Croatia Mountain Ride Part 2

What the??

Still riding around lots of little Croatian mountain roads, we pull up to this most interesting house. And all I remember thinking was.. "What the heck??  And How beautiful it is here!  I wonder if it's for sale.... I'd love to have a crack at remodeling that one!!"

;-)

Anton and Ivan have something really interesting to show me..

And did you notice that Rakela is missing? When I asked, they said, yeah, he had to get back to Split for an appointment.. they're not much into good bye's here.  Ivan, being from South Africa, said it took him a while to get used to that part of the culture here as well.. okey dokey..

The house is not a house, it's a grain mill.  Well, an old one that actually could use a remodel job..

Ivan explains that Croatia is one of the most water rich countries in Europe.  This water is just gushing out from underground.

In this picture with Anton on the rock, you can see in the middle where the water is coming up from below... so much of it and so forceful!  

So obviously they utilized this water pressure here to run a grain mill.  I am fascinated.. in this world, especially in Australia, where I haven't taken a bath in years as a result of needing conserve our scarce water.. (Yes I do get clean from time to time with my water friendly shower!! ;-) But here it is so good to see such an abundance of fresh flowing water.. And Ivan says he has more of these to show me!

We don't ride far to another exit point and source of water, and this time, the grain mill is in tact!

Can you believe the power of this water is not coming from high in the mountains.. just simply from underground!??

Ivan and I are a little bit jealous, so we put our bikes up there too..

Photo by : Anton

Ivan decides to see if we can get in so he can better explain to me how this works.

Obviously there is the wheel that the water turns.

Sorry if this bit is boring, but I think it's fascinating to see in this day and age that in order to get some flour it doesn't come out of a big plastic factory..

This guy must have seen us just open the door and walk right in, so he came to check us out.  Really nice guy, and explained thoroughly to Ivan and Anton the process here.. I don't understand Croatian so I take their word for it!

After I convince Ivan to get back on his own bike!! ;-? he continues to guide us through the back roads every which way.. Sure glad he knows where to go! Once again, it's nice to play follow the leader and just ride around without a mission.

Photo by: Anton

Then it's time for one last stop to take in the view from the mountains before going back down to the coast ..  What a big and fantastic day!!

For heaps of great photos of Dalmatia, have a look at Anton's ADVRider threads, they are awesome!  He also has posts for The Sahara, Greece, South Africa and the Alps

http://www.advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=433338&highlight=Dalmatia

Such and honor to ride with Anton and Ivan, they both have years of off road experience and it was just downright fun!!!