I arrived at 10 at the BMW garage to have my breakfast and to hear what was finally wrong with the bike. It’s even another part of the driveshaft that had a 0,5mm play and thus mad the noise. I’m happy they fixed it now, so I finally left the BMW dealership of Ljubljana around noon the next day and I was so happy that my bike was working again… I’m just keeping good hold of the invoices for the repairs that did cost me 500€ as I “will” get refunded by BMW Antwerp! Anyways, on the road again!
So from Ljubljana I went straight for Zagreb using all the small country roads. In the end I did not do a single mile on a Slovenian highway, so I don’t even know what they look like… Arriving at the border with Croatia I forgot that I had to show them my passport so needed to try and find it somewhere in the panniers of the bike. In the end I found it as the borderguys came out to check the bike. They just put a stamp in my passport and off I was… took like 5 seconds. Eat this Transnistria. Eat this Russia. Ha! Well, as I needed to put everything back and in the meantime some cars were waiting behind me I moved out of the way. 2 seconds later the borderguy comes again with a sticker of Croatia and puts it on my pannier. Saves me the trouble and the money to find one later! thank you! I arrive in Zagreb and I still have 2 hours time so I walk around a bit, start talking to people that are intersted to know where I come from with the bike and where I am going to etc.
Later I meet with Nicolas, a french motorcycle dude who invited me to have a ride together and I can stay at his place for the night also. So off we go all the way up the mountains to have this great view! Only thing, I did not take the camera with me so no pictures, sorry! I was happy to talk to another young guy with the same passion for a whole evening (and night).
Next day I leave rather early again to visit Plitvicka Jezera a really well known tourist attraction. Thanks to Nic I can see the stuff for free:
Also there is a open air museum telling the Croatian War, as it was only finished in 1995! You can still see here and there the damage if you go a bit off the beaten track:
At a certain point I stop to take a picture, that I won’t even display here as it was not worth it in the end. But shit happens (again and again): I get off the bike, put it on the side stand as usual, it is good so I open the pannier and take out my camera, walk away to take the picture, still have my music on and I hear a loud “bang”. I’m scared as hell as I think somebody is shooting at me or so… I turn around and I see this:
O, why o why do this always has to happen to me?! Why does the bike decide to just go by itself when I am 10 meters away? This bike has a ghost or so… everything is just going wrong all the time! And if you think that this is the end of it, you are wrong! I manage to get the bike up without pulling all the stuff from it, so who’s the king? 300+kg just by myself! Anyways, the bike is up, the camera that was fitted on the pannier is still on the ground and the pannier is looking at me in a strange distorted way… and I can’t close the lid anymore…pfffff….
There’s only one thing to do is to try to get the pannier more or less in it’s original shape so I can close the lid again. But I don’t have a hammer to kick the damn thing into place… so , let’s see how we can fix this. Oh, I know; I still have some glass bottle with the honey in it… idea… it works, but all the honey is going through the lid after a few smashes and my hands are all yellow and sticky of the sugar. But after a while the pannier looks a bit better, ie I can almost close the lid now without distorting the whole thing. the bad news is that the pannier is a bit loose now and that I can’t fix the camera anymore on it. But the camera still works, so yes it is solid!
After an hour I am good to go again so off we go…
What follows is a great road to the coast with some really good views and then all along the cost direction south east.
So, if all goes according to plan I will visit Mostar and Sarajevo tomorrow. If my ghostly bike permits is of course…
Gij zijt de paus ni zenne! In plaats van zelf de grond te kussen, laat gij al uw moto’s de grond kussen… Toch goed nieuws van de camera en mooie foto’s, Kroatië is toch een land waar ge me mee naartoe zult moeten nemen… X
maar vent toch wat een pech !!!
tja jij heb t lucky charm niet bij hé
wees voorzichtig en geniet ! mooie foto’s
knuffel
xxx
hebt gij diene klopgeest van nr 9 Lillo meegenomen deze keer? er loopt wel wat veel mis hé?
ne motard met zoooooooooooveel ervaring…………
Are you sure to ride this particular bike? I hone(stl)y think this bike is trying to tell you something …
Mostar is very nice: please take pics of the new reconstructed “old” bridge, as your Dad and I saw the old one.
What are you doing with a jar of honey in your pannier???
Hope from now on you won’t have any technical problems anymore.
zillion kisses,
you know who.