After leaving Krk, we headed south down the Dalmatian coast, hugging the hillside with its steep rocky drops into the sea, where only the cars parked on the side of the road and a slight indent into the trees hinted there would be access to the sea below.  At times the coast road was slightly overrun by service orientated businesses or slightly shabby touristy offerings, but at others it presented perfect Adriatic vistas, complete with walled towns and pine studded islands.

We left the coast just before ‘Zadar’ (which has been an enduring proclamation for the trip ever since….) to cross to Pag Island.  A craggy and rather inhospitable island, Pag is famous for a lovely cheese (yes yes, I know this trip is largely about the cheese for me…William keeps reminding me), but seriously, paški sir is a scrummy hard sharp sheep’s cheese which apparently is Croatia’s most famous dairy export.  I can see why – we all loved it – even Will who has spent much of the time in Europe looking for cheddar cheese (unsuccessfully).

Apart from eating the cheese, we stayed in a busy, holiday orientated campsite, but we embraced the exuberance and enjoyed the aqua park, ‘animation’, mini disco and best of all, a wonderful invention of spiral chips on a stick (though I think they might have a catchier name than that), where a whole potato is cleverly cut like an apple skin and strung out over a kebab stick, deep fried and salted.  You then break each spiral off and it is just like eating fresh cooked crisps!  Not even kiwi dip is required to enjoy these!

Heading off Pag, we headed inland to Plitivice Lakes.  The route up was windy and wet, much to the dismay of a Swiss biker, who we were first to come across having left his lovely Harley Davidson on one side of the road while he had a face off with a cliff on the other.  Possibly thanks to our slow progress up the hill, there were several folk behind us, so after Deane donned his ravey yellow pac-a-mac (remember that from Bestival Lee & Tina) and raced off up the mountain road to direct traffic, and locals called the ambulance, our little snail house provided the rest until the professionals arrived.

Heading on we stayed at a mini-camp (basically someone’s backyard) and after a quiet evening, headed into the park.  Plitivice National Park consists of 16 aquamarine coloured lakes, which descend for 8km over a constantly changing series of waterfalls formed by moss and algae.  Interestingly, this park is where the Yugoslavian Wars for Croatian Independence started in 1991 and after some fatalities and much damage, it was placed on the UNESCO ‘sites in danger’ list for the period of the war.  Thankfully, it was cleared of mines soon after the war and tourists have been able to return to this labyrinth of emerald lakes.

Of course, the day we visited, it chucked it down.  We walked for four hours in the rain and despite taking our pac-a-macs and a smile, when the rain soaked upwards and all our underpants were wet through, the view lost a little of its charm.  Thankfully after a stop for hot choc (and medicinal Jägermeister for the grown ups), the sun shone and we were able to enjoy the afternoon in the warmth of the sun and the micro-climate that was reminiscent of a rain forest.

We left the lakes heading to Split – almost half way down this super country……..time is starting to fly…….