Pero and his bike

utorak, 11.01.2022.

The Una River - The second day 2019

You can come back on the previous part of this travelogue here.

The second day

If you don't want to read, skip the text and see the images of this day of journey here.

You can see the map of the this day of the journey here.

This stormy night, together with the confusing impression of this town from last night, made my desire to continue the journey become great, if for no other reason, and at least because of the hope that I will see something beautiful that will take me out of some melancholy, depression even, in which, I feel, I begin to fall slowly.
This town tired me. It is not to its blame for that, I apologize to it, others are to blame, but as it happens, the culprits go unpunished and the innocent suffer.
So I quickly got dressed and got out of the tent. There I was greeted by a foggy morning, sombre and gloomy (at least it seemed so to me).

After packing my things on the bike I went down by the surrounding road to something that should be the center of the place. I had to suppress the previously mentioned desire to continue my journey as soon as possible.
Last night when I "took a shower" I realized that my hands were very red, and I felt that the situation was the same with my face. So, the sun burned me well, which is no wonder becouse I was all day outdoors. Noticing thst I remembered that I forgot to bring sunscreen. That was the reason why I waited for fifteen minutes in that "center" of the town for the local store to open to find something for sun protection.
I found it!
While I was waiting for those 8 AM as the opening time of the store, I filmed the environment in which I found myself.
Here was the Dvor bus station

Contrary to expectations about the town center, across from the bus station was not some magnificent urban building but a traditional wooden house, typical of this area. It was more sympathetic to me than some “magnificent urban building”.

The border crossing was about 3 km. There was also an easy uphill of a few hundred meters that I (though) walked. At the end of the uphill is a village where I filmed an interesting solution for the garden.

This image above had taken a mile or two after the Dvor town.
After crossing the bridge, which is also a customs crossing, I passed through the Bosanski Novi town. The traffic jam made me pass through that town without filming anything. It was similar behind that town.
The road was wide, but the traffic on it was considerable. The railway, together with the road, followed the course of the Una river, which was mostly away from the road. Nothing particularly interesting so I rode and rode. And I rode and rode because my goal was to get to Bihać and eat good kebabs somewhere in that town.
But that will still wait.
After breakfast, which I did at one of the passing gas stations, behind every bend in front of me I expected the first major waterfalls on the Una river. I remember them since 1986 when I was riding my bike for the first time here. But the location of these waterfalls is not exactly recorded in my memory, so when I was already starting to fear that I had missed them, they appeared.
The first image shows a view from the road, and the second is when I went down a short and unpaved alley to the river.


In the upper left corner of the image above, the concrete sub-wall of the road and the bumper on it can be seen.

For a long, much longer time than I intended I was standing by the river and its waterfalls listening to them and watching. It always fascinates me how such an inanimate substance as water in such circumstances looks so alive and fluttering. I was equally fascinated by the white foam of the water just behind the waterfall, as well as its transformation into emerald greenery after the water calmed down.
And this is just an introduction to what still awaits me travelling by this river!
After infinity, I forced myself to move, but not much. I turned to the right just enough to see the restaurant on an island and the ferry that serves for transportation across the river.


I finally winced and forced myself to continue my journey. Time passes like lightning in places like this, no matter how much it seemed to me that I stayed for a short time.
A few hundred meters away I came across a traffic sign in a form of a board on which "Bosanska Otoka" was written. Somewhere around that sign, the Una river has spread so it turns into a wider clear river that gently and slowly travels its journey.
Just before I got in something like the centre of the place I needed to cross the Una river by a narrow steel bridge


The bridge was narrow and the traffic went alternately, but for pedestrians, and ultimately for us cyclists, there was a footpath from which I happily watched the Una river below me as I drove slowly without worrying about traffic.
Immediately after descending from the bridge, I turned left and passed through the place. This blue car in the picture below has just crossed the bridge


The Bosanska Krupa town was about 11 km from the Bosanska Otoka place. To the left of the road was, the Una river, nearer or farther, and the railway was on the right, also nearer or farther. If a hill comes close to the road, then the railway is closer to the road, and sometimes it overcomes the hill through a tunnel.

At the entrance to the town of Bosanska Krupa, before crossing the Una on the right, I saw a luxurious residence near the railway.

