Eastern Euro road trip – Day 4 (part 2) – Slavonski Brod to Pécs

Last updated: 29 June 2023

It was the day that seemed to last forever.  Starting in Zagreb, we were headed for Pécs, a city in southern Hungary with a ‘slight’ detour to the Slavonski Brod on the Bosnian border.

The drive to Slavonski Brod was dreadful.  Empty roads that ran through small deserted towns and the snow. My god did it snow. Even with our winter tires we slipped and slid around corners as we went up and down mountain ranges.

Slavonski Brod

We made our way to the edge of town.  The whole ‘see the border’ idea seems so trivial now, but at the time I was quite determined that we’d gone to hell and back to trek here to see this border so we were damn well going to see it.  So after taking a couple of photos, I realised the concept was a bit dull and headed into the main town to see what else this area had to offer.

What main town? Exactly. There’s not much to see in Slavonski Brod.  “What now?” I said exasperated and a little disappointed.

It was then the idea of crossing the border on foot came up. How cool would it be if we crossed?! 

We couldn’t cross in our car because of insurance but we saw people crossing on foot. We could do that too! Why not? Who know’s what we’d see on the other side.

It seems that finding the entrance into the border was harder than it appeared.  The maps we had weren’t exactly reliable.  Our GPS sent in circles through narrow residential dead-end streets that hugged the sides of the border entrance. It should have became obvious to us that the combination of narrow residential streets, zero signage, poor maps and a tendency to attract dead-end streets requiring reversing was a recipe for disaster.

Alas it didn’t and we powered on.  Finding the main entrance to the border we rejoiced.  We drove toward the gates.  Seeing the pedestrian sign on the right hand side. We parked and approached on foot.

Boorishly greeted by non-English speaking Croatian border control we were asked our purpose, they looked at our Australian passports with modest curiosity and promptly handed them back to us. Pointing to our car ‘no auto, you go’.  To this day, I’m not entirely sure what that meant.  I think it meant you can’t park there but in reality it could have meant so many things. Either way, we weren’t crossing – on foot, by car, donkey, mule or any kind of hovercraft.

Confused and defeated we left. I continued my questionable navigation by driving us into another series of impasses.   Reverse out or eight-point turn seemed to be the theme of the day.

By now it’s dark, I’m so glad we have a power-converter in the car to charge our devices otherwise they’d have been flat as a tack. Then it started to snow.  Ugh, oh goody. How much worse can this day get.  I muttered.

And just like Murphy’s Law, it happened.

Russ had attempted an eight-point turn in a dark narrow residential street just as the snow was beginning to come down again.  Misjudging the driveway entrance, the car dipped significantly to one side followed quickly by a rather loud crunch. It turns out we’d completely missed the side of the driveway and in the dark, failed to see the ditch that the driveway straddled.

Our car was now half hanging off the driveway with only two tires on the ground.  With one wheel on the driveway and one in the ditch, the front plastic guards taking the full weight of the car.  Internal alarms blaring saying “chance of rolling” meant reversing the car out of the ditch was not an option.  We’re going to have to push it.

Have you ever tried to push a car up a hill?

An elderly lady must have heard the crash and raced out to see what all the commotion was.  She must have been easily 85 and spoke no English but she was clearly fluent in Croatian.  Chattering away to me as if I understood her.   She ran off, returning ten minutes later with a burly man and a timber plank.  He spoke broken English to understand enough that we’d need to lift the car to get it out.

While the snow poured down on us, the three of us lifted and pushed with all our strength. All the while, slipping in the muddy ditch, digging our feet and knees into the soft ground to give us any kind of stability.

Our break came. The car came out of the ditch and onto the road. Phew!  Now to inspect for damages.  Could we continue our journey? Were we stuck in Slavonski Brod for at least the night?This wasn’t the place to find a Holiday Inn at the last minute and I doubt AirBnB work out here.  Do we even have any 3G internet coverage? All these questions raced through my mind.

Russ fired up the engine and she roared to life, then he did a lap of the street testing steering and tires.  Meanwhile I’m repeating the only Croatian word that comes to mind, Hvala (thank you) to our burly savoir and the old lady. Satisfied we could limp away from the scene we departed and headed for a street with lighting to inspect further.

A nearby shopping was open and well lit.  Crawling under to inspect the car, everything seemed fine.  The front of the car was so dirty we couldn’t tell if there was any superficial damage.  I was not concerned by that. A scratch we could pay for, but any damage to the undercarriage axle, brakes, tires or rims would mean a call to the insurance and a probable derailment of our road trip and a lengthy stay in Slavonski Brod.

Convincing ourselves with ‘We won’t know til we try’, we headed out of town aiming for the Hungarian border. Testing out the brakes as we drove, speeding up with our heads out the window (still snowing!) to hear any ‘funny noises’ coming from the car.  It seems we had been VERY lucky.

It was then I looked down. I was filthy. Not just a spot or two of mud but completely covered in mud.  My snow boots were filled with mud.  I hadn’t noticed how grubby I was, nor did I notice the giant rip in my jeans.  Crotch to half way down my thigh. I chose the perfect time to travel with one pair of pants.

Croatian/Hungarian border

Arriving at the Hungarian border it was the first time in the whole trip we’d really experienced any issues between borders.  Handing over our passports to a group of men in a box and told to pull over and wait in the car.  He returned 15 minutes later with some questions about where we’d been and where we were headed.  All the while curiously eyeing our mud laden clothes.  By this time I’m grateful we hadn’t gone into Bosnia and needed to answer questions about that too.

We were finally exit stamped out of Croatia and we high-fived in celebration… That was until we came over the hill and saw another passport control, Hungary.

Just when you think it can’t get worse

There was not so much high-fiving anymore as we were detained and interrogated by the Hungarian border control. We were asked for passports and our “auto licence”.  Producing our driving licences which would be handed back and repeated with  “No. auto licence”.  Confused, I didn’t know what this was.  I produced all the paperwork the hire car company had given us hoping that somewhere amongst the 6 pages of paper there was whatever they were looking for.  All the papers were returned to me with the response “Auto licence?”.

Half an hour passed.  We sat in the car anxious and plotting another route as a plan B as we awaited our fate.  Attempting to read the body language of our Border control who were tapping away at their keyboards and making lots of phone calls. They inspected our car, inside and out.  What were they looking for? What did they think we were hiding?  Can we not drive in Hungary on Australian licences? Is our car stolen?

Frustrated, I pulled out every single scrap of paper from the glovebox and stumbled upon this card about the size of A5 piece of paper.  Mr Border control waved it in my face yelling “auto licence!” as he ran off. The apparently the so called Auto Licence has something to do with EU vehicle insurance which has a long country listing on one side.

Finally stamped into Hungary we sighed a sigh of relief, slightly shaken from our long day of experiences we continued our journey to Pécs.

The final cherry on this cake was when we arrived at our hotel in Pécs.  Exhausted, I sat on the bed to remove my muddy boots and ripped jeans.  At that exact moment, the bed gave way to broke under me.  Like I said at the start, this was the day that never ended.

The Essentials

Slovonski Brod to Pécs

Distance: 77 miles (125km)

Driving time: 2 1/2 hours

Driving conditions: Initially easy freeway for the first part & then daunting.  More isolated roads on windy country areas devoid of life.

Insider tips:  Auto licence – learn what this is. Carry maps of places in local names/spelling.  It helps when you say the name incorrectly you can simply communicate by pointing especially at borders.

Currency: Croatia Kuna  (roughly 100 Kn = £10), Hungary Forint  (roughly 3615 HUF = £10)