Day 35: Lozice, Slovenia

Stats... 62,45km in 4hrs 33mins. We packed all our wet and muddy gear amongst the mossies and got on the road both in a bad mood. The road started busy but then we found a quiet road leading to the border of Slovenia and our moods brightened as we made it to our 10th country! The lovely quiet roads were quite hilly and slow as there was also a slight headwind. As we turned a corner there were several people clapping and cheering us on which we thought was odd until 5mins later lots of police cars told us to pull over and the tour d slovenia bicycle race flew passed us! Kris reckoned he could of had them but we were not allowed on the road! As the road cleared we continued down a 9% gradient hill and up a 10% gradient hill. The descent of which lead to a valley where we were greeted by a 70kmh head/cross wind. This was particularly dangerous as we also came across the motorway not being open so all the major traffic was on our intended road including huge trucks. We therefore had to walk with the bikes in strong wind until we found a small restricted road that snaked through some tiny villages which was safer but still very windy. Having had enough we sat on a wall by a church in Lozice where Kris chatted to a nice lady who spoke to another nice lady who called her son in law (Sandi) who called his friend (Marco) who had a spare room for us to stay in! We met Marco, Petra, son Fran and Grandad Stane and we were taken straight to their basement for their home made wine and lots of it! A few glasses later we went for a walk with the family to pick their home grown cherries. One tree of which had a branch recently snapped off by a bear!!! We walked back via Sandi house and met his wife and son and had more wine in their basement distillary! We later joined Petra for dinner who had made us a traditional slovenian dish of corn and fresh cows milk from the neighbours cow. They are a lovely family and we very much enjoyed their company, hospitality and kindness...thanks!