29.09 - Day 258 - Sutivan, CRO

Sunday 29th September - Sutivan (Brac Island), Croatia (Day 258)

Blue skies return and the day starts strongly at Vila Anni with pancakes on the balcony for breakfast. 

This is after my walk around the village, weaving aimlessly through the cobbled pavements made from beach pebbles. Like Povlja the only other people up and about are having coffee in a cafe by the marina, and like everywhere in Croatia, the silence interrupted every 30 minutes by the church bells. 

We pack a lunch and head out in the car just a few minutes inland to Park Prirode Sutivan. We’re the only ones at this kids farm, there’s not even a gate and entrance payment is an honesty system. 

Taronga Zoo it is not, but happily the kids are still more easily pleased with simple pleasures - chickens, goats, ponies, pigs, boars, a cow, peacocks, donkeys and geese. Throw into the mix some play equipment plus a volleyball court, basketball hoop, football pitch and everyone is a happy camper. 

But it is the boules that we end up playing for the longest before Sienna dashes off back to the entrance to see some stray kittens and the tortoises. 

By now, someone who is possibly the owner is sitting in the shade by the entrance, coffee in one hand, cigarette in the other, bemoaning the hotter than usual summer they’ve just had. An entertaining hour and a half. 

In an effort to reach a new beach we again fall foul of google’s confidence of what constitutes a road. Halfway up a gravel slope that’s getting steeper, our little Citroen C3 gets stuck, wheels spinning. So I have to carefully reverse several hundred metres along the barrow track, Kate walking in front (or behind as I’m reversing?) calling out obstructions. 

Back on actual asphalt we stop for lunch at Boborisca, a village perched around a sheltered inlet with several larger catamarans and other touring boats at anchor. 

Lunch and a swim and we’re on our way back to Sutivan where it’s now noticeably windier and the water choppier. 

So instead we play more football, until a couple of local kids turn up on their bikes, Seb is content to join in with them. Next to them a 12 man game of boules is taking place as it has done for year after year I imagine. 

Homemade burgers for dinner and everyone goes to bed happy. 

We also firm up our end of year plans, firstly booking flights from Bordeaux to Athens (6th November) and then Athens to Siem Reap (18th November). Hopefully 89 days of our 90 day EU cap.