Category: English

(This is a delayed post for September 29)

Today I went on a boat tour to Kornati Islands National Park. By itself the boat tour would have been pretty boring, as it is mostly being on a boat for many hours and seeing islands from afar. We had two opportunities to get off the boat – one to a very nice beach and the other to a fishermen town. It was OK. I used the beach stop for a short hike to the island’s top spot and walked around the fishermen town as well.

What made today good was meeting 4 cool Belgians (3 guys and a girl) who were a group. After that I met another Belgian guy, who hitch-hiked with me later on and another Irish woman. The latter two are travelling by public transport and hitch-hiking, looking for cheap places to stay for nights. I admire that kind of travelling and don’t think I can ever do it myself – I need my privacy at the end of the day to reset and don’t think I can get it at a hostel or on somebody else’s couch.

The group of four Belgians were really cool and most of the time I spent hanging out with them on the boat. I came to Zadar to see some people and got more than I bargained for. Meeting these people made my day.

Later on I drove near Krka (let’s hear you pronounce that!) National Park, which I’ll visit tomorrow. Again I have an entire apartment for myself at the same price I got a bed in Zadar yesterday. That’s what you get when you travel off season.

My trip is nearing its end and the original plan was to drive to Dubrovnik and spend there 2 non-driving days. However, I’ve been told that Dubrovnik might not be the right place to stay more than a day, so I might reconsider this plan and stop somewhere along the way.

The extremely nice family that hosted me prepared another delicious meal (and another deviation from my diet) and then I was on my way (a 4-hour drive) to Zadar, the beautiful heritage-rich city on the Adriatic Sea. The old city part of Zadar is a popular tourist destination even these days, which are considered out-of-season.

The sea is beautiful and calming and the beaches are a great sight. I definitely prefer a sunny day like this over the rainy days before. I just spent the day walking around Zadar and enjoying the scenery. For tomorrow I booked a boat tour to Kornati Islands that I hope will be fun.

(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.

My hopes for enjoying a rain-less day were quickly gone when I woke up. It was pouring outside, but I decided to go to Plitvice Lakes National Park anyway and take the 4-6 hour tour. In general I dislike rain but since I knew in advance that I will get wet and cold, I made up my mind not to care about it and went out there. And it was well worth it.

Plitvice Lakes is a ridiculously beautiful reservation, where huge lakes are positioned in different levels with waterfalls in between. In the programs supplied by the park you get to walk among the lakes on wooden bridges and also ride a boat on one of them. Because I tried to keep my camera dry, many of the pictures and videos came out fuzzy, crooked or just crappy.

Being wet to my bones and very cold I continued straight to Zagreb, where I pre-booked a room in a hostel because I wanted to get my laundry done. They don’t have a drier, which is a shame and means I’ll have to hang my clothes to dry in the car or something :)

Tomorrow I hope to get to Kopački Rit Nature Park, where I’ll get to see interesting flora and fauna and as a bonus it’s not supposed to (heavily) rain there tomorrow.

Yesterday I thought I might make it to another hike in Logarska Dolina, but when I got up this morning it was raining heavily in the valley. I decided to continue straight to my next destination, Škocjan Caves. The karstic caves are huge and amazingly beautiful. Not only that, but there’s also a river flowing straight through them. I was lucky enough to see the river fiercely flowing through the cave at 50 cubic meters per second because it was raining lately. Most of the time the river (called “Reka Reka”, which means “the river River”) flows slowly inside the cave. Unfortunately it’s prohibited to take photos inside the cave, but if you’re interested you can see some in the official site.

After that I crossed over to Croatia. My destination was Plitvice Lakes National Park, which is where I am now. The drive was longer than I expected and driving through misty mountains in the rain on curvy narrow roads is less than optimal. On the other hand, I also got to drive highways at 130 km/h (that’s the speed limit) through magnificent scenery.

I’m spending the night very close to the park, hoping that by tomorrow it will rain less and I can go tour it. I still have to decide where to go afterwards. I might try Zagreb, even though I prefer nature over a city for this trip.

As you can see, there are just two pictures from the exit of Škocjan Caves and one of my dinner. The video is from this morning in Logarska Donlina.

I decided to take it easy today, even if this means missing out on things. But I think I did pretty well, as the pictures and video show. I saw a waterfall (Slap Savica) near Lake Bohinj, went up the cable car to mount Vogel for a great view of the lake, then drove to Logarska Dolina.

