Once upon a time, I was awarded a sports degree. But that was more than 20 years ago, in my previous life, BC (Before Children). Today, as a 43-year-old mother of two, I have let keeping fit slip down my list of priorities ... but then I was offered the chance of a week's cycling trip in Croatia.
Staying on a boat, island-hopping along the Dalmatian coast. . . I could manage that. But then I saw the itinerary: we would be biking up to 60km a day for seven days.
"You could say no," said my husband, unwittingly sparking a dormant competitive streak. I decided to give it a try. With a month to go, I spent two weeks cycling like a demon, remembering my days of sporting glory – and triggering an old back problem. Forced by my aching spine to rest, I spent the two weeks leading up to the trip telling myself that I could just soak up the sun on board and leave the energetic stuff to the rest of the party – all super-fit 25-year-olds, I had no doubt.
At Split harbour, aboard the beautiful shiny wooden Kapetan Jure – our home and transport for the week – I found I had been wrong on at least one count. Our group of 18 ranged in age from 25 to 69, with most in their forties, so I set off on the first ride keen and reasonably confident.
It was early May and the sun was warm but not too hot as we glided along a riverside on flat, virtually car-free roads. There was some uphill, some downhill and plenty of stops as we circled the deep, green Cetina canyon, near the Omis riviera on the Dalmatian mainland.
I reboarded the boat, 43km of cycling under my belt, giddy with endorphins and the thought that someone else was cooking lunch. We set sail for our first island, Brac (pronounced Bratch), as bean soup, salad and fish with potatoes and vegetables was served. It was delicious and plentiful and had been freshly prepared on board by Visko, our resident chef – once cook to the still-revered Tito. Visko's aim, I was delighted to learn, was that we should gain, not lose, a couple of kilos.
The pleasure-fest continued as we docked at Pucisca, a fairytale port lined with white houses ascending into the limestone hills (used, in part, to build the White House) for which it is famous. Petra, our ebullient guide, took us on a tour around its chalky promenade, ending at a bar where she introduced us to the sweet delights of Orahovac, a walnut liqueur.
In a group made up of Germans, Swiss and New Zealanders, I was the only Briton. But we were now loosened in spirit and bonded by endeavour, a shift in dynamics that was palpable at dinner that night. Feeling a long way from my anxieties about the trip – and from my identity as a mother – I laughed until I ached while we ate seafood tagliatelle, pan-fried chicken with olive oil-drenched potatoes and Croatian-style mille feuille pastries.
The pleasure trajectory changed direction the next day with the arrival of a strong wind that carried with it an unexpected twist to events. Stranded in Pucisca, we had to cycle 47km around Brac under grey skies, instead of a civilised 22km across the island to Bol, said to be the most beautiful beach in Croatia.
The first 8km were steeply uphill with only one rest. I reached the peak exhausted but, assuming it would be all flat or downhill from there, was looking forward to the payoff. The descents, however, were extremely sharp and there were many more ascents to come, albeit shorter ones. By the end of the ride, having climbed 1,050m, I was miserable with fatigue and could barely place my bruised undercarriage on the bike seat.
I was ready to cop out of the next morning's ride when the captain cancelled it anyway, declaring the seas now safe enough for us to weigh anchor. We set sail on a six-hour crossing to Korcula, the most southerly of the islands we were to visit. Marooned onboard, in semi-turbulent waters, we drifted uneasily around the boat with books and diaries, wondering whether the wind was here to stay.
It was then that I found myself the unlikely subject of the disarmingly unambiguous attention of a handsome Croatian suitor. As this was my longest trip away from my family, and one in which, in a sporting sense, I was chasing my youth, it was a poignant if faintly absurd – and not altogether unwelcome – Shirley Valentine moment.
The wind carried on blowing for three days. We continued cycling, always beginning with steep climbs – "they haven't yet learned to build ports at the top of mountains", quipped Petra – amid pungent pines, olive and fig trees, vines and vibrant broom, the sea somehow retaining its inky blue and, in places, turquoise brilliance under a slate sky.
We cheered Karl – the 69-year-old – to the top of the steepest inclines and, in hilltop cafes, allowed coffee and pivo (beer) to swill around our racing bloodstreams. On flatter patches we buzzed through villages like a swarm of bees, with locals, to my surprise, smiling and waving. On tougher stretches – which included pushing the bikes along rocky paths so steep that the wheels wouldn't grip – we spread out, and silence and solitude became my companions.
And each day we docked in a different, magnificent, Venetian stone port, built in the Middle Ages and, untouched by the Balkan war, still clutching the jagged coastline.
In the evenings, gratifyingly tired from the day's ride, all we had to do was consume Visko's simple but delicious Croatian fare – always salad and fish and plenty more besides – and enjoy a spot of light educational entertainment put on by Petra and the other guide, Dean. These sessions included lessons on such curiosities as the Croatian alphabet and pronunciation, the sticky subject of geographical borders and a cross-dressing skit on Baltic romance. My spotlessly clean en suite cabin – all wooden homeliness and ingenious nooks and crannies – was a joy to retire to at the end of the day.
I awoke on day six to see sun glinting through the curtain and an enticing shine on the water. The wind had dropped and during the climb on Hvar island that morning, I realised that instead of focusing on the next rotation of the pedal, I was gliding up the mountain with relative ease, and drinking in the view.
At the bottom was an impossibly blue sea, patterned with the erratic outline of the island's coast, several tiny islets splashing the water like ink blots and the still, white triangles of a couple of sailing boats. Whizzing back down the other side, we arrived at Hvar town, a port of fading Venetian glamour and the cosmopolitan hub of these islands. After a quick caffè latte, we set off on the steep return journey to Stari Grad – just 20km, but a climb of 300m – where a few of us braved a swim in the chilly Adriatic.
A 20km round-trip cycle ride in the afternoon to Jelsa, to sample Croatia's creamy gelato, put 60km on my clock that day. At 7am next day, while I was still in bed, the boat fired into life, luring me out on deck to watch a hazy dawn light fall on the edge of the diminishing Hvar and the metallic still sea that lay between us and the final island of our tour.
The last ride proved a languorous and wistful swansong along the relatively flat, wild flower-lined roads of Solta island. I meandered along with Petra and Gracjanna, a Polish woman whose endless – and increasingly outrageous – wit had studded my week. We laughed uproariously, not wanting the ride to end, as Gracjanna cracked jokes, including the story of how, that morning, the attractive male half of a New Zealand couple in the group had walked into her cabin, mistaking it for his own. We were cycling so slowly that she was able to demonstrate how she had thrown her arms wide open to declare: "Simon, I've been waiting for this moment all week."
I had set out believing that the tonic I needed could be provided by lazing around in the sun on my own. Instead, I had accomplished the most intense exercise I'd undertaken in years with a group of people I'd never met before. After a week in a beautiful setting aboard a charming boat, with a wonderful cook and a good deal of laughter thrown in, I came home with my faith in the exhilarating highs of sustained exercise restored – and, perhaps, a little more at peace with my own superfit 25-year-old self.
