Before going to bed last night, I contacted Toni to check if the Garmin was indeed routing us correctly because what we have been riding is NOT a rail trail; not by gradient certainly!
We also have found when we checked the maps that, today, the plan is to BACK-TRACK all the way to Hutovo where we had coffee and lunch yesterday. I have to say my heart sank when I realised this. All those hills (bar the first 10.8 km one) had to be re-done in reverse and some of those ascents were going to be so steep (as the descents coming in this direction to Neum had been very long).
Toni offered to collect us from here today to go to Hutovo. It didn’t take us long to decide this was a very good option.
It seems that the ‘detour’, as I believe it is, to Neum is simply to bring us to this very attractive town overlooking the Adriatic Sea. It does certainly do that. But it is not a rail trail and we did not sign up for these climbs.
The other thing is that Toni is saying the rail trail is very ‘technical’. There having been no detail when booking re maps and no way to Google Map the route when planning this trip, I suspect what this really means is that these parts of the trail are not really tourist-ready!
Anyway, he says we’ll be on the trail today from Hutovo to Ravno.
With this new plan we now have the luxury of a walk down to the waterfront after breakfast (we were far too stuffed to do this yesterday…). By 8:30 a.m. it is already 19 deg C. It’s a beautiful morning and the scenery is exquisite.
Matej collects us at 8:45 a.m. We reach Hutovo along an amazing freeway in remarkably quick time from Neum (by car) and are on our bikes by 9:30 a.m. but immediately strike a problem as MF’s pannier rack is rubbing the back wheel.
Running repairs roadside (necessitating taking panniers off and back wheel to find a broken weld on the rack - AND we have no tools - don’t ask; they are in the suitcase in Mostar 🙄) in the hot sun as a farmer walks past with his flock of goats results in a delay of almost an hour.
But the repair DOES work! Thank goodness for cable ties!
Apart from the hill up from this point (which we climb only half-way then walk as it’s 12%), we have the most idyllic ride today on FLAT, sealed road with barely any traffic through cuttings, past several old stations, numerous abandoned villages and empty houses. The path would often gently curve along a mountainside, revealing its former self as a train line.
Even the sun kindly went behind clouds for long stretches, so we had a nice breeze without getting burnt to a crisp. Still lots of meadow flowers and you can smell the herbs too!
We keep seeing signs to Dubrovnik reminding us how close we are to Croatia. The first train on the Ćiro line chugged out of Dubrovnik toward Mostar in 1901 to great fanfare. Dignitaries from the Austro-Hungarian Empire on the train were met with cheering crowds in each small town and village. For the first time, parts of the interior of Bosnia and Herzegovina were no longer isolated. But in 1976, the rail line was deemed no longer financially feasible by the then-ruling Yugoslavian government and shut down.
Today is everything yesterday wasn’t. We relaxed, stopped for lots of photos (MF even got a snake pikky):
There were a few of these; and more that we could hear rustling close to the path but didn’t see🙉; I missed one that glided out behind my back wheel as I pedalled along.
And we just basically enjoyed easy, delightful riding with picturesque views over Lake Vrutak (a reservoir) and the Trebišnjica river valley [FUN FACT: Before the construction of the hydroelectric plant, Trebišnjica was the longest natural underground river in the world].
- AND avoided the landmines!
I saw too what looked like bunkers as we approached Ravno.
[On 1 October 1991, the Yugoslav People's Army and Serbian-Montenegrin volunteers attacked and destroyed Ravno. In 13 days of destruction, the town was totally destroyed, 58 inhabitants were killed, 11 were wounded, and 18 were captured.]
We are now at the Hotel Stanica (about 1 p.m.) which used to be a Ćiro station a long time ago but has since been restored into a restaurant and hotel.
We walk UP into the town after a coffee in search of a supermarket for bottled water and nearly give up until we find it hidden away in a corner behind a cafe. We have our picnic lunch sitting outside our hotel - with the dog - and enjoy a white wine for me (the local white wine grape type in BiH is Žilavka) and a pivo (beer) for MF.
Then a 20-minute afternoon nap (!) followed by a walk around town going off-piste up a dirt road lined with crosses (which I suspect is a Way of the Crosses as I count at least 9 before we turn back).
Dinner at the hotel - finished off with a (shared!) shot of Maraska - a liqueur made from marasca cherries.
Rode 25.4 kms.
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