Crossing the bridge that crosses the Una river, I turned left off the main road and came across an old acquaintance I had known since 1985 - the Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary. It would be better to say a chapel, in terms of its dimensions. As the klix.ba website tells me, it was built in the neo-Gothic style in 1910.
Filmed in 1985
Filmed in 2019
Looking at the above two images, I hastily concluded that church not much has changed in the last 34 years, but unfortunately, that is not the case. The church was badly damaged in the last war in Bosnia. On the website arhiv.stav.ba I found an image of how the church was devastated during the war.

It is interesting to me that the church was rebuilt mostly with the funds and donations of the majority Muslim population. The renovation project was done by a Muslim engineer, and one of the two keys of the church is kept by a Muslim from Bosanska Krupa (source klix.ba).
I sat on the stone wall in the shade across from the said church to rest a little and rearrange my thoughts. It is only noon, it is not a problem with the remaining time, it should be more than enough for the journey to Bihać. The problem was in me actually, in the fatigue which I felt even though the road was mostly flat as far as the climb was concerned. Apparently, the fatigue of yesterday and the "stormy" night are leaving consequences. Due to the above, I stayed in a pleasant shade much longer than intended.
That I did not completely get rid of that fatigue in the continuation of the ride, I indirectly realized as I watched with a latent dose of resignation the cheerful and sympathetic ducks playing in the crystal clear water of the river.

I can't even fully explain to myself, so how could I do to you, why I was so fascinated by these kebabs in Bihać, and because of then I was completely blind to the signs that my tired body was giving me.
The beauty of the road and the environment behind the Bosanska Krupa town overwhelmed me so that I almost forgot about the mentioned fatigue. I often stopped to shoot scenes, and by the way, I would rest, invigorate my body, and the ride seemed beautiful to me. The impressiveness of that ride in a kind of symbiosis was made by the sympathetically winding road with extremely little traffic, by the absence of uphill and by the Una river along the road. Okay, the density of the greenery along the road spoiled the scene, but I still found some space through it to see all the beauty of the river and the surroundings.



I even managed to capture those who think rafting is for them something like a bike is for me.

The railway, which until now had been on the other side of the Una river, decided to join me and to the road along which I rode. It was done it by a bridge. The greenery around the bridge was dense a lot, so I clim

bed the embankment and filmed something of the railway and steel bridge.
And the road itself along the hill on one side and the Una river on the other it was hard to find space and now with the railway it was even harder. The solution was found in the railway tunnels and the frequent switching of the road from one side of the railway to the other.

The only place from the Bosanska Krupa town to the Bihać town, not counting the Bihać suburbs, are the Srbljani place.
A road from the Cazin town, the Velika Kladuša town and further from Croatia came across the Una river and merged here to "my" road. Indeed, "my" road merged with the main road here. That main road continues to the Bihać town and further into the interior of Bosnia. I noticed that in the continuation of the ride by the wideness of the road, which increased, and also by the traffic, which also increased and very a lot.
But before I took that main road, I stopped for a while on the bridge over the Una river to take a break and filmed the Una river downstream from the bridge.

The fatigue, which was briefly reduced by the exoticism of the Una canyon, reappeared in its full size. Along with fatigue, there was also hunger, now considerable, which I could not control with a few bites of fruit. I had a "dry daily meal" in my saddlebags, as it was called when I was in the army, but if I consume it, then I will spoil those long-awaited kebabs in Bihać. So I tried to fool hunger with cookies and milk.
A more careful reader from the text so far will notice what I have persistently denied myself during this ride so that this series of many small mistakes and unpleasant circumstances can eventually unite and become a big, very big problem.
Pushing, reducing that hunger, I continued driving. To the Bihać town, according to the map, I have only 12 kilometres and it seemed to me that I could survive it somehow.
The traffic, as I had mentioned, was dense so it further depressed me. I tried to fix that not very good mood with the environment.
To the right, somewhere down the Una river in the meadow, were some campers. Whether it was just a meadow or a real camp, I didn’t find out.


Some 8 km before the Bihać town on the Una river is the Kostelski buk hotel, and next to the hotel are the waterfalls of the same name. I wasn't in the mood to get any closer to the waterfalls, so I used the zoom of my camera to bring them as close to me as possible.


And then the two of them overtook me, gently, almost silently, but somehow contemptuously superior, or so it seemed to me.

