We need a break from van life...swapping van life for an apartment?!

Hi everyone, welcome back to another video. We're still here in Montenegro and today we're exploring Dermator National Park. We've bought the ticket for the day, which is €3 each, and we're here at the Black Lake, but we haven't seen it yet, so we're going to go check that out now, and I'm excited to bring you along with us. This is absolutely insane, I can't believe that you can literally just walk here and then you're completely immersed inside the forest. The trees around it, and then there's just this lake, which is crazy. There's also no one here, which is even better, but it is a little bit chilly. I'm so glad that we decided to wait out the weather yesterday, we tucked ourselves away in a little coffee shop here in Zablojak, and we've woken up to this weather today, which is perfect. So we're walking around the lake to make the most of the sun whilst it's out, as I think it's going to get a little bit worse over the next few days too. If you can't already tell by now, me and Mitch don't do well with the cold, and we're realising this the more that we're in it, just how much we hate it. It was fun whilst it lasted in the Dolomites and in Switzerland, but this now, when you can't feel your fingers, I just need to be in the sun. Oh, let's get them heaters on. Martha's at the helm. I'm driving so Mitch can get the drone up, because I'm not yet trusted with the drone, but I am with the van. But the roads seem pretty unreal, and I'm hoping I don't come across any cars on the way, but it's worth the risk to show you guys this. How was your driving? I think it was okay. No one got hurt. We had a few shouting moments at each other. Yeah, because he thought a ranger was stopping, and he wasn't. He was just waving. He was stopping us. Yeah, stopping us because of the jay. He was just scared. But he was just waving. He was being nice. I'm not a very good passenger. No shit. Are you happy or no? Much. That sun is literally in the worst place possible. So this behind us is Peaver Lake, and it's normally like crystal blue. But unfortunately, it's starting to go a bit overcast, so we're not going to be able to get the... The full effect. In the summer, this place would be pretty cool, because you can do like kayaks all down the lake. It's so quiet though. Like, we've come across a few cars the whole drive. We decided to pull over after going through Peaver Lake, as I didn't sleep too well last night and wasn't feeling 100%, so I thought I'd just rest for a little bit. But turns out I was asleep for a while. Mitch is now driving through to Nixick just as the sun's setting, so the day feels like it's pretty much over. And I'm kind of out of it, because I don't know what day it is or what time it is, but the views are nice. We're just pulling up to the spot that we found on Park4Night, and as a surprise, it's hella bumpy to try and get there, as it is anywhere. I'm honestly just amazed at how people find these camping spots, because Park4Night is just an app where people put the reviews of places that they've found and not had a problem staying, and will write a description about it. So when we find places like this on there, I always wonder, like, how do people find these places? Like, how did they come across that kind of sketchy-looking road to see just this? It's absolutely stunning. Tonight is actually going to be our last night in Montenegro, as we've kind of changed where we want to go tomorrow, and yeah, just had to move things around a little bit, which you'll see in this video, hopefully. But we haven't gone to the supermarket for that reason, and we're trying to decide what we want for dinner, and it's not looking good. Not looking good's an understatement. We've literally got nothing in, genuinely. We've got every sort of bean that you could imagine, baked beans, all included, lentils, some pasta, couscous, or vegetables, in a tin. That's it. And some cereal. The cereal's looking the most appetising right now. Oh, and some raisins. Why have we got so many beans? We've literally got, like, ten tins of beans. Oh man, it's getting wet in here from condensation as well. Serious. Oh man, it's about time we need to give this van a rest. Van life in the winter is a lot harder than I ever expected it to be. I'm scared that stuff's going to be mouldy. All of the cupboards are starting to get damp. Is there nothing in the fridge either? This is really dire. Like, genuinely, what are we going to have? I don't know. I'm actually really embarrassed. We don't even know if this is good, but one of the meals that we found in France before we went to Switzerland has not been yet tried. It's sausages and lentils. I feel like I'm on one of them sets of a prison film, you know, when they just slop it where it's like... Oh my god. Morph has just tasted it though, and apparently it doesn't taste as bad as it looks. No, it is okay. I can't believe we're putting this on the internet. That's so much food. I know. Fill your boots, mate. I think it's so funny that since we've been travelling, we've put all of our adventures here on YouTube. So not only have you seen us change, or the places we've