Wednesday – 4th Week: Korčula and Mljet National Park

We were up at 6am today, to get showered and down the road to meet the tour bus that is taking us off to Makarska from where we will board a hydrofoil to the Island and town of Korčula and then to visit Mljet National park. Korčula is a large island that sits off the Makarska Riviera behind the island of Hvar. We are visiting the town of Korčula at the Western end of the island (the island runs East-West like Hvar, so the town is at the far end of the island). Korčula is known as little Dubrovnik, for its picturesque setting, ramparts and turrets.

Much to my surprise, even the bus trip into Makarska was enjoyable and I liked being able to sit way up high, get a good view of scenery and not have to worry about concentrate on the driving. The boat trip out to Korčula was a little bit bumpy as there was a bit of swell, which gets the Hydrofoil rolling from one foil to the other. Anne had her Sea Bands on, so there were no upsets. The hydrofoil is a great, fast way to travel. The trip to Korčula taking 45 minutes compared to the normal 3 and a half hours for a slow boat. Korčula itself is a beautiful little town (see the pictures) and the old part of the town takes about 15 minutes to walk around the outside of. There is a lot of interesting little streets in the middle as well. Because we were on a tour, we did a walking tour of the town, which we managed to stay with for about half an hour before we’d heard and forgotten enough historic dates and names to be satisfied for another year – and even visited a museum!

If ever you want to give yourself half an hours light entertainment, head down to your local boat harbour and watch people messing about in boats – backing trailers and getting boats onto trailers is particularly entertaining - take a glass of wine to add to the enjoyment. Today’s entertainment was in the guise of the weekend warriors who had chartered boats for a bit of cruising. First, were the guys in the motor launch, trying to tie up at the Marina. All the boats are moored with their sterns to the dock (so the plank can be run up onto to the dock), so a slow approach and a delicate hand on the throttle is required to bring the boat into the marina, bring it to a halt and gently back into the berth. Our friend chose the opposite approach, in fast, full revs in reverse, lurch backwards, lots of revs forward, repeat a couple of times and eventually crash into the boats on the opposite side of the marina. After lots of shouting and cursing and a couple of good shoves on their neighbor and they were safely berthed.

Next was the 48 foot yacht leaving the berth very gently. Lots of people were on the deck using their feet to push the boat out past the neighbor. Unfortunately, they were going too slowly and there wasn’t sufficient water going past the rudder to give them any steering, so they drifted onto their neighbor. “What’s that rope coming out under their boat” Anne asked. “That’s their neighbor’s bow anchor line and its about to get snagged on their rudder” I replied. A few seconds later, the bow of the yacht swung round as the stern was caught on the anchor rope and with an almighty crash hit the two neighbouring boats – more cursing and swearing from several crews. Actually, Anne and I had only walked to the end of the Marina to get a view back to the city, but what a great 10 minutes of entertainment.

We left Korčula at 12:30 for the island of Mljet (Pronounced me yet), where we were given a lunch at the local hotel, which we had with an interesting English couple who told us all about what a great travel destination Japan was. After lunch we went on a brief walk over the hill on the island and then down to the two lakes in the centre of the island. The two lakes are salt water and because they are land locked, the salt concentration is much higher than normal. We got taken on a boat trip to a small island at the end of the second lake (that’s an island on a lake on an island in the Adriatic sea). We went for a swim from the island and the water was both fabulously warm and extremely buoyant, so we were able to swim from the island to the shore and back again.

We left Mljet at 5:45, got back to Makarska at 7:00 and were dropped back in Zigovošće at 7:30. Dinner that night was pizza and a bottle of local red wine (Croatia is not well known for its wine…..)