Distance covered: 62km; Total descent: 1365m; Total ascent: 1500m; Current location: N43′19.00 E020′24.1, elevation 1622m. That’s the thing about a cross-mountain trek like this: to get from the top of one mountain to the top of the next, you have to contend with a sort of valley-thingie in the middle. This takes time and effort and so this was partly why this morning we took two decisions: the first was to send Dusan and Marko by car to return our friend, the dog, back to where he had attached himself to us, a full 30km away by road. He looked as though he had fully intended to accompany us all the way, but his owners might have missed him and he was a bit of a liability - his maniacal barking in the middle of the night didn’t help his cause either.

The second decision was to forego our planned continued cross-country route as it looked impassable due to snow and head the longer, but quicker way down by the main road which is mostly asphalt. From this road we could see our goal, the next mountain, Golija, a long way across the valley.

This road took us down with very little effort to a junction which is also the border with Kosovo, and then on to Raska. We had a longer stop here and ran into the local bike enthusiast, Srecko Martac (there can be very few of those in a place like Raska), who was very friendly, and fixed a problem Robi had had with his brakes in his bike shop. Then it was time to begin the long slog up from Raska at 350m onto Golija, a long mountain ridge, to the area we had planned to camp at around 1600m. Now we could see where we had come from, Kopaonik, away in the distance.

However, we were more intent on the big climb, through pretty bare and sparsely populated country(the name Golija might be related to ‘golo’, ‘bare’). Once again our GPSs made sure we kept to the route - which isn’t asphalted but is fairly well used, and that we met up with our ‘road crew’ who what with dog delivery and buying supplies only just made the rendezvous before us. We set up camp in not the best location, but got a decent meal in before the first rain began to fall… And now it is pattering hard on the roof of the tent, which we hope is waterproof enough to keep us dry till the morning - when we’ll get wet anyway because everything will be soaking. But that’s all part of the experience. Tomorrow we also have to leave this ‘main road’ and head cross-country, hoping the lower altitudes will mean no snow. The next leg requires coming down from Golija and up again, north-west onto Zlatibor, our next destination.

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Posted on April 30th, 2007 by markowe
Filed under: Serbia Bike Trek!