Montenegro

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Todays journey started at the border crossing into Montenegro, about 50kms down the road from Dubrovnik – well it would have been if we hadn't followed the directions of the campground guy and headed toward a smaller border crossing where there would be no queues
– the only problem was that after going 50kms down a little road, we were informed that no border crossing existed there and we had to retrack – so we ended up in the queue anyway but fortunately the long queue was on the other side coming into Croatia, not leaving, so we only had to wait about 30 minutes, not a couple of hours which the other guys did....this was the first crossing where they actually looked at the documents and luckily I had requested a duplicate copy of the green card insurance document (which never arrived in NZ before we left), and had that sent to Germany. Despite assurances from the insurance company, that the email copy I had would suffice, the border guard was not interested in the “original” copy, but waved us through when I produced the “green” duplicate, ..luckily he didn't look too closely at that one, as it is an old version of the latest green card document...well, we were in so no looking back.

We rode through to the Bay of Kotor and stopped with a number of other motorbikes at a rest area when we all realised that it was a long way round the bay, yet there was a ferry crossing for $3 which would save a lot of travel..we all took that option, but after consulting the map we decided to backtrack anyway – that was a good decision as 2 little towns on the bay were just like Venice and we had a good time wandering around them – then it was up what LP ( Lonely Planet) called a vertiginous route to the Lovcen NP – man, we rode through at least 25 hairpin corners, reached 1765 m above sea level from starting at sea level, and frequently had to stop to let other cars through the other way – that was some serious road up the side of a mountain, try thinking of the Crown Range from Queenstown, but about 5 times more and roads half as wide...excellent ride though. Coming down the other side was quite easy until we got to a little town called Cetigne ( apparently the old royal palace or something) where there were no raod signs telling us which way to go – I hadn't used the GPS for a few days, and it took quite a while to find Montenegro so that was no use – so we circumnavigated Cetigne 2x and eventually stopped and asked directions – each time we stopped we got the same answer “ turn right and straight ahead” - didn't matter where we were in the town?? maybe that's a stock standard answer for lost tourists...

We did find our way to Budvar on the coast and descended into a town where rapid development is taking place – Montenegro has very little coastline and they are going hell for leather in developing it to the fullest – we decided to have a bit of luxury that night and stayed at a lovely apartment block with its own swimming pool overlooking the bay – and with a glorious sunset what more could we ask – even dinner had local Montenegran dancing and singing..woohoo..actually this place is so nice we decided to stay 2 nights ( at $70 a night) and chill out for a day on the beach at Svet Stefan – where there is a little island with buildings on it ( again) – a mini Korcula – we hear that they are developing the buildings on the island to be an exclusive hotel, but the beach was lovely and the water has been voted ( by Carolyn) as the best to swim in yet...all in all, a great couple of days