May 31, 2023
Kranjska Gora to Bovec
We actually managed to get away at a decent hour this morning. We're starting to get the hang of camping mornings now. Mostly it involves one person doing chores like dishes and teeth and recycling slowly and inefficiently with Tobias in tow while the other person packs things. We did watch in envy as Simon sat and played with some cones while his parents both packed at the same time, they said it wouldn't have been possible when he was Tobias'age, so fingers crossed that 6 months of brain development helps with that.
Just as we were doing the last job (getting the water on the bikes) Tobias took a big tumble off my back and cut the back of his head. It wasn't too serious but heads bleed easily and he has such blonde hair that it looked a bit gruesome. Not such a good start to the day, but he recovered once we got on the bike.
We waved goodbye to our Belgian friends, hopefully we will meet them further down the track. They have a policy of staying at least 2 nights in each place. I can see the merit in it, sometimes it feels like we spend more time preparing to move than actually biking. But we also like the rhythm of being on the road.
We started the day retracing our tracks to Kranjska Gora before turning off up towards the Vršič pass. The gradient gradually got steeper without us noticing too much until suddenly I didn't have any gears left to change down into. Then we just got slower. I was a bit worried about how Tobias would fare today. He doesn't tend to cope well with the slow, uphill stuff. I think he finds it boring. But when I climb I like to get in a rhythm and just keep going, so we are a bit incompatible. He lasted an hour until we stopped for coffee on the side of the road, then another 45 minutes till we made it to one of the mountain huts for lunch. We've been eating lots of mushrooms since we started this trip. 6 weeks ago Tobias wouldn't touch them and today he was stealing them all from my pasta sauce.
Slovenian mountain food is delicious, but really tough when you have to start going straight up a hill again. It started lightly drizzling just as we set off. Exactly what you need when tackling steep, cobblestone hairpin corners. The rain coats didn't last long though, and the weather didn't come to much. I actually really enjoyed the climb. At one point James said he had to remember to smile at the people coming down the hill. I said I don't think I'd stopped smiling all day. We were right up in the mountains and at every corner we were treated to a new outlook. It was a bit harder for James. Once you go slow enough that you are just pushing down on the pedals the trailer pulls you back a little bit every rotation. I ended up riding in front of him because I nearly ran into him too many times.
I enjoyed the climb, and it was incredibly hard and I did cry a little bit when we reached the top. Tobias woke as we stopped so we hauled him out of the trailer for a photo then headed up to the hut for a coffee and to rug up for the decent. It was a bit daunting to still have 30km to go after his nap. Normally we aim for less than 10km. But we had this house booked on Bovec to share with Lander, and we knew that we'd save ourselves a fair bit of hassle not having to pitch, and then pack up a tent. Plus it was cold.
The first part of the descent was steep, though luckily without the cobbled corners. It was raining. Or at least drizzling but we were going so fast it felt like rain. Tobias seemed to be enjoying it and warm enough up in front of my bike. I've been exclaiming "wow-ee" when we see big mountain vistas and he's started doing it too, but we realised today that we may actually have just taught him that mountains are called "wow-ee". Our brakes sure got a work out and my hands were a bit numb by the end of it.
After the steep descent we crossed the Soča river and started a more gradual, but still very pleasant descent. I think we went faster on this bit because there were less hairpins and steep drop offs. After about an hour Tobias was definitely all done, but we had another 8km with some climbs to go. We took a quick break which always seems to help, even if our instinct is to push on so that we can just get there. It had also warmed up significantly so the trailer was loaded up with discarded cold weather gear. The little hills leading to Bovec were killers on sore legs, but we finally made it up and to our apartment at about 5pm.
There is no rest with a kid, and we didn't have anything to cook for dinner so we quickly changed and got laundry on then walked back to a pizza bar by a tennis court. There was a big playground so Tobias was happy, though pretty tired so we enjoyed our beer one at a time while the other watched him. By the time the pizza came he didn't have much interest in anything except stealing my olives, but James and I didn't have a problem finishing his pizza off as well. After 4 nights camping and a few late nights he was cooked by the time we headed home and well and truly ready for bed. Fingers crossed he sleeps well in his own room with shutters so it'll stay dark in the morning. Probably wishful thinking.
We don't have far to go tomorrow and I'm looking forward to taking it a bit slower. It would have been nice to do this section over 2 days and maybe stay at one of the huts on the pass. The Soča river is beautiful and there were lots of interesting spots to stop. We've actually visited here once before with my parents on our mountain biking adventure in Slovenia. We drove up to Bovec for a meal one night and some of our route tomorrow we rode on our way to bike up Mt Stol.
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Today's ride: 50 km (31 miles)
Total: 1,247 km (774 miles)
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Mountains may be wow-ees from now on. It’s a good name. When our daughter was small, every time we used a tape measure and then pushed the retraction button to wind it up, we would say “Ta da!” So she thought that was the word for tape measure. Twenty years later, we still call tape measures ta-das.
10 months ago
10 months ago