Mlini and Camping Kate

At this time of the year, out of season, it’s not usually necessary to book in advance. You like the description of a site in one of the campsite books, or maybe somebody’s recommended it, and just turn up generally anytime from mid-afternoon onwards. But this time we’re rolling into Camping Kate at 8.00am, one hour after docking. The proprietor is there waiting. This is obviously normal on overnight ferry days. He’s really pleasant and speaks almost perfect English, having worked in New York.

Given a free choice, we select a spot at the far end of the site over looking the sea. This is the view from the patio slightly beyond our pitches.

A knee-trembling set of steps leads down to the little harbour of Mlini. It takes its name from the Latin word for mill, Molina. Two large streams rush headlong down the hillside on either side of the campsite and these flow under some of the buildings, with channels and sluices formed to divert the flow of water. These we can see from the steps and are clearly the former mills. On the day we arrive the streams are in flood and have become torrents, so the view from the steps provides a spectacle of roaring water. To give an idea of scale, the river (hardly a stream now!) is about 4 meters in width. 

Mlini is a small, pretty village where the two streams meet before flowing into the sea. There’s yet another old mill complex here with a 250 year- old plane tree spreading over the water. How do I know it’s 250 years old?  Conveniently, there’s a plaque on the tree in Croat and English giving its history. We are finding that where a second language is used it’s always English. 

The walk along the front, a pedestrian path of several miles to the next village, gives some lovely views through the pine trees into the bay. This is almost a daily walk for us and as part of the routine we reward ourselves with an ice-cream to give us the energy to climb up those steps back to the campsite.