BOSNIA OR BUST - THE STORY!!

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"There was only one road back to L.A. - U.S. Interstate 15. Just a flat-out high speed burn through Baker and Barstow and Berdoo. Then onto the Hollywood Freeway, straight into frantic oblivion. Safety. Obscurity. Just another freak in the freak-kingdom." Hunter S Thompson once wrote. We were hoping for a similar excursion (but without the non-presciption pharmaceuticals ) -ours was fuelled by bio-diesel and Phillip Morris .Not quite as rock and roll but as close to it as a 30-something civil servant from wales would come!
Why Bosnia? Ive never been one for roasting my butt on a beach for days on end.Mrs Elvis had a friend in Zagreb she hadnt seen for 10 yrs and the out-laws offered to have the kids for 12 days - Bosnia was the obvious choice!!!(So was taking a 23 yr old Mercedes G wagon and not Mrs Elvis' Grand Cherokee)
We left wales on weds 23 august .An uneventful trip to Dover got us into calais for the early hours of thursday morning.A quick(unintentional) tour of the industrial zone and the red light district found us a hotel -Louis Xlll meets IKEA - dont think that fop LLewellyn-Bowen has reached calais yet.
Thursday was a day of non stop driving .Desperate to get some miles in we left the supermarket in Calais at 10am with a bag full of goodies, and made sandwiches in the car to save stopping.Only stopping for Diesel ( we used premium diesel which was still only about 80p/l and gave us an extra 5mph with less throttle opening and pulled longer in 4th on hills without the box kicking down) We travelled via Riems and Metz .When we reached Strasbourg we cut straight across to Stuttgart via A roads to save going the long way round on the motorways. Although this was our first view of non-motorway scenery and the views were stunning , it cost us a huge amount in time as continental A roads are unlike are dual carriageways , single lane and no sections straighter than 400m , hard to keep a high average roadspeed in 3 tons of german iron.We reached Ausbourg (west of Munich) late that night after putting in nearly 12 hrs driving.We found the German equivilent to a travel lodge (but a million times nastier) but didnt really care as it was a bed and cost £35 for the two of us including breakfast.
Friday would see us head for Salzburg , but turn south before then and head for the famous Grossglockner pass.The scenery was just stunning and was reminicent of the motorcycle scene in The Great Escape. It took quite some time to reach the G-G pass as we had to take numerous detours due to a huge cycle race in the valley , sometimes having to follow B roads for 40 mins just to get 4 miles further up the valley.This gave the G a well deserved rest in preperation for the climb. We left the town of Fusch (about 800m) and in the space of 12 miles climbed nearly another 2000m!!! I kept the auto locked into 2nd for the climb but there were sections where it was easier to lock it into 1st , i seriously considered going into low box for a few of the steeper sections. fully loaded we were close to 3 1/4 tons and only had 88 bhp to play with!!! As we reached altitude the engine was getting less air so decided to protest by kicking out lots of unburnt diesel (much to the disgust of the cyclists we passed/gassed) . The exhaust got so hot we melted a hole in the mud flap.The highest we reached was just over 2800metres (according to GPS) the descent was just as eventful,what goes up must go down! About halway down the brakes finally decided to stop playing and the contents of the master cylinder decided to boil over , no amount of pumping the pedal could restore the brakes.About 15 miles finally saw us on level ground again , engine braking in over 3 tons of auto is intersting to say the least - think we were popular with all the other tourists as they all appeared to wave on way past us aswell , funny waves they have in europe though!!???
We stopped at the bottom of the pass to let the brakes cool and have a well deserved rest.I had just come out of the toilet when Mrs Elvis came running shouting something about Camels!! I guess the lack of oxygen had fried her brain , but sure enough there was a genuine camel 110 parked outside driven by Andy and Janey from Yorkshire. This turned out to be one of the blessings we received on our trip.We ended up travelling with them for a further five days.
We reached Lake Bled in the late evening on the friday and stayed until sunday , taking in the spectacular lake and medieval castle that overlooked it from a hill top. On sunday we left •••• in Croatia , this was a long drive not helped by some of the worst rain i have ever seen - akin to a monsoon !! - and the narrow/twisty A roads , 9 hrs later we were in •••• .•••• is a beutiful sea side resort that is famous for one thing - an amphetheatre that we never saw! We did see all the slum areas that looked like downtown Beirut , was imtimidating even in daylight.A day off from driving on monday saw us travel to Rovinj - 30 mins drive , for some well earned R n R , for me that was getting as much Karlovacko down my neck as possible !The weather got better in the afternoon , the morning we had another monsoon and lightninng storm.Tuesday saw us depart •••• and head south for Zadar . Yet again a mega drive , everywhere takes so long to get to, especially in a fully loaded G and 110!! We turned off the motorway at Gospic and took the 'valley road' south , this was to be one our first of many sightings of the recent war.The north (Slovenia and northern Croatia) of the former Yugoslavia gives no clues at to the horrors that happened in the south. As soon as we entered Gospic it was obvious that the town had seen heavy fighting , no house had escaped damage and everywhere was peppered with small arms fire, many other houses were either completly destroyed or were full of what looked like 30mm shell holes.The thing was it was as if it had never happened , people were carrying on around the damaged houses and instead of knocking them down , new houses were being built in and around them , weird!! South of Gospic there is a huge memorial that is an old armoured car! The weird thing is it looks like an old school bus that has had steel plate welded onto it , desperate times - desperate measures i guess! This is where the war was finally made real - behind the memorial there is huge signs warning of uncleared mine fields- this was to be first of many!Shortly after we came to a small hamlet , this is where we had our first taste of 'green laning ' croatia style. We took the Mountain pass road for some 30 km , this was a frontline during the war and the pass commanded fabulous views of the whole valley .The pass was littered with minefield signs and memorials built to men whom had died during the war.Although very remote it was evident they were frequently visited and well tended.This road is the singlemost memory of our trip for many reasons.
