Our plan for the next few days was to head for Durmitor National Park in north-west Montenegro and so we headed to the bus station in the morning. We were pleased to discover that there was a bus heading there relatively soon meaning that we didn’t have to wait about in Podgorica. Jonathan acquired the tickets because he is responsible for transportational matters, while I hold the equally demanding portfolio covering snacks, complaints and standing nearby.
The bus was a direct service and there’s an extra charge for anyone who wants to put luggage into the back, but, fortunately, Jonathan and I travel light so we didn’t have to deal with that little problem.
We selected seats at the back beside the emergency exit, which provided some welcome additional legroom. This apparently left us responsible for evacuating everyone if something went wrong, despite no-one carrying out even the most basic assessment of our strength, courage or general suitability.
Crossing the Morača River out of Podgorica.
There were beautiful views once again as we crossed the country, it’s certainly got some rather lovely landscapes to look at. The roads were winding but still quite wide, so it didn’t feel like we were on some dangerous escapade in the hills.
More troubling was the number of areas affected by fire. The contrast between the scorched ground and the otherwise beautiful landscape was particularly stark.
There were several patches of quite burnt areas along the route where there had been previous fires.
The air was smoky for stretches of the journey which felt a little sub-optimal.
It was all rather sobering if I’m being honest. Individual fires can I imagine have numerous causes, but increasingly hot and dry conditions are raising the risk and potential severity of wildfires across southern Europe. It seems likely that scenes such as these will become more common rather than less.
We also saw a helicopter collecting and dropping water on one of the fires. It provided some reassurance that the situation was being actively tackled, although the scale of the surrounding damage demonstrated the difficulty of bringing such fires under control.
Approaching the town of Žabljak and we were ready for a couple of days of walking in the area. The bus journey had cost around £10 each and it took around three hours, meaning that we arrived in the early afternoon and the first thing that I realised that although it was hot, it wasn’t insanely hot.