Wednesday 8th May
We're here!!
The boat pulled up into the harbour of the tiny village of Pomena on the island of Mljet which is a national park!
It is so beautiful! The village is tiny, only about 100m long along the only road. There is a single hotel, a couple of guest houses, a few restaurants (most of which were shut because it's still not high season yet), and a little grocery store about the size of the one in Coramba.
We walked the short distance from the boat to our accommodation, which is a lovely little family run guest house at the end of the town that backs right onto the national park.
The hosts were lovely and so friendly. What we didn't know though was that we had to pay in cash, so we walked down to the the hotel which has the only ATM on the island to withdraw some more money. Normally we don’t pay any international fees or anything because of the bank I’m with so we didn’t think anything of it. Well, of course because it’s a closed market on the Island, the ATM charges a range of fees and commission, so we got hit for $25!! Ouch!
Earlier in the day we had bought some muesli, milk, and muesli bars from the mainland but had decided to wait until we got to the island to get dinner and lunch food, so we could see what cooking facilities we had, and also we couldn’t keep anything cold during the day. Well, what do you think happened? Yep, the grocery store was shut. Classic. So we enjoyed some muesli for dinner, it was all very funny.
We were told that the water from the tap was safe to drink, but when we went to use the tap it had calcite all over it so we decided we'd just buy some water for the couple of days that we were here, but the grocery store was shut! That's fine, we'll boil some water. Well, no kettle! So we got the saucepan out and boiled up some water and waited for it to cool, but there was a weird white floating film with bits on it, ehhhh we'll just ration our water until tomorrow!
Thursday 9th May
The weather wasn’t very nice today, super windy and raining on and off, so we had a chat to everyone back home before we headed out to get some groceries. The store was open, yay!
We spent the day chilling inside out of the rain, until later in the evening when it cleared up, so we went for a walk down to the little lake in the national park, it was gorgeous!
Friday 10th May
We slapped on some sunscreen and then headed out for a day on the water kayaking!
It was such a beautiful day, the sun was shining and it was actually warm(ish)!
We walked a little ways into the national park to where the two salt lakes join and hired our bright yellow kayak.
We settled ourselves into our vessel for the day and then we were off! We paddled our way through the narrow channel under the bridge connecting the lakes and into the little lake. It is absolutely gorgeous here! So beautiful!
We leisurely paddled our way around the little lake, enjoying the beautiful sunshine and serenity.
From the little lake we passed back through the little channel and out into the big lake, we passed a few small towns and the Isle of Saint Mary (yes there is an island within the island) and eventually ended up at the mouth of the lake where it meets the sea!
While we were paddling around we found a little place to moor up (dad would be very impressed with my rope knotting abilities) and hopped out for a little explore and to play with the drone.
It was so glorious being on the water, with the beautiful national park all around us, rugged rock and beautiful trees, it is exactly what I imagined when I thought of Croatia! It is so stunning!
It was such a fun day paddling around. The sun isn't setting until around 8pm now which gives us so much more of the day! A few months ago it was pitch dark by 5pm, it's so wonderful to see so much more daylight!
It was around 6pm when we started to head back to return the kayak and realised just how far we had paddled! Don't you worry we had it down pat by now and we were pulling up just in time for closing!
Saturday 11th May
Today is our last day in Mljet. We packed up, made lunch, and checked out of our lovely guesthouse and then headed into the national park to go hiking around the lakes.
We were half way around the little lake when we realised we'd left our lunch in the fridge (again)! We ran back around the lake, back through entrance to the park, down the little street and back to our accommodation hoping they hadn't already cleared out the fridge! We were in luck! They let us back in and we collected our little wraps, phew! Just as well, because the grocery store was shut again today!
On our way back down from the accommodation, we stopped in at the terrace for a little to catch our breath and cool off and I saw some tortoises!!
Ok, lets try again! We headed back into the national park and enjoyed a beautiful hike around the little lake. It is another stunning day! Although now that we aren't running, it's cooled off quite a bit!
After our hike we went and sat by the lake for a little and ate our wraps, while we waited for the boat to arrive so that we could visit the Isle of Saint Mary.
The boat ride across to the island was SO much quicker than when we had kayaked!
We spent a couple of hours wandering around the small island which is home to a 12th century Benedictine monastery and the church of the Blessed Virgin Mary, among many other small chapels and churches. During the 15th and 16th century, the church and monastery was rebuilt and defences added to defend against the Turkish and pirate attacks. The monastery is now used as a restaurant so unfortunately we couldn't go inside and see it as it was, but we did get to go inside the church of the Blessed Virgin Mary which was beautiful.
We wandered around the rest of the island and found a number of other smaller chapels and a very old stable.
On the quieter side of the island we found a little bench down by the waters edge and sat enjoying the beauty of the place. There were a number of critters around as well. It was so quiet, we could hear the lapping of the water on the rocks, the singing of the birds, the buzzing of bees and the occasional rustle of lizards in the bushes. It is so beautiful, and strangely the scenery here doesn't look too dissimilar to home, in particular Copeton Dam with the rugged rocks and the hardy trees.
We caught the boat back and spent a couple of hours sitting by the lake listening to the Hamish & Andy podcast. A breeze had picked up on the water and it had started to get cool, so we said goodbye to our beautiful lakes and headed back into the town.
We wandered through the town, which took all of 2 mins, before getting an ice cream and sitting on the harbour watching the activity in the water.
There is so much biodiversity in the water here! Just sitting in the harbour we saw so many sea urchins, sea cucumbers, a couple of Spanish dancers, and schools lots of different species of fish! There was so much going on, it was fascinating to watch!
It was getting close to 6pm, ferry time, so we picked up our bags from the accommodation and headed down to join the queue at the port.
We boarded our ferry and waved goodbye to our beautiful island.
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