30 Days of Indie Travel: Day 9, One Day

Prompt: Travel helps us better appreciate the present moment instead of always looking to the next thing. Describe one perfect day you had while traveling this year. Where were you? What were you doing? And what made it perfect?

I have been the luckiest traveller. Months of non-stop travel, and countless friends made dotted all over the globe. During my time travelling in Europe I have had many memorable days that were so much fun, and went without a hitch. My favourite and most perfect day while travelling this year was shared with a Canadian girl in Vis, Croatia.

 

The Hot Tip

We were given a tip from a CouchSurfer in Zagreb, a guy I’ve never met. I was looking for a host for a few days, he played in a band and invited me on the road to see his gig. One-thing-led-to-another and something came up (as it sometimes does with CouchSurfing requests) and he was unable to take us along. But we talked for a few days via email, and he gave me the hot tip about a free camping place on the island of Vis, off the Dalmation Coast.

What made it so interesting and mysterious is that it was just a line of text from a stranger.

“Go to this place, on this island, you have to get the ferry there, one leaves twice per day. Camping is free”.

I knew nothing about it, or if it existed. But, I knew it would make for an adventure.

 

The Background

My travelling companion (love interest) and I had been travelling Croatia for over a week, enjoying the beautiful weather, and crystal clear ocean. Just yesterday (the day before the perfect day) we had spent the night in a private apartment with 3 rooms and a huge bed that we had luckily found from a woman drumming up business as we left the departed the ferry at Hvar. Last night we cooked Pasta in our apartment, and enjoyed each others company in a secluded bay with lighthouse sheltered from the rest of the island.

We also found a tour operator offering a day tour package for $40 leaving from Hvar, and spending some of the afternoon on Vis, among other places. We were unable to find any other ways to get to Vis on the day we wanted, except for private charter for $200. We had a choice, either stay an extra night in our private apartment, or go on the day tour and get them to leave us on Vis instead of returning to Hvar.

We chose the day tour and Vis. Come on, it was a risk that everything would go to hell in a handbag, but it could make for the greatest adventure ever. Plus, we had each other, and at that point in time, I was the happiest man alive.

To prepare for our day trip to Vis we bought some snacks, a few litres of Croatian red wine, and packed away our leftover Spaghetti. We had no idea if Vis had any shops or not, so we figured we should be prepared in the event the “Free Camping” was simply a clearing in a field.

One Perfect Day

The perfect day started with us getting up super early (something like 7.30am) and making our way down the hill from our awesome private accomodation into Hvar town, where the tour boat left from. Our lovely landlord was still asleep, and hadn’t collected our money for the last night yet, so we did the right thing and left a note with the total amount owing for her to find on the dresser. Then we headed into town and met our Captain and fellow passengers, first stopping along the way at a small bakery for something sweet for breakfast.

The boat was a lovely old wooden vessel, and there were many other tourists on board, small enough to be interesting and not too commercial. The dock on Hvar is small, so to gain access to the boat, we had to cross the deck of another boat. Interesting, since neither of us were so sure footed on a boat. We sat with some Japanese tourists at first, and gazed into each others eyes, and got excited about the possibilities of the day. We were the only passengers that took our luggage aboard, everyone else was returning to Hvar at the end of the day.

 

The Caves

First up on the itinerary was an hour or so sailing toward some of the smaller islands. The tour took us to the “Green Cave”, and later the “Blue Cave”. The green cave was beautiful, and it was here we had the opportunity to jump from the roof of the boat, and swim into the cave. I hastily tried to be the first to jump from the roof of the boat, being Australian, and showing off; but I was beaten to it by seconds.

“You can do it! It’s not that far! Don’t be such a wuss!” I yelled from the ocean to some of the other people on the tour. My Canadian friend not one to back down from a dare didn’t take long to follow me in to the wonderfully warm, and clear waters outside the cave.

Another hour later, the “Blue Cave” was a bit of a tourist hotspot, we had to get ferried by smaller boats into the cave via a small entry-way, but it was beautiful, and we attempted to take a few photos.

 

New friends over Lunch

The tour came with a few courses of lunch, which included some delicious fish, and some very low-quality wine. Every time my Canadian friend wasn’t looking, I would refill her wine glass with mine (since I didn’t enjoy the wine). A British couple sitting across from us saw what I was doing and laughed, they must have assumed I was trying to get my date drunk. We used the opportunity for introductions, and found they were on their Honeymoon. We exchanged stories of how we each met, what our plans were for the night, and what we were doing on tour.

 

Pretty soon we arrived on Vis. Neither me, nor my companion knew anything about the island, or where the free camping was. The town we arrived in, called Kamiza, was a very small fishing village, and we weren’t even sure where on the island we were heading. I managed to find a bar with a very expensive internet connection ($1 for 10 minutes), and looked up the email from the Couchsurfer with the name of the campsite. Then we made our way down to a bar on the beach and asked if they new the name of the campsite or beach. We were on the right island, and in the right town, but the beach we were looking for was approximately a kilometre away. On the way back to through the village we passed our new English friends sitting at a bar. They invited us to join them, where we finally exchanged names, and email addresses. Although my Canadian friend was scheduled to fly back to Canada soon (and I was secretly hoping she’d change her mind), the English couple offered their couch up to me when I pass through next.

The kindness of strangers, that’s why I love travel.

They asked if we would join them for a drink, but we were on a tight budget (and free camping afterall) so we declined. They insisted, and even paid for the drinks. After an hour or so of chit-chat, they headed back to the boat, and we walked towards the free campsite.

 

Free Camping at the Beach

Kamenica, is a small pebbled beach sheltered by trees. You need to follow a walkway and a set of stone stairs to get there. The views are breathtaking. There’s a bar on the beach, and running water. There’s also toilets (when the bar’s open), and a sunbed on the beach.

We were there during peak tourist season, and the beach was still quite deserted. The cliffs above the beach are covered with woods, and its up here where people “free camp”. A few hundred metres away is a nudist camp as well, if you are that way inclined.

There were 4 or 5 other tents set up when we arrived, so we found a nice spot overlooking the beach from the cliffs and set our tent up too. Then of course, we went for a swim.

We were even caught having sex on a hiking trail by an old couple. A little embarrassing.

 

 

All-in-all, we only spent one night (more than 24 hours) on Vis, we caught the bus to Vis town, and a ferry to Split the next day. But my “one perfect day” was spent on a nearly deserted island, with the girl of my dreams, camping for free, enjoying the sun, the beach, and not being able to keep our hands off each other. We could have easily spent a week there. With no electricity we spent the night drinking cheap wine on the beach, talking, misbehaving, and eating our modest leftovers.

 

It’s one of those memories I don’t want to taint by going back there, a magical moment that I won’t be able to repeat.

I’ve had more than one perfect day while travelling, and I think a few more of them deserve a mention. Keep reading in the upcoming weeks for “A Perfect Day” series of posts. Thanks BootsnAll for the prompt.

If you are interested in more information on the day trip from Hvar, or more about the island itself, look forward to an upcoming post about it, or just contact me through the site.

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