Wander More Work Less

Another solo early morning walk in Ohrid for me today — the same 5km along the lakefront. I saw a man with a dog again that I talked to a couple of days ago. His dog is rather big, even bigger than Sammy! 65kgs of big! After breakfast with Sarah, I repeated part of the same walk with her, and the great news is she felt well enough to do the walk.  We then took a break for coffee while waiting for a load of washing to finish. Emma happened to be online, so we had a nice catch-up over a WhatsApp video call. Later, we finally made it to the lake for a swim — something we'd been putting off. I’ll admit, knowing there are snakes in the lake had been a major deterrent for me. Sarah not feeling well had been a convenient excuse to delay it. But today, with no more excuses and the heat climbing, we decided to take the plunge. To minimize our chances of encountering any snakes, we avoided the local jetty area where we’d seen them before and instead walked 10 minutes to a popular...

I went for my morning 5km walk beside the lake again today. Sarah wasn’t up when I got back after 7am, but she was awake. She had breakfast out on the balcony and is feeling a little better—still not 100%, but improving. More book reading and coffee drinking for me, but at 11am I decided it was time to bite the bullet—I went to get a haircut. Even mundane things like that can be interesting. It was a stressful activity for me, given that Maree in Richmond has been the only person to cut my hair in the last 24 years! As some of you reading this blog will know, it’s something I get done every six weeks like clockwork. It had been seven weeks now, so I was overdue and figured it was now or never. I found a local barber on the main street and showed him a photo of me from Cambodia that featured a fresh haircut. He didn’t speak much English—gulp! But he understood “number four on the sides and back.” I don’t think he quite got the “flat top” part, though—it’s a bit more rounded than I’d lik...

We had breakfast on the balcony, but Sarah soon realised she wasn’t feeling right—a bit dizzy and unbalanced. She went back to bed and ended up sleeping most of the day. ☹️ I spent my time on my phone, mucking about and reading my book. I'm slowly getting through it—it’s not the easiest read. I popped out just before lunch to grab some milk and a few things from the bakery. Oh, and some potato chips for the patient. Fortunately, we’ve got a few more days here, so hopefully that will be enough time for her to recover. 🤞 I joined Sarah for an afternoon siesta. Not sure I needed it, but I was nodding off while reading. 🥱 Late in the afternoon, once Sarah felt up to it, we managed to get our next two accommodation bookings sorted. That’s us covered until the end of July now. 👍 It’s nice to have that organised ahead of time. Neither of us were very hungry at dinner. Sarah had the bread I’d bought earlier, and I went out to grab a doner kebab. 🥙 Yes, that makes three, but in my defen...

My day started early again. I was awake just after 5 a.m., so by 6 I decided to get up and go for a walk, leaving Sarah to enjoy a sleep-in of sorts. I walked the lakefront in the opposite direction to yesterday. The promenade soon turned into the best walking and cycling path I’ve ever seen. It was as wide as a road, with seats down the centre and riding lanes on both sides. Walkers in the middle could steer to their own side with plenty of room. The locals must love running and walking along here. The walkway–cycleway ran for just over 2.5 km, which was far enough for me. At that point, it turned into a much smaller, rural-looking path. Just over 5 km to get my day started. Sarah was still asleep when I got back, but was soon up and about. We had breakfast and then set off up the hill behind the old town area. The fortress is called Samuel’s Fortress and doesn’t open until 9 a.m., so it was already pretty hot on the steep walk up. The entry ticket is only 150 denars each (about $4.50...

A walk to start the day seemed like a good idea—a chance to get our bearings in a new place. We started at the lakefront, which is just 150m from our apartment. There’s a wooden jetty that leads out to a rock platform where people seem to be swimming. The water is really shallow beside the jetty but gets much deeper out at the rock platform. An older man is just climbing out from his morning swim. We naturally say hello, and it turns out he speaks English, even though he looks like a local. He spent 30 years living in various parts of Australia. He asks if we’re going for a swim, and we say maybe later. He says it’s much nicer first thing, before it gets too hot. While chatting to him, I spot what I think is an eel in the water—about 3 feet long. It looks more like a snake. In fresh water? It’s a bloody snake! As soon as I try to film it, it shoots away under the water. The man saw it too and says they’re not poisonous. Then Sarah sees another tiny one with its head poking ...

We didn’t manage to see the lake up close in Shkoder, so today we’re relocating to another lake to try our luck there. It could be an episode of Race Across the World today as we attempt to negotiate three buses and an across-city interchange. We’re also changing countries! The day started easily enough with a short walk to the appropriately named Wanderers Hostel. Reception confirmed we were in the right place for the bus, and our names were even on a TV screen. We had 30 minutes to wait for the 8:30 am departure to Tirana. Our bus pickup spot is shown below.

Well, we would have biked to the lake if the bike hire place had been open! Google and their website said they opened at 8 am, so we were waiting outside at 8:05. We were trying to beat the heat once again. But after 15 minutes of waiting—and hearing the phone ring unanswered inside when we called—we gave up. They eventually messaged back at 9 am to say they’d recently changed their hours! 😡 We couldn't be bothered walking back to try again.