The day dawned reasonably brightly but the white horses in view on the sea indicated the strength of the wind. Today was to be another easy travelling day as we were heading for Paklenica National Park a little more than an hour away. The park sounded interesting with good walking (we desperately wanted to do some walking) and, most importantly, had two campsites that should be open. We had decided not to visit Zadar on the way but I had spotted a Roman site called Asseria near Benkovac. I had found some information on the Internet and it sounded interesting. I had also read in Misha Glenny's book 'The Fall of Yugoslavia' that this area had been badly affected during the war. We passed the lake of Vransko and an 'inn' (a massive fort-like structure) built during the Turkish occupation before we started climbing on to the karst upland. The scenery changed dramatically, with the fertile plain giving way to desolate scrub. We started to come across many abandoned buildings, some exhibiting signs of fire whilst others had obviously been hit by shells. As we drove through one particularly desolate area we noticed signs all along the side of the road warning of mines. Once we arrived in Benkovac, we walked into the town and the effect of the war on its economy was obvious. Even the Benkovac Tourist Association website says “Today, what is most painfully obvious to see is that this is a town which has suffered both war damage and economic problems. From its present appearance you would hardly guess the leading role the town once played in the region.”. We were greeted by abandoned, boarded-up or derelict buildings and many closed shops in the high street. The inhabitants looked weary and the whole town was lacking in vitality. We went to find the museum by the castle on the hill overlooking the town and found something that was probably the museum as there were archaeological finds outside but there were no signs on the building and it was closed.
We has seen signs to the site of Asseria when we turned off for the town centre, so we returned to Henrietta and set off. Everything went well at first and we followed two more signs to the site but then there were no more. We were driving towards Knin and the landscape became even more forbidding with many more war damaged, abandoned houses. We decided to turn back and look out for the village of Podgrade that Asseria was near. We found the village but could not find the site and there were definitely no signs. Given that if we found the site, we would have been reluctant to investigate it given the possibility of land mines, we gave up the search and set off for Paklenica National Park.
We had lunch by the river at Obrovac – a pretty location in a gorge with a large river running through it. The town however was typically Eastern Block with many multi-storey flats and derelict industrial buildings. We chose this spot as it was relatively sheltered. I didn't want to stop on the road before this as the wind speed has increased and, with the karst landscape offering no shelter, the van was being heavily buffeted to the point that gusts were tugging at the steering. Paklenica was only 20 minutes away when we joined the main road. We had covered only a few miles with me battling with the steering when a police car approached in the middle of the road and blue lights flashing. Now, I knew that I wasn't speeding and I had my lights on, so I suspected the worst and I was correct. The road ahead was closed – high winds meant that we could not cross the bridge. The policeman indicated that we would have to go 'round'. Generally, in England, this would not be a problem and would not involve a major diversion. However with both our bridge and the motorway bridge closed, we were faced with a diversion of some 150 km. Given that we were not even sure that the sites would be open when we got there, we had a difficult decision to take. We knew that there was a site at Karlovac that was open but we didn't know exactly where it was and it was a long way away. Our next stop after Paklenica was Pula and we knew that it would be open but it was even further. We plugged it into the Garmin satellite navigation and she (it has a female voice) said that we would arrive at Pula at 20:30. We decided to go for it.
The first part of the journey was in daylight and was very interesting – steep mountain roads (trying not to be blown off them), fantastic views and mountain passes. In the pass just before Ondic there was a large derelict hotel with 'UN' written in very large letters all over it. Ondic itself was interesting – marked on the map and with signs on the roadside, we could see no evidence of houses, only a cemetery. I will have to try to find out more about Ondic. Shortly afterwards we joined the A1 motorway and the kilometers passed much faster. It was then that the Garmin let us down. It directed past the junction that we expected to leave at and tried to take us off some 16 km later at a non-existent junction. I suspect that it didn't known about the motorway tunnel that had been opened. Once we passed the non-existent junction, the Garmin locked up with 'Navigation Error' on the screen. The result was that we had to continue on the motorway, a much longer route. However once we had emerged from the tunnel and I had rest the Garmin, she was much happier and said that we would arrive at 08:10 – a full 20 minutes earlier than the other route! In retrospect, we were much better off on the motorway as it was much easier driving, especially in the dark. We arrived within 3 minutes of the estimated time and, thankfully, found Camping Stupice open and welcoming. By this stage I was somewhat shattered and slept very well that night!
Photos: Warning of mines on the way to Benkovac; The supposed museum at Benkovac; Roman circular gravestone from Asseria outside the museum; The only three contented inhabitants of Benkovac?
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