They had complete equipment on bicycles, including a tent and sleeping bags. For a moment I transferred myself 30 or so years ago when I and my sweetheart were driving on this road like this. Pampered by pleasant memories, I started to follow them, driving at their own pace, but I didn't last long. With crushed dignity, I had to admit to myself that they were faster, stronger and younger than me.
With a depressed spirit and a tired body, I finally passed the board that read "Bihać". But my suffering was not over yet. To the town centre, I rode down a flat infinitely long street with heavy traffic and almost equally such pedestrians on the sidewalk.
I finally somehow got to the bridge over the Una in the town centre. I stared blankly into the clear water as it murmured merrily, along with the cheery ducks on its surface. It seemed to me that, together, they were trying to cheer me up, because I still succeeded in today's plan, but I felt nothing but dullness in my soul and fire in my face.
I asked someone from the crowd of passers-by where the good kebabs are here, and he pointed to a restaurant by the river on the bank from which I came to the bridge. I came back across the bridge and riding a few tens of meters along the main street, I turned right and after a couple of left-right, I came to a restaurant.
And finally, today, the long-awaited kebabs with beer.

They were so delicious, I was so hungry that I ordered a small portion in addition to the large one.
And another beer too.
After lunch, I sipped the said beer observing the ambience. Besides the restaurant, the Una river murmured in a nearby waterfall.

As if hypnotized, I watched the foaming blue-green water trying to form a meaningful thought in my head. My face burned with physical fatigue and discouragement appeared in my soul. I didn’t care for the wider area of the type of what the journey would look like in the coming days. I only wanted this time to solve the dilemma of whether to go back to the town and make a town tour or continue further to the camp which is some 3-4 km away.
After much deliberation, the decision fell on the latter. I got on my bike and came to camp.
Which was empty.
Empty, not a single tent, camper, man at least, nothing!
The reception of the camp was at the reception of the hotel across the street, so I, already with signs of panic in me, headed towards it.
I was relieved when the beauty at the reception told me "Yes, yes, the camp is open, why wouldn't it be open !?", but a moment later I was unpleasantly surprised by the price in an empty camp - 25 KM (12.5 €)!
I was too tired and resigned to worry about that at the moment. My current wish was to pitch a tent, prepare the interior, take a shower and have dinner. After that in my predictions everything was blurry and undefined.
In equally deserted restrooms like the campground, there was plenty of hot water. I stayed long under a jet of pleasantly warm water, significantly longer than expected. Although there is no logic, but I felt the water pulling fatigue out of my body and resignation from my soul, so I returned to the tent in a much better condition than I had been in the shower.
I placed the tent next to the table with the bench and made a rich dinner table there.

I cooked myself a cream of mushroom soup that transformed into something most delicious and enjoyable as I ate it. Even then, I enhanced my dinner with what I found in sadlebag.
While I was resting, a camper entered the camp. After choosing the place, he stopped, and the children ran out of it and with their games and shouts broke the feeling of silence and abandonment that I had at the entrance to the camp. The image below of the deserted campsite on the right shows a camper entering it.

After dinner and rest after it, I walked to a nearby restaurant idyllic located next to the waterfalls. It seems that once upon a time there was a watermills, and now they are converted to please guests in terms of food and drink.


Although the main course of the river goes over travertine barriers in the shape of a waterfall, much of that flow turns to the side creating islands on which these watermills/restaurant are built. So the road to the restaurant went over a wooden bridge. I had to drink beer at that restaurant because it was a condition for allowed filming.


And now the waterfalls!


The first shot was taken with a cell phone and the second with a camera, so I zoomed in on the waterfalls. The position of the sun was ideal so its light further enhanced the quality of the scene.
I stayed for a long time watching the merry play of water amazed by the sight. I forgot, or at least pushed aside, all the troubles, inconveniences and hardships of this ride, the sight in front of me completely convinced me that every part of that torment was worth it, many times over. I know, I am even more convinced, that the sight I see in front of me would not be nearly as impressive if I had reached these waterfalls in a comfortable car instead of a bicycle. Maybe this seems (too) masochistic to someone, I don’t know, but I know how I feel at this moment.
As a point on and, or as the icing on the cake were the ducks who enjoyed in this paradise of crystal clear water. One of them posed proudly for me.