We headed into Zadar for another days rest and spent the folloowing day buying 'tat' in tourist markets and doing the laundry.
Thursday saw us and Andy and Janey in the Camel 110 split up , they headed north on the coast road for Slovenia whilst we headed East towards Bosnia and British Garrison at Banja Luka.We ploted a route on the laptop and paper maps that was the most direct- we decided some time ago that all roads are pretty pants - not much differnece between A roads and B roads !!! We passed an old UN outpoast at Vranch before reaching Srb , it was evident this had been another area of concentrated fighting. Many scarred houses and whole villages that were derelict and covered in religious markings on doors , no guessing as what happened there.The roads were pepppered with shell fire and the whole day was spent dodging badly repaired holes and pieces of ARMCO that still stuck out into the road. we headed SE from Srb and was 15 kms from Bosnian border.On the trip we had seen many 'old' checkpoints , so when we saw another apparently abandoned one we gave no thought and crossed it doing 60mph, this was when the day started getting weird to say the least.
Two soldiers came running out of a derelict shed and i could see one waving like a loon whilst the other assumed a firing position ! ••••!!! I braked as hard as i could and threw it into reverse , we had crossed the border into Bosnia!!! The two border guards turned out to be Croatian and although i couldnt understand them , and likewise , it turned out that we were about to enter 'Muslim Bandit Country' it has only been a couple of years since they stopped firing at army vehicles!! we headed back to Srb and were 'escorted' away from the border by a police van whom drove at 10mph for some time before letting us pass, weird. We went back to the police station in Srb and were told we could cross further north just outside Bihac.On leaving the police station we were met yet again by a police van whom we guess were checking we got on the right road.We headed north for Melinovac and crossed the Croat border with no problems , we travelled the 200m no mans land before reaching the Bosnian , a 40 min stand off ensued between us and 3 Bosnian border guards , one of which wouldnt let us in , due to 'paperwork'! We know we had all our papers in order , he was just being an ••••.He was trying to tell us that are papers were wrong as Bosnia is not in the EEC , i asked him " why do you sing in the eurovision every year the?" hhhhhhhhmmmmmmm , armed border patrol without a sense of humour , best Foxtrot Oscar PDQ!!! Tried 'buying' the paperwork i needed but still didnt work , then started a 200+ km detour , back south to Donji Lapac then north and head for Karlovac . In Donji Lapac we took the the main road north again and the tarmac finished and turned into a forest track for 25 km , a car followed us from the village for some time before heading off at speed , we were certain we would see it again and were still freaked out from the 'hills have eyes' happenings. I left the G in 2WD and used the autobox as a manual , keeping the pedal floored and hammmering the G around the forest tracks sideways like a rally driver , convinced we wernt going to reach the main road in one piece as we would run into a hill-billy checkpoint.fortunately nothing else weird happened that day and we drove all day and night to Zagreb. At Karlovac there is a n open air museum full of vehicles from the war these included a mig , a boffars AA , a sherman tank and a tractor covered in armour plate. !!!!!
Once in Zagreb we became hopelessly lost and stopped a man on the ringroad for directions , he told us to wait and he would be back in 5 mins , he turned upo in a builders van where we proceeded in a high speed ( or as high as a builders van and a G can go)pursuit thr' Zagrebs main roads. He took us to a 24 hr car park then drove us and our bags to the city centre to our hotel. I offered him some money for a few beers , he declined and just shook my hand and wished us well on our travels and walked away , our luck had changed somewhat that day since the start!
We spent two nights in Zagreb before heading home , the highlight being thursday night going to the 'Movie Pub' - a huge witherspoons type place with Karaoke! Unfortunately traditional Croat songs are still the most popular ( i liked the one about the girl with the black lung whom is dieing but still has 2 men fighting for her affections!!) According to Mrs Elvis i gave a good account of myself .I had been drinking for 12 hrs and had even eaten in a restaurant owned by the famous Croatian footballer 'Boban'and was as fat as a pig but never missed a single note .After playing to a capacity crowd of at least 750 croats i think that maybe Elvis hasnt reached Zagreb yet , next time ?
friday lunchtime saw us head north and start the long trip back , munich for the night then a solid 12 hrs to calais . we finally reached home at 2pm yesterday , sunday!
i would like to say a huge thanks to Robb Pitchard - www.world4x4.co.uk - for his time with my planning the trip and his regular emails answering my dumb •••• Qs. alan - NIVAPILOT for the autoroute and NOBBY for the gps and MM for my laptop and Steve for the tent (all regular 'LOCKERS!). big thanx to Mrs Elvis for making a pipe dream a reality and suffering 12 days with me with no distractions. after being married for 8 yrs still Mrs Elvis never fails in impress and at times showed more determination and balls then most blokes i know , despite being in torrential rain , middle of nowhere and pitch black she would still dig deep and not give up.
finally Andy and Janey in the camel 110 , a pair of the nicest most genuine people you will ever meet. we only planned to camp as a last resort but camped every night with them. they not only shared their time but also all of their extensive camping kit .we couldnt of wished to meet a nicer couple of certainly hope to see them again , cheers guys!!
would we do it again ? already got xmas in switzerland planned (meeting Mrs Elvis Croatian friend there) and have planned a 'jolly boys ' outing to Poland next spring!!