We decided on an excursion to the nearby Krka National Park to see the waterfalls (or ‘slaps’ in Croatian), it was a stinking hot day but it wasn’t too far away and the AC in the Hiace was working wonderfully which kept the kids quiet.
We paid up our entrance fee, boarded a non air conditioned bus and headed to the drop off point. It was an oasis of tropical beauty in an otherwise barren, arid landscape. As we tramped around the walkways the only thing that impaired our enjoyment was the other people. A sign indicated a large number of reptiles indigenous to that area, a number of which were scary poisonous snakes. A young, overweight, spoilt German child was clearly upset by the thought of encountering these evil beasts and as she was particularly annoying we took great delight in regularly pointing up to trees in mock horror and shouting ‘schlang’ while making loud hissing noises.
We stopped at the main waterfall area which absolutely stunning, tiers of water cascaded down to a large pool over a span of hundreds of feet. People were swimming in the lower pool and it wasn’t long before Caroline and Dandy were in too. Michael seemed quite reticent to join them and spent some time fiddling with my video camera. When I quizzed him about this he admitted to secretly filming some young, bikini clad, nubile fillies that he referred to as ‘water fluffies’.
The Krka Park falls
Back up at the entrance area, we were hungry and ordered some overpriced, flabby, meat sandwiches, 3 beers and a soft drink for Caroline. Again, lost in translation,only 2 beers and 2 soft drinks arrived. Dandy and I claimed the beers and we persuaded Michael that he must look too young to be drinking alcohol. He wasn’t best pleased and ranted a lot while slyly consuming my beer.
We then drove round a circuitous mountain route to the higher ‘Roski Slap’ falls and although they were not quite as spectacular as the others we enjoyed the peace and tranquillity of the area and a lack of very annoying tourists, which we do not consider ourselves to be! Caroline was straight back into the water and perfected her dives off the pier which Dandy had been teaching her to do. We persuaded her to stand under a waterfall to have her photo taken and by the time Dandy had fumbled about with the exposure settings her shoulders were bruising with the weight of water. She admitted after to always having a desire to stand under a waterfall but now knows it’s not such a clever idea. Returned home tired but happy after a great day, further enthused about another aspect of Croatia.
Caroline under the waterfall
Another fantastic day out was spent in Trogir, a bustling walled town and port brimming with boats and yachts. One in particular caught our eye. It was completely over the top and we were curious to find out who it belonged to as it was so opulent that we thought it must be someone famous. It turned out to be a private charter and some old dude in a white sailors cap came out on deck at one point to exchange niceties with a rather effeminate deck hand who was busy fiddling with the yacht’s buoys! On the way home we stopped to get the windscreen cleaned at a service station and to give Michael a treat. Dandy had mentioned the Croation window washing fluffies in their tight t shirts, alas they had knocked off for the evening and Michael had to wash the windscreen himself.
Michael observing fluffies at Krka NP
Michael’s disappointment spilled over into the evening and after dinner in one of our favourite restaurants (sexy waiter one) Dandy and Michael squared up to one another and Michael ended up wearing a glass of water. They soon kissed and made up, and Caroline’s take on the event was that ‘no one drowned’.
Michael’s sunglasses were causing a problem, they didn’t fit his face too well and were uncomfortable. Dandy thought that he could adjust them using a little gentle heat such as a hairdryer on a low setting. However he spotted the toaster and thought that would do the trick, end result was one melted lens which he hoped Michael would not notice! Needless to say he did and Dandy took Michael shopping for a new pair of glasses.
An appealing feature of our little town of Pirovac was the inspiring and imaginative local entertainment. This ranged from blues bands, local folk music, dancers in national costume and rock bands, all of which took place on the seafront, 100 yards from our wee house. The folky evening also had stalls set up with local food and wine tastings, particularly handy as we hadn’t bothered to eat much that night. Dandy and Michael clambered up on an electricity box to use as a vantage point to watch the dancers. One particular beauty in a scarlet dress, split thigh high, attracted Michael’s attention and Dandy had to reprimand him for uttering ‘get your tits oot for the lads’.
Mozzies were a problem and we all suffered quite bad reactions from our various bites despite spraying ourselves liberally each evening. One morning Dandy found a bloater by the bed (it wasn’t me!). He squashed it and to his disgust it was full of blood, its contents could have come in useful by the blood transfusion service. That evening he found 8 or more bites on his Percy, and quite a lot of swelling in the region. I might have thought that this was a bonus but no, he was now out of bounds for any sort of nocturnal activity. As I document this he is still waiting for the bites to go away and most mornings he commands ‘get your glasses on’ and I have to scrutinise Percy and comment on any improvement from the previous day. He’s not obsessive at all of course.
Michael got to fulfil an ambition by getting to ride a jet bike after Dandy convinced the owner, Mrs Pneumatic Tits, that he was 21. He took his sister out for a short spin before blasting out across the bay on his own following Dandy’s tips on how to handle the machine. On the last day of the kid’s holiday he hired it again while Dandy and I cruised around on a pedalo like a couple of geriatrics.
We said goodbye to our neighbour, Mrs Doofang, and bought her pastries and a bottle of local hooch to express our thanks at her friendliness and humbling hospitality. We took photos and kissed and shook hands. We were showered with gifts of plums, ham and homemade lavender bags.
Caroline's first taste of watermelon
We took the kids to the airport on the Wednesday evening to catch the 20.05 Edinburgh flight. We arrived later than planned, as usual, to find the tiny airport awash with people queuing for four Ryanair flights all due out in the space of an hour. There was no way that the kids were going to get through security in time but after much queue jumping and negotiating we got them near the front and they got to the gate on time. It was really horrible watching them go from me through the gate. We watched the plane take off into the beautiful sunset and I have to admit to feeling really upset and emotional. Dandy wasn’t feeling good either but his way of dealing with this was to tinker with the automatic gearbox cable to enable a smoother change. Back at the apartment we couldn’t settle, we really missed them both. We went out for a drink but it didn’t feel right and we went to bed earlyish ready to start the next stage of the holiday.
We were sad to leave the lovely little town of Pirovac, we had a really relaxing two weeks after the trauma of the first week. The only aspect we were not going to miss was the nearby church bells at 6.00am each day summoning the masses to mass, Dandy found this to be hypocritical when they tend to spend three hours in bed each afternoon when we were likely to need bits for the van!
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