I stayed, I have already said, watching the beauty of the river for a long time, without any burden that I had to do something else today. Eventually. I went back to the tent, made my evening preparations for sleeping, and crawled into the sleeping bag.
Before that, I took a look at the speedometer of my bike, which praised me for 80 km today. Not much, looking at the dry digits, but they were kind of hard for me.
I fell asleep, hard, I don't know when. I slept, hard, I don’t know how long, until the fever woke me up (again).
But, unlike this one, the one at the Dvor town was just a weak rehearsal, lukewarm foreplay. I was shaking fiercely, for a moment trying to find in my memory if I had ever shaken like this. Again, in that clumsy tragicomic way, I was pulling on clothes that I could find next to me in my saddlebags, groping and shaking. After all eternity, still shaking to the maximum, I put on everything I had, even a cap and gloves. Then I crawled into the sleeping bag and waited, hoping for the final cessation of the fever, feeling it hard, nauseating and unbearable (how to bear the unbearable !?).
I finally stopped shaking. I was overwhelmed by a pleasant wave of relief, calm, warmth. Almost like a seductive lullaby that a tired body and a tormented soul could hardly wait to finally fall into a relaxing sleep.
However, I must not allow that, flow through my head. If I fall asleep, it will get hot, I will start sweating and then I will wake up because of it. And after undressing and sleeping again there will be a fever again, and then wet clothes won’t warm me like this. So I tried not to fall asleep, and gradually, one by one, began to take off my clothes, as it was already getting warm enough for me, but still not too hot.
But that was just a concrete, less important problem running through my head.
The other was the final confrontation with the truth about the torments, misfortunes, and unfavourable circumstances of this journey.
Objectively speaking, these two days are the easier part of the journey compared to what follows me tomorrow. Tomorrow I have a pretty fierce uphill behind Ripač of at least 6-7, if not more kilometres. And so will the days after tomorrow. Further in Kulen Vakuf I should spend the night in a camp which, just like this one, is near the Una river. And that is upstream, at a higher altitude with closer mountain peaks than here in the Bihać town, so it is to be expected that the nights and mornings will be (even) colder.
And I shall be (very likely) even more tired!
While my body was getting warmer and warmer, my soul was getting more and more sinister and sinister. Gradually, I began to admit to myself that unpleasant"little things" exist really. Then I realized all the weight of all of the "little things" that were happening in these two days, and which I (sub) consciously rejected. When I finally rounded them into one whole, the message I was reading from them was calamitous to me.
It won't go on like this!
If it was just a problem of freezing in the tent during the night, I would somehow deal with it.
If I was just tired, I would somehow get over it.
If I wasn’t alone, if I had a companion by my side, it would somehow be easier for me to deal with everything else.
But this all together was too much for me. I spun in the sleeping bag for a long time. With the last grains of desperate hope, which was apparently fading away, I tried to postpone the cognition that had long been swaying in the silence of the tent darkness, and yet shone with its cold relentlessness - to give up returning home, with bent tail and with dignity which is crushed to dust.
But a moment or two after that cognition, instead of the expected sadness and regret that a step or two to the right thing I am giving up, a relief overwhelmed my soul. Too much torment, problems and dilemmas, no matter how small some of them were, they crushed, destroyed those small and a little bigger pleasures and delights. And it should have been the other way around.
Therefore, with peace in my soul, which I did not find on such a large scale in these two days, I fell asleep in anticipation of the next day.

The return

I got up even before 6, impatient to bring this awkward day, which had not even begun yet, to an end as soon as possible. The relief that overwhelmed me after the final decision to return did not last long,
it has been overcome by a feeling of sadness and disappointment, but I managed to put them altogether aside (I will think about them when I get home), so I put physical and mental preoccupation in the foreground to practical solve the return problem.
I was packing my tent and equipment while the fresh mist was around me. My cycling computer (electronic speedometer on the bike) assured me that the air temperature this morning was 13 degrees. However, I didn’t trust him too much. Maybe it exaggerated a bit, and maybe the state of my mind and body is such that it will be cold today and at noon (one is an objective temperature and the other a "feel-like" temperature)
After a quick breakfast, I went out on the main road and turned left, towards the Bihać town. I couldn't stand it, so I took one longing sight to the right towards the Ripač place. In that sight was a deep sigh of sadness, a mixture of disappointment and uncertain hope whether and when I would continue this journey that I am interrupting now and here.
But that moment lasted a short time, I had more important and concrete things to solve.
My intention was to take a bus to the Bosanski Novi town and continue by bike to the Novska town, where I would be met by the car
and my wife within it.
At the bus station, I found out that my bus leaves in 20 minutes. Just enough time to buy a ticket, unpack the bike and put it on the bus.
I sat on the left side of the bus so I could watch the Una river, at least this part of the Bosanska Krupa town. Unaccustomed to such speed of movement compared to a bicycle, I could barely recognize the places where I stood, rested, wiped my sweat, or filmed. My thoughts wandered incoherently, hard connected into something meaningful. Something most concrete from that wandering thought was awakened by the driver's announcement that we had arrived in the Bosanska Krupa town. We quickly continued our journey, and on the way out of the bus station, I managed to take a picture of a satisfied dog through the bus window, who was happily carrying something in his mouth that he considered a tasty snack.

