Day 170: Thursday 4 September – Croatia Under Water, Smarty Under The Weather, by Ken

We awoke to another grey and damp day after heavy overnight rain. The rain had eased somewhat by dawn and the water level had dropped in the area where Sam and Sheena had pitched their tent. We were in two minds whether to go out for the day or just chill out in Mabel.

We decided we needed to see more of Croatia than a soggy camping ground, skipped breakfast and were on the road before 9:00. The Mrežnički river had mist hanging over it. It looked marginally lower than yesterday but, nevertheless, there was still an enormous volume of water flowing. 

Mist Rising From The Mrežnički River

We stopped at a Pekara (bakery) in the nearby village of Duga Resa and bought two slices of Burek, a traditional Croatian pastry. Made of filo pastry one was filled with meat and potato, rather like a Cornish pasty, the other with goats cheese. We ate at tables in the bakery, sharing each slice.

In Karlovac we crossed the Danube yet again, it looked quite placid compared to the Mrežnički but was a similar muddy brown colour and obviously swollen.

We had picked the longest drive yet in Smarty with approximately 200km to our final destination of the day in Jasonovac close to the border with Bosnia. We wanted to visit the Lonjsko polje area. Polje, which literally means “field”, is a wetland resulting from the River Sava and its tributaries breaking their banks and is colonised by spoonbills, herons and storks.

Our route took us back initially on the motorways we had travelled from Serbia taking us north east to the southern outskirts of Zagreb and then south east for quite a while. It wasn’t easy driving for Jane in heavy rain and the spray thrown up by lots of trucks. We stopped to pay tolls twice commenting how comfortable we feel with toll roads compared with our initial nervousness two years ago. We left the motorway and followed a two lane road for a while before turning onto an unsurfaced road. It was still raining and that part of the journey was less than attractive as we bumped our way along in the grey, damp murk under overhanging trees.

After about 8km the road started to follow a narrow river, this length of road was surfaced but badly in need of repair, or had been badly repaired and needed doing properly. The roadside opposite the river was lined with old, three storied, wooden houses behind which stretched old wooden farm buildings. Most had tractors parked outside, it looked as though each house and accompanying buildings was a small holding. Many had chickens clucking in the farmyards and some had ducks on ponds – they seemed about the only animals oblivious to the weather. The only crop in evidence was (whatever the stuff is Jane and I have been debating).

Road In Need Of A Bit Of Work

At Least They Were Happy With The Weather

The rough road eventually joined a reasonably good two lane road that followed closely the River Sava. Like the other rivers we had seen it was in spate and had broken out of its banks flooding large areas of the countryside. In some places crops in fields were standing with their feet in water and the lower leaves were turning yellow. Lots of very soggy looking rolls of hay were scattered in some fields. It looked very much as though the farmers were in for a bad year.

The road passed through a number of villages where old timber houses flanked the road. Our guide book described the houses in the area as seeming to have jumped straight out of an illustrated book of fairy stories. On the wet and bleak morning of our visit the houses wouldn’t have looked out of place in a horror movie.

Here's some of the houses:

We particularly wanted to see the village of Čigoć which is a world-renowned migrating ground for wild storks. They arrive in the village in March and April feeding on the polje’s insects, fish and frogs. Tradition has it that the storks rear their young which hatch in April and May and leave for their wintering grounds in southern Africa on St Bartholomew’s Day (August 24). However, some remain in the village all year thanks to food provided by the locals. There was plenty of evidence of the storks stay in the village, most houses had a characteristic scruffy nest, or even two, on their roof and there were other nests on the top of power poles. However, there wasn’t a single stork to be seen. We imagined even those that normally spent the winter in Čigoć saying “bugger this, let’s go somewhere warm and dry this winter”. In fact, the only birdlife we saw in the village was chickens scratching about in the road. Just outside the village I caught a fleeting glimpse of what I thought was a heron landing by the river.

Stork Nest - Cigoc

And Another

Jane drove on to the village of Krapje described as one of the most spectacular of the Lonjsko polje area where the wooden houses sit in a neat row and spaced at regular intervals – the result of regulations introduced by the Hapsburgs to control house building in settlements on the Military Frontier, the defensive cordon developed by the Hapsburg Empire. To us, the village looked very similar to the others we had passed through. Plans to stretch our legs after over three hours in the car were abandoned as yet another heavy rain shower shed its load.

