Action Adventure Backpackers

Our hostel in Olomouc was run by Aussies, god bless them. This means free tea and coffee, and board games! First night there Bianca beat Jules at Trivial Pursuit, and then we were joined by other backpackers in playing championship Pictionary. Bianca was paired with a lovely French Canadian, which was interesting sometimes when she knew the word in French but not English, or I tried to guess her drawing and she couldn´t understand me! All fun though especially when we got the young Czech receptionist to play the Australian Trivial Pursuit with us the next night, she had no idea who Cathy Freeman was poor thing. She was taken by Jules´ resemblance to JFK (she is young and Czech) prompting the new quote "We do not travel to Eastern Europe because it is easy, we do so because it is hard"

Leaving Olomouc, Julian freshly shorn, photos of astronomical clock taken - jazzed up by the Communists so it has idealistic workers instead of angels, we hurtled into Vienna for a quick few hours in where we basically blew our budget in around 10 minutes. To give you an idea we both paid $40 for a dorm bed, in a hostel 5k from the city centre....

And onto Slovenia, we spent one night in Ljubljana because time was running short and we wanted to go adventuring! Saw the castle and its poor 3D film, but enjoyed wandering the old town and eating more icecream! The next morning we jumped on a bus to Bovec way up in the north west corner - practically Italy. We were amazed we made it without an accident on the tiniest winding mountain roads that our driver liked to speed up to corners on, very relaxing. Our decision to forgo picturesque Lake Bled paid off with the most amazing scenery we have ever seen, huge cragged mountains on all sides, a turquoise blue icy river and a green valley that we could cross in an hour.

Once there we settled into our private apartment, and set out to book white water rafting and canyoning - the attractions of the area. First up was rafting, fully wetsuited up (water is 7 degrees)with life vests and helmets we pushed off with our guide and two other Slovenes. As our guide expertly navigated us down the river with us paddling and squealing, Bianca thought maybe she could get used to this action adventure stuff. Then we got to the second stage, where our guide exhorted us to "paddle harder now" and "much faster now" as it got rougher and rougher... Bianca was a little worried as she had already been paddling her hardest!

Next day Jules was packed off to canyoning by his lonesome while Bianca struggled with a head cold. After slogging up a hill for half an hour, the guide and Julian plunged into an even colder river (with extra thick wetsuits on) and made our way down the river by jumping off ledges into natural pools below and sliding down rocks on your bum, headfirst and backwards (quite scared at that one!). There was also some moments where we had to navigate some sheer cliffs holding onto only a piece of rope, which was very reminiscent of Turkey ˝Dangerous but only for a short while˝ahhh

We were also lucky to see some folk dancing in the town and wander round the valley - they had filmed scenes for Prince Caspian there a few years ago. We then had to buckle down for some serious travel to get to the coast - three buses and three trains to get to the lovely Piran. The town is built onto a tiny peninsular of reclaimed land and was ruled by the Venetians for hundreds of years, so is lovely to wander round. And most exciting, Summer was waiting for us and we got to go swimming!

From there it was another crazy travel trip to get to Croatia (but we can see it, why do we have to go back through half of Slovenia to cross the border!!!). We were sure we were going to miss our connection to Croatia when our train apparently ran out of electricity (not sure if something was lost in translation there), but the nice train conductor simply phoned the other train and asked it to wait - for 45 minutes!

Finally arriving in Rijeka we were scooped up by a tout who promised his house was 5 minutes walk from the beach, which was true but he meant the beach 30minutes drive away. So much for our plan to keep travelling the next day. Ended up having a great two nights, lazy day walking along the coast and swimming (lying on concrete beaches not so great), cooking for ourselves and drinking beer on the terrace with the other backpackers, two Canadians and two Aussies.

Now in Zadar after enduring a 5 hour bus drive along the windy Croatian coast, the four toddlers thankfully left the bus after only an hour. Scooped up by another tout and ended up in the suburbs, " a 10 minute walk to the centre", sure for Carl Lewis at full speed maybe. But for us at least 30 minutes! Highlight of Zadar is their sea organ which makes haunting music as waves lap against the pipes - very surreal. Onto Split tomorrow and joining our cruise the day after.