monastery itself is an incredible feat of engineering – how on earth they got all the materials up there nearly 400 years ago is anyone’s guess
I followed the line of visitors into the inner sanctum
And found the centuries old frescoes
The whole thing is built around three caves with the walls of the upper and lower churches being rough-hewn rock
I joined a queue into the inner church but this turned out to be a mistake – these people were pilgrims and they were waiting to be blessed by the priest. Just as he turned his attention to me I managed to duck out of the way and make a quick exit, legging it back to the staircase before my soul burst into flames!
Safely back down at the car park I was greeted by a grinning James – the new spigots had done the job, we officially had tyres that we could inflate and deflate from inside the cab
A great ending to a very good day
But, as ever, it didn’t last. It seems as though BigMog never actually gets fixed, we just swap one problem for another. The next morning we woke up to find that the toilet had stopped working – the agitator no longer agitated. So James spent a lovely couple of hours scooping out the contents and taking the mechanism apart to discover that the cog had worn and we would not have a properly functioning toilet again until we could buy a new one. The joys of nomadic life.
We had, however, developed the knack of containerising our lives. BigMog and his woes went into one container and our travels stayed firmly in another. We had only been driving for ten minutes before the toilet had left our minds and the road ahead was the only thing we were thinking about.
And there was a reason for that. We had a couple of very interesting days ahead of us which were going to be all about the driving and nothing to do with the arriving.
After a quick stop at Piva monastery to look at the 13th century frescoes
We continued on along the breathtaking Piva canyon
Piva Lake is man made, created when the Mratinje dam was built
The road itself winds its way lazily through the mountains looking down over the canyon
Along the way are dozens of tunnels, carved out of the rock with no lighting
Some even have bends inside
And most look hardly big enough for BigMog to fit
In fact we had done quite a lot of research beforehand to work out whether we could actually do it and found a couple of travel blogs written by people with far bigger trucks who had made it through. So whilst I won’t try and pretend that there weren’t a few held breaths, we were quietly confident
We drove for miles and found ourselves almost at the border with Bosnia before turning around and driving all the way back again.
The views were so entrancing that when we pulled into a large layby towards the middle of the afternoon we decided to stay
There was a bench with a view so I plonked myself down and read my book for the rest of the day until it was time for bed. There was hardly anything else on the road and we had a peaceful night feeling almost as though we had the canyon to ourselves.
But, beautiful as it was, Piva Canyon was not the main event. There is a far more infamous road in Montenegro that we had not yet decided whether to risk or not – the Sedlo Pass.
The Sedlo Pass is the highest road in the Balkans and is described as a ‘majestic gateway into the Montenegrin mountains’. Passing through the Durmitor National Park, is it considered to be one of the most beautiful roads in the world with views that cannot be matched.
It is also considered to be one of the world’s most dangerous mountains passes with unlit tunnels with hairpin bends inside. It is a narrow, serpentine road with steep drops and no guardrails. Even small cars have trouble passing each other, a large overland truck would have real problems. It is not for the faint hearted.
We were right at one end of the pass but were conflicted about whether to go. On the one hand we were out of season and in no rush so maybe we wouldn’t meet too many vehicles coming in the opposite direction. On the other hand we had a dodgy gearbox and memories of rolling down mountains to contend with.
Plus the pass is so high that it is generally only open between May and October once the snow ploughs had managed to get through – and it was still only the middle of April.
In the end we decided to put our big boy pants on and give it a go – afterall, Piva canyon had been a dream, what could go wrong?
Urm….
It started well – we turned left off the Piva Canyon road, through the first tunnel and came out the other side with views in front of us that nearly brought tears to my eyes
We took a small detour up to a viewpoint that was bitterly cold but worth the effort
Back down on the main road we had to choose – left to continue along the pass or right to chicken out and go the long way around to Durmitor. We chose left – do I wish we hadn’t? Well now it’s all over I suppose I’m glad we did it, but if you’d asked me at the time you would have got a very different answer!
The first 15km were wonderful, we drifted along a beautiful, winding road through the trees with no-one else in sight. We came to the tiny village of Trsa which had another war memorial in the centre
We got out to take a look and soak in the atmosphere of this remote place
But just as we were climbing back into the truck ready to continue our drive, a lady came out of her house gesturing at us. She didn’t speak a word of English but was pointing frantically at the road ahead and crossing her arms above her head.
I jumped back out to speak to her and with the help of Google Translate ascertained that the rest of the Sedlo Pass was closed – 6m deep in snow. She showed me a detour on the map, smiled warmly and went on her way.
I had read about this detour, it is another narrow mountain road just like Sedlo, but as it joins three or four villages to the larger towns it is generally cleared of snow much earlier and is considered an adventurous, raw experience. We looked at the route on the map and saw that it was 45km of hairpins bends and narrow passes. It made Sedlo look like a walk in the park.
We dithered at the cross roads, which way to go? 45 challenging kilometers or 150 easy ones? In the end James said ‘sod it, let’s try it’. I have to admit I was surprised, a road like this, especially in April, would not have been on the top of our to-do list.
So off we went. And what an adventure it turned out to be, I think I aged 20 years.