After entering the Bosanski Novi town, I was disappointed to see that the bus was leaving the road for the border crossing towards Dvor, but was already driving over the hill to the town centre and the bus station. So, an unexpected "mountain ride" through the town to cross the border follows.
After I got off the bus and tidied up my bike and luggage, I filmed the bridge over the Sana river that takes me back to the town. To the right of the bridge, some hundred meters away, was the confluence of the Sana river and the Una river.


Although neither Bosnia nor these towns that I went through in these two days are to blame for that, I felt some relief by crossing the Una river and entering Croatia. Maybe because I immediately called my life and agreed with her that in the evening, around 6, we would meet in Novska "in the old place" (as if I was arranging a love meeting!).
This time I went around the Dvor town by a detour, stopping only once, filming it like this from a distance.

The rendezvous agreement in the Novska town somehow calmed me down. I felt a kind of serenity, which, behold the miracles, I had not felt in the past two days. If not happy, at least I was pleased that this debacle (I had already strengthened myself in choosing harsh words) from the ride was over, and I leave the analysis of it all for the days after this.
I will skip the details of the road and the environment now, I described them earlier anyway. I will just mention a couple of details that I missed while driving the day before yesterday.
A few kilometres after the Dvor town, I found a different form of a search for meaning and peace in life than this one of mine. What’s more, it seems to me that when I can no longer ride a bike I can dedicate myself to fishing as a form of peace outside of this reality in which we live and work, and in which we wonder more and more confusedly what is happening and where this world is going.

In this lower course of the Una river, which will soon merge with the Sava river, completely unexpectedly, waterfalls appeared. It’s not clear to me how I didn’t see them two days ago when I was riding in the opposite direction. It’s like they’re there to add salt to my wound, or to viciously mock my capitulation this morning.


Although at first, I wanted to get to the river itself, when I noticed the cyclist resting in the shade, I gave up. I would be ashamed (of myself) if I had to mumble a contrite answer to his possible question of where and where I was driving from.
I had already forgotten in what place I was impressed by the amount of wood being prepared for winter. According to them, it would be said that it will be long and strong.

Shortly before the Jasenovac place, the railway crosses the Sava river with a large steel bridge. For lack of better motives in today’s cycling, I decided to climb the bridge and film real Heavy Metal.


Somewhere near this railway iron bridge I found a hole in the greenery and filmed a road bridge over which I would soon cross.

About halfway between the Jasenovac place and the Novska town the road, and the railway a little further from it, it crosses the Strug canal. And that’s where I caught by the lens of my camera the fishermen who “meditating on meaning”.




After the return

I had enough time until next summer to rest, come to my senses, analyze all the important and less important things and details, and finally draw some conclusions. I was persistent enough (or stubborn?) so I turned down the possibility of definitely giving up any more serious rides. But on the other hand, I realized (ah, finally!) that it wouldn’t go on like this anymore. Some things need to change.
First, I shortened my daily mileage in my plans. It is useless for the heart to burn with desire when that body (no longer) can follow.
As for spending the night, inquiring around and gathering information, I decided to modernize myself in the old days and use the Internet, more precisely Bookin.com. I would further spend the nights in a soft bed under a hard roof, not vice versa as till now in a tent, where the bed was hard and the roof soft.
Although I tried hard in the advertising campaign for the search for a companion, I still failed, so I continued to ride the next trips alone.
Ah, my Lord, a man in life cannot have everything.
And just as I felt calm in my soul over the satisfying conclusions and cautiously optimistically waited for the following summer, it appeared.
Corona epidemic!
Riding for several days inside Croatia have become extremely uncertain, and those outside Croatia are a pure utopia.
Nevertheless, after a long break in the soul and endless analysis of pro and contra, and the crowning 2020, I achieved a three-day drive from Knin to Split (see Knin - Split 2020) according to the above guidelines. I experienced this ride as a real balm to the wound, as a complete hit, as a practical confirmation of the above theoretical guidelines.
So, I can still!
And that’s why I headed to the Una river again this summer of 2021.
By this, the introduction is ending, probably the longest so far, and begins the real story of the Una river, the one and only!

You can view the continuation of this travelogue here.

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