Five hundred handbags and a naked ex-wife

After a few wrong turns, and a windy, hilly road we arrived at the parking for the first crag. The guidebook described a campsite near the crag, so we wondered if anyone was about so that we could get any useful information on the climbing – perhaps this was a mistake… Not long after pulling up, a friendly Croatian man greeted us and invited us into is house. He spoke reasonable English and seemed very pleased to see other human life. His house was simple, cluttered and quite cold. It was also clear that he lacked a dishwasher. He put a few logs on the fire and offered us some wine. We accepted and he poured us some slightly cloudy liquid from a plastic bottle – it tasted OK though. He then proceeded to give us his life story with supplementary photos from the extensive photo album. We saw pictures of his daughters, and various pictures of his ex-wife posing naked on a boat! There were videos of his kids too, thankfully not of his naked ex-wife. After a while he exclaimed to Claire that he had something she’d like… He then took us upstairs and proudly presented many bin liners stuff full of cheap handbags. We wondered why or how he had so many handbags, and Claire declined his kind offer – although I think she secretly liked them!

We felt like we had to stay in his campsite now. He seemed quite depressed and a little unstable, so we thought is wise not to upset him. We made our excuses and went to bed for the night. We were awoken early by the sound of a chainsaw. Thankfully, they were just felling trees. It was a sunny day so we headed down to the crag to climb. I wasn’t feeling great – think his wine was a bit dodgy. The crag was beautifully situated and overlooked a pretty valley and an old ruined castle.


The climbing mostly consisted of short slabs and walls. I spent a while trying to do a F5c (for non-climbers: F5c should be reasonably straightforward). I just could not do the first move. Claire tried also, but was equally confused. I eventually managed to climb the route after some ideas from Claire. We then practised our footwork on some technical slab climbs.