gone, you've also seen our food change. And if we could just go back to the first video of our van life, where we were eating steak two nights, with also halloumi. Asparagus. To now eating this, that looks like dog food. How things have changed, eh? On that note, we'll catch you in the morning. Good morning. It's another cold and wet, rainy morning here in Montenegro. We've had a slow start to the morning, and it's now past ten o'clock, and we're just getting up and getting started for the day. But now, we've got to get up and get ready as we are heading to Bosnia today. So we've got to get over there and hope that the border isn't too much of an issue. This is actually the start of a really bad weather front coming in. We've been experiencing some bad weather the past few days anyway, and it's actually going to get a lot worse. Tomorrow is forecast 76mm of rain. That's a lot of rain. So we have actually made the executive decision to check into an apartment for the next six nights. Which is not something that I thought we'd be actually doing since travelling, because we've not even stayed on a campsite. But we thought for how bad the condensation and damp and how cold it's going to get, it's just not fun, is it? Things don't dry. These tea towels have literally been damp for four days straight. They stink. And just keeping it real, we stink. We don't have an indoor shower. The toilet starts to stink. It gets a bit gross. Yeah. When you can't air the van out, you can imagine. When the daylight hours are already shut up, and then when it is light, it's chucking it down with rain, there's not a lot of option to do stuff. But I'm excited. Yeah, I am as well. I'm scared I'm not going to know how to live in bricks and mortar anymore. Okay, thank you. We've made it into Bosnia. All is well. We've not been shot. We're through. I got a little bit worried then, because the guy in front of us was made to pull over a little bit. He was just in a Mercedes. And they checked, like, what's the bit underneath the boot? The spare wheel compartment. The spare wheel compartment bit. And even checked underneath his boot. So I was a little bit worried. So now we're just going to head towards Trebinj. We can't check in for another, like, hour or so. So we'll just see what we can do in that time. Oh, man. I can't hear any noise. We'll have to see if it comes back. When we were waiting to go through the border, we were hearing whirring. No, it's like a rumbling noise. Yeah. From inside, like, the engine bay. But it was also coming from, like, the footwell. We pulled over to try and see if we could hear it again. And then also we thought we could hear some, see some cracks on the windscreen. It's been a fun drive. But luckily that's just, what is it? Like, sap or something? Yeah, I think so. The van just needs a proper look after. This is another reason why we're doing this. Like, I need to check, like, oil levels and, like, coolant and stuff like that. Yeah, we need looking after. The van needs a look after. Yeah, it's long overdue. Like, it all needs doing. Yeah, I'm surprised we've got this far, to be honest. But I'm more and more certain we made the right decision to do this. We're having a nightmare. Our SIM cards don't work here. And it's raining. You have to pay to park everywhere. The two places we've gone in to try and get Wi-Fi only take cash. And we don't have any cash. We've only got our cards. So we've come to this pub that, thankfully, she just let us log in to the Wi-Fi. So we're just now, like, outside here waiting for a message off the host for this apartment to say, yeah, come, because they'd message asking for a time. But we're not getting anything. And it's been 28 minutes. And I can't tell you how bad we smell. And that is why we're staying in an apartment for six days. Oh, my God. That was such a hassle. We have had a day. The weather has been like this all day, nonstop. You can literally tell how flat my hair is. We have no signal. So we couldn't contact the Airbnb guy. We finally got hold of him. And then he wouldn't respond for ages. And then finally, what time is it? It's quarter past three. And we were allowed to check in from one. He messaged us at quarter to one. And we've only just walked through the door. And now everything's in the van. But it's like that. And I don't know if we should just wait a minute. Yeah, we've been waiting until that stops. That's ridiculous. And this is what it's forecast now for, like, the next five days. And, yeah, we're here now. So that's all that matters. We're in. The heating's on. And we've got a washing machine. Which makes me very happy. Because everything stinks. So this is our very quick tour of the apartment. Here is the kitchen. Here is the bed. Here is the dining room. And here is the bathroom. It's very cosy. But this is just what we need. Mitch, we live in a van. Yeah. This is luxurious. This is exactly what we need now. What we need is a full detox of the body. Detox of the mind. Everything. The van needs TLC. I need to be in the shower for about two hours. We've got a few things that we need to do to get ourselves back feeling fresh. Ready to get back in the van next week. And it starts now.