Croatia – Day 3

(This is a delayed post from yesterday. Also, see the previous post for new pictures and videos)

To get away from the rain I drove to the north-eastern part of the country to visit Kopački Rit Nature Park. The park is mostly visited by bird watchers and the main attraction for people like me, who know nothing about birds, is to take the one-hour boat ride in the park’s lake. So that’s what I did, and it was pretty great. You get to see birds in their natural habitat, only disturbed by the sound of your boat’s engine. The park ranger, who took me on the boat ride, pointed to some interesting birds from time to time, including some white tailed eagles that were roaming the skies.

Later on I drove back west to Lonsko Polje National Park, where birds pass through during autumn. Apparently I arrived out-of-season, as the information office was especially opened for me. I was looking for hiking trails, even though the ranger at the information office offered me the keys to the bird watching observatory (but only if I promise to bring them back. :) The trail turned out to be quite a disappointment because it was just a walk through a wet and muddy forest with a lot of mosquitoes and frogs hopping out of the way as you pass them by.

The park does have a nice river flowing through it but I’m a little discouraged by the lack of interesting things for me to in it. Tired of driving for today, I’m staying at a guest-house in the park tonight. The place is famous for its wooden houses and I got an apartment in one of them, complete with a kitchen and a working fireplace, which the nice family who are hosting me today set up. They also prepared a home cooked dinner, which lifted my spirits considerably after eating only a pre-made gas station sandwich for lunch.

When I’m travelling on my own I rarely feel lonely. However without Internet in this secluded place I’m in, being alone does feel so. That’s why I think tomorrow I’ll drive 4 hours to Zadar, where there are more people, and hope for good weather conditions. The following day should be better weather-wise, so I might try to make it to Kornati Islands National Park.

I’ve wasted some time with all this driving and even though Kopački Rit Nature Park was beautiful I’m not sure it was worth it. On the other hand, my options otherwise were limited by the rainy weather, so at least I got some sunlight, blue skies, a taste of beautiful nature and a home cooked dinner.