Category: Around Europe
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Dougal’s Epic Adventure
A surfski adventure with no destination ❝ I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel’s sake. The great affair is to move❞ Robert Louis Stevenson, Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes The route? There is no route! No one knows where I’ll go, not even me. I could be…
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Day 137: Pila to Venice
Rain did fall and my tent was pitched limply beneath a leaky fabric car shelter, but I stayed dry and didn’t really care anyway because this was my last night in the tent. In the morning I got a shock when I saw my boat – in the night the Po had risen up the…
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Day 136: Marina di Ravenna to Pila
Fed up with painfully freezing hands, I thought about what I could use to make some improvised pogies and found a couple of juice cartons in a bin. I cut them open and slid them over my paddle shaft so that I could put my hands inside, protected from the wind. They even had a…
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Day 135: Rimini to Marina di Ravenna
Not much to report from these days. It was a game of paddle, eat, sleep, repeat, survive the cold. Sure enough, getting out of the warm cocoon of my sleeping bag and putting on my wet, sandy kit was as grim as anticipated. It takes some willpower to strip off your warm dry clothes and…
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Day 134: Fano to Rimini
Ljilja laid out an amazing breakfast for me and I had the luxury of putting on dry, clean kit and walking off in a pair of unwanted shoes she gave me. Even if I had a bit of a late start, it was definitely worth it! The line of waves off the beach, although only…
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Day 133: Ancona to Fano
The sun was shining as we docked in Ancona, the cathedral standing proudly in the bright morning rays on the hill above the town. I got through border control, surprised I hadn’t been deported, and said goodbye to Maxim, then wheeled my boat along the Italian pavements until I reached a slipway where I could…
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The ferry journey
I was sitting on a concrete bench outside the ferry terminal waiting for the eight o’clock sailing when a beat-up old campervan pulled up and a young guy with long hair and an elvish appearance stepped out, wearing a pair of massive, visor-like pink sunglasses. His energy radiated and as our eyes met I knew…
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Day 132: Pisak to Split
I’m sure every wind used to have a name back when animism was the dominant worldview and it’s lovely that names are still used in the Mediterranean. The last few days jugo has been blowing. Coming from the south east, it brings rain and stormy weather and in Croatia is a synonym for bad. A…
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Day 131: Plaza Duba to Pisak
Some people get an unmistakable sign when they go hypo, like tingly lips, while others just start feeling a bit jittery and dizzy, until blood sugars get really low. I fall in to the second camp, and that’s the feeling I got half an hour in to today’s paddle. My sugars had shot up after…
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Day 130: Viganj to Plaza Duba
A sunny day. I’m not sure how long I could last if every day was like yesterday, if there was no hope or chance of sunshine. I set out with the aim of getting to mainland Croatia, hopping across to the island of Hvar, and then paddling along it to hop across to the mainland.…