We drove on to Jasenovac which was the site of a notorious concentration camp in World War II. The camp was established in the autumn of 1941 and was where the pro-Nazi puppet state of Croatia incarcerated Serbs, Jews, Gypsies and anti-Fascist Croats and set them to work producing bricks and chains. Unproductive workers were murdered and in 1945 when the camp was finally wound up, an attempt was made to murder the remaining inmates. Only 91 managed to get away of 600 who staged a mass breakout. It is estimated that approximately 70,000 died at Jasenovac. The camp was razed after the war and turned into a memorial park. We wanted to visit the museum established at the park entrance that tells the story of the camp.

We have found that tourist attractions are not well signed in Croatia. The museum in Jasenovic was no exception. We drove around the town for a while before spotting a large map by the roadside. I got out and studied the crude map in heavy rain for a while trying to orient myself. Eventually, I found we were not far away from the museum. Back in Smarty Jane had come to the same conclusion from clues in the guide book. As we got close to the museum I noticed the windscreen wipers were behaving erratically, then Jane said something felt wrong with Smarty, the steering was very heavy and the engine wasn’t responding. She pulled off the road and we swapped places, the battery warning light was on. I turned the engine off but trying to restart it all I got was a loud click from somewhere at the back. I took the engine cover off, but couldn’t see anything wrong there. It took me a while to find the battery, it wasn’t under the bonnet, it was in the foot well on the passenger side. There appeared to be nothing untoward with the battery and I couldn’t think of anything I could do to get Smarty going again. Jane agreed to stay with Smarty while I set off in heavy rain to find help having remembered seeing a police car in the village a kilometre away.

I hadn’t gone far when it occurred to me that Smart Car Specialists in Guildford, who sorted Smarty’s misfiring problem that started in Morocco and have serviced her for us, might be able to help. I phoned Mike at Smart Car Specialists, he advised that it is possible to bump start a Smart, even models like Smarty with automatic transmission. He explained briefly how to do it and advised full details are in the handbook. I returned to Jane and Smarty and between us we managed to push Smarty a little way up the slope Jane had come down to get her off the road. Our attempt didn’t work, we couldn’t get up enough speed to turn the engine over. As we were pushing Smarty back for a second attempt a man came over from a nearby yard and helped us push. This time we got Smarty much higher up the slope, but still couldn’t get enough momentum to turn the engine over.

Bump starting wasn’t going to work so I asked if there was a garage in the village that might be able to help. Almost before I had finished my question the man had his mobile out, made a call and said someone would be there soon. Less than 10 minutes later a station wagon with three men turned up followed shortly after by a fourth man in a Land Rover. I wasn’t filled with a lot of confidence when the man that seemed to be in charge couldn’t find the ignition key (it’s floor mounted just behind the gear lever on a Smart). Then he asked me to open the bonnet so he could look at the engine. I took him round the back and showed him the engine compartment and subsequently the battery compartment in the footwell. One of the other two men asked me in German what had happened and where we were going. It took a while to get the message across that we wanted to get back to our motorhome nearly 200km away. He spoke to the man in charge and told me that they had to go back to the village for tools and we should get the car under cover. Unknown to us Jane had pulled off the road next to a disused wood working plant, the doors were unlocked and between us we pushed Smarty into the dry.

Smarty In Triage In Wood Working Shop

The station wagon was back inside 10 minutes with a spare battery, jump leads and a multi meter. The German speaking man had been replaced by another with good English. I went through what had happened with him and he relayed that in Croatian to the man poring over Smarty. At this point the man who had helped push Smarty left wishing us good luck. Using the multi meter they found the battery was OK, but using the jump leads and the spare battery only produced the same loud click somewhere in Smarty’s giblets. The verdict was the problem lay with the starter motor and Smarty would need to be towed to a workshop in the village to be fixed. At this point I was highly dubious that they had the capability of fixing a Smart which are very sophisticated cars. However, the alternative was to put her on a transporter to Zagreb where there was a Mercedes dealer that would know the foibles of Smarts. I felt it had to be worth trying to get Smarty fixed locally.