The first half had us picking our way between rock slides along the steep, narrow trail
BigMog didn’t miss a beat with his sturdy grip but who knew when another rock would fall and we had no idea what was around each bend
The landscape gave way to dense forest, far too narrow for us and I felt the blood ringing in my ears every time we scraped the paintwork through overhanging branches.
James’ mantra came out repeatedly ‘we’re too big for this, we shouldn’t be here’. I was not arguing, we really should not have been there.
Eventually, as the compass told us we were 1,550m up we came out of the forest into a beautiful clearing
It felt as though we were on top of the world and as we pulled up for a lunch stop the weight of the world fell off our shoulders. We had done it, we were at the top, out of the trees and it was downhill all the way from here
How wrong we were!
We had assumed that this road didn’t go as high as the Sedlo Pass and it appeared as though we were on a peak with the road ahead pointing downhill.
Nope! We had much, much further to go up from there. With our naïve hopes high and our stress levels nicely evened out we pressed onwards.
Onwards and upwards
And upwards
And upwards
The world became white and bitterly cold
The road narrowed to nothing more than a tunnel carved out by a snow plough between cliffs of snow and ice
And our compass was telling us we were even higher than Sedlo
The thought that the snow plough might not yet have made it all the way to Zabljak started to become a real fear – there was no way we would be able to turn around, just how far would we need to reverse back down the road?
There is something extremely unnerving about climbing up and up with no obvious end to it that taps into a primeval fear – would the road ever start going down? Would BigMog get through? How long could we survive in this extreme cold if something went wrong?
But, as with all good stories, eventually the end came into sight. The road evened off and finally started to slope gently downwards
And before long the snow starting melting away and green grass appeared
I cannot tell you how relieved we were and, as the landscape opened out again in front of us, we breathed a sigh of relief.
We arrived at Zabljak just after 4pm and parked up by the Black Lake in the middle of a snow drift
It was so cold.
We tramped through the trees, slipping and sliding in the snow, to find the lake
As it appeared in front of us with the mountainous backdrop, we had to admit that it was lovely
In the summer there is an easy 2km hike around the lake but we could see that most of it was under deep snow and we just couldn’t face it after the day we’d had
So we sat on a bench, chatted to a couple of British visitors and headed back to the truck for the rest of the evening.
I was keen to go back to the lake the next morning to see whether I could take some better photos with the sun in the right place
And once we were there we decided that the walk around would actually be a lovely thing to do. The first bridge was fine
But at the end of it was sheet ice and I needed a hand from a friendly Danish lady to pull me up the slope whilst I did a great impression of Bambi.
The snow made for slow going but it was pretty
At one point we chose to take the longer route around the second lake rather than wading through the river between the two lakes but thought better of it when the path turned into a sheer drop with a rope to climb down – I just wasn’t up for risking my neck on foot as well as on four wheels.
So we turned back and headed for the river crossing. James, of course, managed to negotiate the rock bridge without too much difficulty but seeing him wobble halfway made me realise that I was going to get very wet if I tried.
So I took my boots and socks off intending to wade through only to find the rocks were razor sharp. Just as I had made my mind up to throw caution to the wind and stride into the water, James called over to me to wait, disappeared into the trees, and came back with a long branch which he threw across to me.
He’s so ingenious! With my new walking stick I managed to cross over the rock bridge without so much as a wobble….well, maybe one little wobble!
It looked as though we were nearly back at the main shore but our ‘easy’ hike was not finished with us yet. When the path split, with one way going along the lake edge and the other through the trees, we decided to follow one path each, certain that we would meet up a couple of minutes later on the other side of the wood.
And that was the last I saw of James for almost two hours.
I walked along my lakeside path, into the trees, climbed over some felled stumps and found my way to the shoreline fully expecting to see him there.
There was no sign of him which I thought was odd
I walked further round but nothing. I sat on a bench and waited, scouring back and forth as far as I could see. Still nothing. I got as far as the entrance and by now over an hour had passed and I was starting to feel a bit panicky.
What could possibly have happened to him? He didn’t have any data on his phone so I couldn’t call him or even send him a message. What if he had fallen, broken his leg, or even his neck? How would I ever find him out here?
The problem with James is that he is so capable that he’s not likely to simply get stuck somewhere. If something had happened to him it’s was going to be major.
As I felt the panic and helplessness welling up inside me I turned back to walk the route that he would have taken from where we separated. My head was swimming and I felt dizzy with worry. My mouth was dry and I was trying desperately to fend off Armageddon-style thoughts.
20 minutes back along the path I suddenly saw a figure coming out of the trees miles away in the distance and instantly knew that it was him. I am sure that there is something innate in human beings that allows you to recognise the person you love without any doubt even from a huge distance
My heart started racing and I almost ran back along the lake, through the trees to the crossing point and flung myself at him in tears, sobbing that I thought he’d died.
Apparently his route had been extremely difficult with another rope descent and he knew that I would not have been able to do it alone. He had been so sure that my route was just as hard that he had gone back to where we had parted to wait for me to return so he could help me. When I didn’t arrive he too got worried and tried to back track, eventually deciding to return to the truck where he could link with our wifi and call me.
We hugged for a few more minutes then walked into town for some lunch, holding hands very tightly