Hi again!

After leaving the scout campsite we pressed on to Pag island, dropping off Filip on the way and thanking him for his excellent hospitality. We reached the port for the ferry soon afterwards, but between us and the ferry was a two hour queue.

After just squeezing onto the ferry, we were greeted by an air conditioned cabin which we made the most of during the quick 15 minute ride. There was a large shock when we disembarked the ferry and all that surrounded us was rock and dirt. The drive from the ferry to the campsite itself was only a short drive, as the island itself is quite small. Soon enough, however, the rock gave way to small towns next to attractive beaches.

When we got there, we found that the campsite was much bigger than we had expected, and most of it looked like a small village rather than a campsite; complete with shops and stalls, and shacks that were being rented out (we were all jealous of the fact they had air conditioning). We reached the area where we were to be camping, and had a little difficulty getting the vans up the hill as it was rocky ground and quite steep at points. But after a little time and effort, we managed to get camp set up – albeit with some struggling due to the hard and rocky ground, but then you can’t expect grassy ground from a volcanic island.

Pag was our time to relax from the tiring activities we had done earlier in the expedition, so not a lot was done in that respect, but we did enjoy the sea as we could see it very clearly from our campsite, and was only a few hundred meters downhill. In the evening we were treated to a meal at the onsite pizzeria.

On the second day, we soon realised that although we had a nice sea breeze, it was way too hot to not sit in the shade. There wasn’t much around that gave shade, besides a few small trees, so George (in his infinite wisdom) tied the county scout parachute between a few trees and one of the vans, to create a large patch of shade which we were very grateful for.

The next few days were quite lazy, with regular visits to the beaches and the bars, and we were given a chance to regain our energy and prepare for the Emerald river adventure (more on that in later blog posts). The break gave Callum and Austin a chance to catch up on their spreaker radio show (links on the 1st Harwell ESU twitter page, @1stHarwellESU).

After we had three days to recover and do our own thing, we packed up camp early in the morning to avoid the glaring midday sun, and driving off Pag via a bridge to the mainland, rather than using the ferry again. We then headed towards the Slovenian border and then onto the campsite not that far outside the town of Bled.