After a breakfast of bananas, yogurt, chopped nuts, cranberries and a sprinkle of granola we are back on the road. The weather is still rather gloomy but at least it is dry for now.  We drive out of the village and follow the sign towards Prekopa. We hug the border with Bosnia as we head further East towards Serbia. Here, on the endemically war like frontier, almost any river or prominence bears a fortification of some kind. Ranging from hill top fortresses to barricaded look out points. Many villages still look torn apart by the recent war but finances outside the tourist towns & cities are limited.

Colourful flowers

We arrive in Lonjsko Polje nature area, which is located in the Posavina region, between the Sava River and Mount Moslavačka Gora. Situated along Lonja River, the swampland is rich in its flora and fauna and of course, culture. There are several villages in the area and our first stop Čigoć. The village famous for storks nesting on top of the wooden houses. The baby storks are probably a few months old now but they still cling to the nest whilst mother flies off for insects and food. 

Young Stork

Farmhouses, simple and rickety, as quaint as any French village. When you look more closely, though, you can see that most of them don’t have glass in the windows, only wooden shutters to keep out the winter cold. The living space is squeezed on one level, with space below reserved for stores of grain, firewood, animal feed and the animals themselves. The attic space reserved as an ‘adapted’ smoking room. As the storks nest on the chimney the smoke from the wood burning fire vents in to the attic. The smoke slowly seeps out the roof once its smoked the cheese and ham. Old Yugo cars line the street.

We drive through the stork villages and its swamp land, passing more farms, fields of corn and plenty wild pigs rolling in the banks of the river.  We pass a large army camp, more and more farms then the road pitter’s to a single track lane. Merrily bumbling along for miles and miles. Waving at the odd lone farmer.

Wild pigs

After two hours of driving, we reach a bridge. A very low bridge with no height limit. We pause, way up the dimensions and just pray Vin fits through otherwise we have a long drive back. Inch by inch we edge under the bridge and breath a sigh of relief once we are through. We cross the river on a steel suspension bridge and then at long last onto a tarmac road. 

An hour and a half later, we reach the Jasenovac on the Drava river near Bosnia. Overnight on the car park is not an issue.  We spend an evening watching the locals fish on the river until once again, the storm arrive. Everyone takes shelter and we snuggle down to an episode of Luther.

Our Bumble wild camping spot Jasenovac N045.276583, E016.921611

Boat to Bosnia