Logarska Dolina, a valley in the Kamnic Alps with only 35 residents, deserves a paragraph of its own. Words cannot describe how beautiful this place is. It’s like a painting of a scene from a fairytale. It has a big waterfall (Slap Rinka) and plenty of hiking routes. When I got here I drove straight to the waterfall, fearing that it will start raining or get dark. But then I saw an opportunity – a hiking trail up above the waterfall that only takes 45 minutes, so I did that hike even though I thought today would be about relaxation.

People I meet on the way are surprised of how I choose hiking trails. I decided to name this Spontaneous Hiking. Spontaneous Hiking is when you get to a place, see a trail and decide to hike it without planning. It immediately puts me on 5/10 in the being-out-of-my-comfort-zone scale because I have no idea what the trail will be like or where it would lead me. Hiking alone is a mental activity as much as it is physical.

After getting back from the hike I just walked around the valley and returned to the place where I will spend the night, right in the middle of this amazing place (see the pictures below.)

Tomorrow I think I will do another hike in the area (there are another 2 valleys) and then maybe a cave. I’ll try to make it to Croatia tomorrow as well, but I’m not sure I can make it.

If yesterday was themed with water, then today was a hiking day. I went up two trails in the Triglav National Park. Both hikes were pretty demanding physically, but the view from the top of the trails was totally worth it, as you can see in the pictures and videos.

(By the way, the pictures that appear smaller or cropped are actually high resolution, so watching them in full screen is recommended)

The first hike, to Mojstrovka, started at Vršič Pass, which is a high mountain pass across the Julian Alps. The second hike was supposed to be a 4 hour hike in the Triglav National park, but I didn’t make it on time to start such a long hike, so instead I walked up to the Ljuknja pass, a mere 2 hour hike.

I’m completely exhausted. I arrived at the beautiful Lake Bohinj but still have no idea what I’ll do here tomorrow. I still have other plans that I wish to do before moving on to Croatia, but I’m not sure I’ll manage to execute all of them. Also, it looks like it’s going to rain starting tomorrow, which may foil some of my plans.

Again I had trouble finding a single room in a place that has Internet and doesn’t cost like a high-end hotel. So tonight I’m staying at a hostel. The downside is that there’s Wi-Fi only in the lobby and not in the rooms. The upside is that I can do my laundry, something that I really needed after a day of hiking and seating.

After a good night’s sleep I went on to begin my trip. The hotel I slept in was very close to Lake Bled so I just walked over to the very beautiful lake and started walking around it. I also went up to the castle watching it.

If I try to describe the rest of the places I visited, I will quickly run out of words to say how beautiful these places were, so I’ll just name the names and you can see for yourselves in the pictures: Vintgar Gorge, Kozjak waterfall and a small part of the Soca river.

While my driving has improved, I still can’t drive like the locals here, who drive 90kph in mountain roads that I don’t dare go over 50 in. I usually stop on the side of the road and let them pass me before they get upset.

Finding a place to stay for the night was a small challenge – most places rent apartments and the owners refuse to rent to a single person even if he/she is willing to pay the price (“it’s impossible” is the answer.) I wonder why that is.

Today my trip was a little messy in terms of planning. While I enjoy the scenic driving very much, I don’t think my route is as optimal as it could be. I have to plan my days here better.

I arrived to Slovenia around 10pm without proper planning. Got my Hyundai i20 with stick shift (manual transmission) and started driving very slowly to Bled, my first destination. My GPS took me through some very curvy countryside roads until I realized the toll avoidance was on. I was so happy I found that out because the roads were getting curvier and narrower by the minute. Also, there is one very lucky deer, that nearly met its maker tonight, running around somewhere.

In Bled there was no place to stay that was open. The “Sobe”s (as they’re called) are usually privately managed and the owners go to sleep the same time as the guests. Eventually I found a hotel around 12:30am with a very nice woman at the reception who saw I was strung out and helped me a lot (mostly explained me about the surroundings, which calmed me down.)

I like being out of my comfort zone, e.g. driving in an unknown place in the middle of the night, looking for a place to stay and nearly deciding on sleeping in the car. But I only like it if I can get back to my comfort zone and there’s a happy ending. Live to tell the tale, so to speak. Today was a little frightening. 6 out of 10 in getting out of my comfort zone. Not too bad for day 1 of this trip :)