To Croatia

Set off at 11 am for Slavonski Brod...4 hours of driving...the scenery had changed now from the Austrian Alps and it was relatively flat, however 20 minutes into the drive I noticed that the AM-meter on the MG was reading minus...not good, especially as everyone seemed to have there lights on in the day...which maybe law in Croatia..I decided to continue and not put the lights on ..on I drove until I had hardly any fuel left...then I exited the motorway and put some fuel in from the jerry can I had in the boot of the car...I was very near Slavonski Brod...as expected the car would not start..the battery was flat..an electrical problem...I checked the engine and nothing obvious was wrong, no loose connections. So I got the starting handle and cranked the MG over...it started...so I could at least run the car during the day....
My next mission was to find a campsite, cook some dinner as I hadn't eaten all day and then try and find an electrical mechanic...I drove on and came to a guest house, no one spoke English and they didnt seem very helpful...so I thought I would have another look at the car....tryed a few things to see if I could get a charge...fan belt tight...so it could be the carbon brushes in the dynamo or the control box or a fuse....
Well things got from bad to worse....the engine vibrated on start up and the exhaust pipe came apart landing on the road...I crawled under the car to take a look...then went to see if I had any bits to make an emergency fix....so with some bits of bracket and string(like a good boy scout).I attempted a fix...not all that great and I didnt trust it to be honest...
I lay beside the car in the middle of nowhere, no hardcash(I had not found an ATM machine and the bank was closed in Slovenia before I left)...hardly any fuel for the car and nowhere to stay, not even a campsite and the car was not going anywhere....and even if I fixed the exhaust pipe I had no electric for night driving....
NOT GOOD.....
It was now 6.30 pm and I would have to make a decision very soon about finding somewhere to stay.....
As luck would have it...and lets face it I needed some...an english speaking Croatian girl named Elle stopped and I she said I could clean up if I wanted to after I had fixed the car and she looked at an address I had for an emergency "Pension apartment"...but it was in the centre of town 6km away....I did have a phone number and she rang it for me. Elle made some dinner for me and something to drink which was very much appreciated...40 minutes later "Ante" (please forgive me for the rough spelling of names here)...came to the house of Elle and I packed some clothes, locked the car and headed off to one of his apartments in Slavonski Brod..he said he would arranged for a mechanic for monday and dropped me off in town arranging to meet me in the morning...
The day had gone very quickly, time had raced by and there I was in Croatia in a small town across the border from Bosnia near the bridge with a broken car left by the side of the road 6km away in need of a mechanic....standing within 4 walls in the middle of nowhere...