Cycling Montenegro – Mojkovac, Tara River, Zabljak, Durmitor National Park, Pluzine, Niksic
well welcome to Montenegro uh we came through an awful train ride from Serbia last night took the whole day yesterday it was awful but uh to wake up uh this morning in uh mod Kavik and uh ride out into this Tower River Canyon um so spectacular it’s just uh really really beautiful so what a morning cycling it’s been definitely uh roads very quiet but really good condition uh really really happy so far and uh yeah got a big day ahead of us big climbing and everything like that but um I think uh definitely looking forward to what Montenegro has to offer us now so all good got to love it well what a morning it’s been the canyon walls have just grown and grown bigger and bigger the hills around us just got so Jagged and just spectacular and uh wow just uh really friendly people it’s just been so nice riding through it and uh finally we end up here uh down by the river for our lunch spot the river is looking beautiful and blue there so uh nice bite of lunch to be had rewarding us for this morning morning’s minimal effort well after cycling all morning up through this Valley we’ve come to the Grand Bridge it’s been pretty hard the entire morning to wipe a smile off my face uh but this bridge marks the point where we turn we head way up there somewhere it’s a 700 odd meter climb and I suspect that might wipe the smile off my face for a bit but uh we’ll enjoy it for just a bit longer well it appears we’re at the the top and I’m still smiling so uh I think I must have got a lot more fit since those days back in Italy uh was a pretty decent hill climb up there about 10 11ks worth of uh straight up but mercifully it wasn’t too Steep and uh I think we’ve uh We’ve managed pretty well so now it’s just straight on to zjack which is uh somewhere up there in the future so all the hard work for the day I think is uh is mostly done and uh wasn’t really that bad I think well day two of Montenegro starting out from Zab jaac we’re heading down this way and somewhere up over there’s a huge mountain range that sort of carries on behind this one which is where we’re heading today up and over should be fun well we’ve come from down there way down there in the valley It’s been a easy ride up so far and just as we’ve been coming up the mountain the scenery’s just been getting better and better as we’ve come up uh it’s very different riding from yesterday yesterday we were in the closed in Canyon walls all around us but uh here today we’re sort of right out in the open we’ve got the the Wide Mountain views all around us as we’ve been coming up um we just starting to get above the tree line here the sort of shrubs and and things the trees are really getting small and tiny little trees and up above we start to see all the just the bare rocks and and the bare mountains up above so uh yeah really really beautiful stuff and uh lots to enjoy here remember no pain no gain folks it’s funny these cars coming up these roads I think there’s people in them looking at us going jeez you’d have to be mad to cycle up this thing but uh I think the views that we’re getting and the way that you can enjoy it on the bikes I think the owner I are thinking you’d be mad to do it any other way is that right yeah less enthusiastic well here we are at the lunch toop hooray we’ve made it to the top so I think here we’re about 2100 M coming up and over the pass here and uh off down the other side down here uh so this is our road for this afternoon we go down into this Valley here and uh then pretty much just straight up the other side so uh bit of up and down again we had a lunch up at the top of the hill and I was like getting all my gear together and everything like that and put all my my stuff on the back here and left my gloves on there and rode off we got to the bottom of the hill I’m like like one of the gloves was sitting on there and the other one wasn’t and just then a guy drove past in the car and said beep beep stop just up the hill here and goes hey is this your glove oh yeah awesome that’s like €30 worth of gloves there so what about the other pair of gloves you’ve already lost yeah let’s not worry about them but montenegrin people so far are so amazingly friendly just up the top of the hill here we were forced well I was forced to have like a whole of beer and shots of bloody snaps schnaps and stuff uh so and I’ve got a a a penny full of eggs and chicken and bread and what else yeah so wow man it’s like it can’t get much better today so uh yeah it’s all just working out so well yeeha and of course we we hadn’t quite had enough uh nice scenery for the day so uh I figured we had to top it off with this amazing Gorge and Ravine down here so uh yeah does make for uh pretty nice days finish uh riding down to the bottom and hopefully the gods are with us we’ll find a room down there somewhere well it’s day three of Montenegro and uh we spent about the first hour thus far this morning morning climbing from way down there way up here so yet another massive Hill Climb uh still got a bit more to go heading up this way to the path uh yeah hell of a lot of mountains in this country but I guess what else do you expect from uh a place whose name Montenegro literally means Black Mountain well it’s been a beautiful afternoon’s downhill run after the hard work this morning and uh still got a fair bit of downhill to go way down there is the town of meic where we will be ending our ride today so not a bad morning’s ride lot uphill but uh nice to be going down and for something totally different we’ve uh ended up in the very Cosmopolitan uh uh happening uh street life here of nixi so we have a have a night away from the mountains and the hills and uh bit of civilization so cheers