After our stay in the goat farm, we headed to Croatia. We drove through Rijeka to Pula and discovered a peninsula Istrien for a couple of days. We also got to know Bura (in English Bora) – which is a strong wind on the Croatian coastline and woke us up many time in the middle of the night. Bura gets very strong on the winter months and can turn to hurricane. One of the natures of Bura is that it starts suddenly on a calm day, which makes it very dangerous.
Our next stop was Zagreb. I wanted to celebrate there my 30th birthday and also it was time to do the laundry. On my birthday Ragle woke me up with a cake and decorated room 😊 I want to thank everybody who thought on me that day and made a video-call. Even the owner of the flat brought me a sparkling wine and ate the cake with us. The rest of the day we went to discover Zagreb. After a long walk we went to a restaurant for a b-day lunch/dinner and later on the evening to the cinema. It was a lovely day with just the two of us. After the weekend we headed to Daruvar which is on the east of Croatia. There was our next project: a sanctuary for various animals who were meant to be executed because of the sickness or animals who no one wanted.
When we arrived to Zeljka we were astonished, never before have we seen so many different animals living together like a big family. Not only were they friendly with each other but also to people. Few years ago Zeljka moved from Zagreb to the outskirts of Daruvar in order to establish, with a money she had saved, a sanctuary for the animals who are no longer wanted. Unfortunately, due to the bad electric, she lost her house and many of the animals. As she didn’t have any insurance, she had to use all her savings to build a new house. Luckily she had a friendly neighbor who helped her a lot with building the house, collecting donations and being her friends because as a newcomer she didn’t know anyone in Daruvar and nearby. Thanks to workaway and donations she still manages to help all the animals living on her property. Due to the sad history of this place we were extra motivated to help Zeljka and all her four legs and feathered friends. Since Zeljka has a peculiar routine which means she goes to bed around 8 AM and woke up around 4 PM, we only saw her for couple of hours a day. The only thing she ask from us was to clean the yard and barns, feed the animals on the afternoon and most important – cuddle the animals. Her property was home for 6 dogs, 4 cats, 5 pigs, 5 ducks, a rooster, a turkey, a donkey, a cow, 6 sheep and 2 rabbits. All the animals had names and a story and all except sheep and rabbits were very fond of people and wanted to be cuddled, even Phoenix the rooster and Niki the turkey. It was an amazing week with all these wonderful animals, but see yourself from the photos and videos 😊
After a week at Zeljkas place and often a cold weather we wanted to go as fast as possible to Split and Dubrovnik. The shortest and fastest way was to drive through Bosnia and Herzegovina. Already in Dubrovnik we heard a lot about the civil war destroyed the previous Yugoslavia. There are still many areas where hiking is prohibited due to the high number of unexploded landmines.