I steered Smarty on the end of a towrope attached to the station wagon while Jane travelled in the wagon. In the village we turned into what looked like a farmyard containing a couple of tractors and other vehicles all of which appeared to be partially dismantled. A door in an outbuilding was opened and Smarty was pushed inside. We were invited into an adjacent house, Jane accepted the offer, but I wanted to stay and see what was happening to Smarty. A brief discussion between the mechanic and the English speaker resulted in me being told it could take 3 to 4 hours to fix Smarty and he could show us to a restaurant in the village. We went into the house and were given the choice of either waiting there over coffee or going to the restaurant. Neither of us was very hungry in spite of not having had lunch and we decided to stay at the house.

It turned out to be a very enjoyable and informative afternoon. The English speaker was Marko Dragić, the mechanic was his brother-in-law Tomislav Šimičiċ whose house we were in with Tomislav’s wife Maia. Also there was Tomislav’s and Maia’s son and a young friend together with Willy, a four month old puppy, looking like a cross between a Pekinese and a small Pug. The two young boys entertained us for a while playing musical instruments badly before disappearing. We spent the afternoon watching the Discovery Channel in English and talking to Marko and Maia. Maia made us some excellent coffee that tasted similar to that we had sampled in Turkey. While Maia could understand everything we said – the result of watching TV programmes in English, she had to relay her responses in Croatian through Marko. Marko had an economics degree, but didn’t have a job, saying it was very difficult to find work in Croatia, particularly for economists. While he might be able to find a job in Zagreb, he wouldn’t be able to afford to live there. We talked about schooling in Croatia, the languages spoken in the various Slavic states and much more besides. A worrying fact was that river levels in the area were the highest in the memories of anyone in the village and the rainy autumn season was still to come. It seemed a hard life for Marko and others like him without work in Croatia.

Maia, Willy and Marko

Just after 5:00 the workshop doors opened and Smarty was reversed out. Jane and I were absolutely delighted to hear the purr of her tick over. Tomislav wanted to take her for a run to make sure everything was OK and returned about 5 minutes later. Smarty was good to go about 3½ hours after she had ground to a halt. After conferring with Marko Tomislav announced the bill came to €400 for his labour and a part he had to collect from a Mercedes dealer in a nearby town. My wallet contained only €150, Marko said Tomislav would take the balance in Kuna. After some debate about exchange rates and the use of a calculator Marko concluded that was 1,850 Kuna. I didn’t have that on me either, but Marko agreed to come with me to an ATM in the village. Back at the workshop Tomislav showed me the part he had replaced, Marko was unable to translate its name into English, but it looked like the solenoid to me. We paid the bill and Marko advised that Tomislav guaranteed his work while Smarty was in Croatia, but declined my request to extend that to New Zealand. We thanked everyone for all they had done, breathed a huge sigh of relief, and pointed Smarty in the direction of Mabel. We had nearly 160km to drive and satnav showed it would be getting on for 20:00 by the time we got back.

For some reason satnav took us all the way back on two lane roads in spite of Jasenovic being less than 10km from a motorway that we were sure would have got us back much quicker. However, the journey gave us plenty of time to reflect on our afternoon, particularly the helpfulness and kindness people had shown us. We had paid approximately NZ$640 which felt well over the odds and was probably based on what they thought we could afford. However, Tomislav had spared us the alternative. It seemed to me that the most likely outcome was that Smarty would have to be transported to Zagreb to be fixed by a Mercedes dealer and who knows what that would have cost and how long it might have taken. (When a petrol pump attendant filled Smarty with diesel in Morocco, it took 5 days for Mercedes in Jerez to sort that out at a cost very similar to our bill for this afternoon). In addition we could have been faced with accommodation and rental car costs. Overall, we thought it was a good outcome and we had gained an unexpected insight to life in Croatia.

The journey back was uneventful, but tiring. We saw a lot of flooding with water getting very close to houses and road level. We also crossed a number of swollen rivers. It was nearly dark by the time we were back in Mabel. We briefly considered eating at the camping ground restaurant, but we were tired and decided instead to zap the remainder of the sausage and potato dish Jane made a few days ago. It felt really good to be home.