I don’t know if it was a warmer night or if sitting by the fire before I climbed in to the tent did the trick, because it certainly felt warmer.

At sunrise I left my tent to dry and followed the meanders of a river through the reeds and bullrushes, letting my boat glide as I came face to face with flocks of Great white pelicans, amazing birds with huge yellow bills.

The river carved in to the mountains and I followed the steep wooded banks until I could paddle no further, the crystal clear water becoming shallow at the village of Rijeka Crnojevica where dogs yapped and time stood still. A fisherman came back from his mornings work and I imagined him doing the same in a few months time, snow on the mountains, ice on the water, a pot of soup waiting for him on the stove.

My tent was satisfyingly crisp by the time I returned, and I packed it up whilst my pasta boiled. It turns out pomegranates aren’t rare, they are everywhere, and for the last few days I’ve lived off them.

Now the journey back to the sea began. I travelled back on the other side of the shore, trying not to lose the magic of paddling for adventures sake, for now I had a route in mind.

I came to a beach opposite Beska and was unloading my tent when a couple of fishermen arrived. ‘Are you camping there, because it’s much warmer in the trees’ said the taller of the two, a guy who looked like a mad Soviet scientist wearing a khaki boiler suit. He was actually a waiter, but for three months him and his mate were camping out here to go fishing, going home every few days to resupply, mostly with alcohol and marijuana.

The first Montenegrins I’ve met, they gave me a fine welcome, and then headed off for a nights fishing with a bottle of Rakija, a filthy substance that tasted like petrol and is apparently Montenegro’s national drink.