Day 1,406

Mosquitos

I'd found a great little apartment in Novi Sad. Close to the ‘old town’, mainly rebuilt in the mid 1800s, and very nice it is too. The apartment was just about perfect, with all the essentials bike tourers need. A decent WiFi (that is the number one), a desk high enough for Tom, which is a bonus, a washing machine, outdoor space to work on the bikes and dry the clothes, a kitchen, and a comfortable bed. Yep, the girl did good finding this place and all for £24 a night! We were also just ten minutes from the centre of tourist things, 2 mins from a bread/cake shop, and 3 mins from a supermarket. We spent two days on chores, me the blog and bikes, with a wee bit of food shopping and cooking thrown in. Tom, in full-on workaholic mode, edited his photos up to date and produced four films. Not one to boast but he even checks that the subtitles make sense, he's a star. 

This left us with a few hours to be normal tourists. We went out for a meal one night, just the one, we've got to remember we're on a budget. We had a drink and sat people watching, wandered into the H&M store, which has hidden most of the original beautiful interior throughout  the store. We gawped at the bits left on show, which pleased the security guard a lot, but bemused the clothes shoppers. 

The stairs in H&M, Novi Sad

We admired the mix of old and new buildings. Suddenly it was evening and we gravitated towards a large crowd of people. A few weeks ago 16 people had died whilst queuing for a bus, when a canopy collapsed onto them. Corruption was blamed. This tragedy had been a trigger, a final straw for many, mainly students and young families. Serbia has free elections but not a free press. Many feel this has resulted in a loss of freedoms, corruption, hence the bus station incident. Since then there have been non-violent protests throughout the country. Tonight's had started with a big get together at a free food stall, the crowd donating home cooked food, provided as a welcome to a group of student  cyclists who had ridden from Stuttgart to offer their support. There were thousands there. Singing, blowing whistles, cheering the students. We didn't understand much, but you could understand the atmosphere, and being there was a privilege. There was such power, despair, and yet hope in their voices as they sang, chanted and whistled. I'm sure they sang their national anthem with more emotion than many of us do. They weren't asking for much, just democracy. It was hard to leave but the swell in the crowd was sucking away the oxygen for those around 5’2”, so reluctantly we left.

The protest in Novi Sad, more to come on the YouTube film

The following morning we returned to the Danube. The sun was out, the wind had eased. The track besides the Danube was more hinted at rather than actually there. Maybe a wee bit of corruption here, they put up the Eurovelo 6 signs but didn't actually make the path. We cycled straight through Belgrade, were particularly taken by the cyclists’ only lift to take us down to the river side, but not so much by the bridge we needed to ride to escape the city. We particularly loved the Eurovelo sign that advised us the upcoming track was probably an unrideable mud-bath if wet, with wooden planks in place to cross streams, the other option was a three lane highway, and good luck with that. We opted for the off-road route, the ever present wind is great for drying out mud. The sun shone, our mountain bike handling skills were called into use as we made our way along. Then we came upon a small but beautiful flat area, overlooking a few lakes, heron, swans and storks sunning themselves, a few ducks, some croaks from the frogs and splashes from the fish. Perfect. We sat in our chairs to take in the view, then some touring instinct, buried deep in Tom's soul screamed a warning “let's put the tent up before we cook” he cried, “and let's do it NOW!”. We had barely finished when a plague of blood-sucking mosquitoes appeared from nowhere, one second none, the next, several million of them. Food, views, everything was forgotten in the rush to reach sanctuary. Tom sported several large lumps on his face where they got him when he threw, I mean passed, our panniers to me, safe in the tent. Later though they got me. They waited, they knew, yep, when you gotta pee, you gotta pee. They got me. We didn't linger over breakfast the following morning, they'd gone but we weren't hanging about just incase and anyway after a couple of long days riding since leaving Novi Sad we had a campsite in mind. Just 65 mainly off-road miles and a ferry to catch, could we do it? 

It looked so nice at first, although maybe a bit wet…

Then came the invasion

We had a delay when we were called over to chat by a young guy, Branko, out for a weekly cycle to the cake shop for breakfast with his wife and two children. I spotted his v-brakes and cheerfully handed over our spare brake blocks we carried for Tom's old bike. Branko insisted we join them for breakfast as a thank you. We had a great chat, ate cake, then it was back on the bikes.

The lovely Branko and his lovely family

We stopped for a food shop at the last town before the ferry. Tom checked the crossing times, we had 3 hours to ride 25 miles, a mix of road and off-road. Should be doable but we pushed on just in case. We made it, with time to spare, then, on the other side of the Daube, just 6 miles on a scenic and newly resurfaced road for cyclists and walkers only. Tired, exhausted and hungry, we were shocked to see the tiny cyclist camping area just about full. Tourers are just like buses, you wait weeks to see one and then three turn up all together! We needed food, a chat and then sleep and we soon had two out of three. Sleeping during a massive storm isn't so easy despite how tired we were. Hopefully not too many miles tomorrow!