And the good lord said – ‘ on the seventh day thou shalt rest,’ – or words to that effect. I know it was only Thursday but with around two thousand miles of mixed going under my wheels in the past six days I thought I would take his advice. having found a safe haven amongst the Croats, I parked my bike and became a tourist for the day.

First impressions were not so good – the table and bullet pocked walls of the ruin were only two doors from my bedsit —

Someone had obviously had their last supper at that table but I didn’t ask who.

I wandered round Skradin for a while and looked over the yachts in the natural harbour. There were some big ones. Although the Adriatic is over twenty kilometres away, a deep gorge runs out to the sea making this one of the safest harbours on this oft-times windswept coast.

I sampled a couple of pavement cafes and just chilled out. Then I had a flutter round the market stalls, found the local grocer and arrived back at my digs laden with carrier bags. Thought I had better eat some of it while the bread was fresh. Lunch of local produce consisting of hard boiled eggs, cheese, ham, grapes and tomato went well, perhaps the ‘olive oil’ I purchased on the market stall had something to do with it. I had seen the locals dip their bread in olive oil instead of spreading it with butter. ‘When in Rome’ – so I dipped – pooffff!

Just as well I wasn’t smoking! My olive oil turned out to be local fire water! I should have known when I saw the twig of berries floating in it. Hence the ‘Alcohol’ in my title!

Fortunately I had no plans to ride that afternoon. Instead I ambled down to the jetty and joined the rest of the tourist herd on one of the five boats taking visitors to the waterfalls.

The sail upriver under the bridge seen in the photo on my title page and walking amongst the falls and greenery was totally unexpected. Shoals of fish darting this way and that and a myriad of butterflies. So much better than I could have imagined it would be. Most of the day-trippers were Croats and had come equipped with picnics and swimming gear.

Silly me! I’d had my picnic for lunch back at the digs so after wandering around, snapping a few shots and admiring the birds, butterflies and fishes I caught a boat back down river to town in time to chill out over a few beers at a waterfront bar near where the tour boats were moored.

The sight and smell of the crew cooking a big seafood risotto on the afterdeck once the last tourist had been brought down for the evening made my mouth water. Nothing else for it but to head home and do my chores before having my own seafood risotto and a drop of red on a softly lit hotel veranda.

Lovely, lovely KrKra National Park had woven it’s spell on me – I was at peace with the whole world —

AAA – page eight