We left our campsite on the Dalmatian Coast and had a fabulous drive towards Split across the mountain ranges. I would love to report that all was plain sailing with the Sprinter which was surging up the mountain roads and purring along the motorways, but it let itself down slightly by deciding to have an attack of the battery alarms when we set off on the road. There are a whole host of useful things that bleep at you when you drive along for example when we leave the fridge door ajar or when we cross the white road markings in narrow lanes. There are bleeps that sometimes have us completely baffled and the battery warning noises were in that category.
These battery alarms are louder and more persistant than anything else, are a bit scary and have yet to prove their worth! They demand that you stop and take notice and are completely baffling, when all the myriad of batteries that matter all seem to be charged up. In fact they scream out at me “you don’t know what you are doing and we are going to give you a nasty surprise very soon!” Who wants to be driving to Mostar via Split with that sort of rubbish going on? You would not want to drive in a quite residential street at night with these fellahs going off for danger of being arrested!

I am afraid it is back to Dave for reassurance and soothing words of advice.

This innocent little number can make a hell of a noise!

The alarms did eventually stop or we would never have opted to leave the motorway and take a slower route up into the mountains and to see more of the Countryside. The pastures were green and Spring was warm and sunny. When we reached the border, crossing from Croatia into Bosnia & Herzegovina was straightforward but involved a lot of flicking through our passports and heavy stamping! In fact on leaving Croatia, the Croatian border guard decided to stamp us both into Croatia and out! This was confusing, as we had not been stamped in at all! The Bosnian guard stamped us in, was all smiles and thought we had come from Ireland! It was a shame that we were driving so close to lovely places like Split and Dubrovnik but with no time to stop. But our mission was clear. On towards Greece through Albania and then on to Turkey and Georgia. Today however, we were treating ourselves to a night in Mostar. Although the Old Town has been extensively reinstated following damage sustained in the most recent European conflict. There are still signs of bomb damage. We stayed in a Pension for one night and our landlady said that ordinary folk wanted to return to good relations between communities, but that politicians try and stoke hatred for political purposes. (Her opinion). Economic prosperity relies on peace and people across the political and ethnic divides pulling together.