Strap yourselves in… there’s going to be a lot of water today!
Plitvice Falls – highly recommended, one of the highlights of the trip
We had a reasonably early start this morning as we were cycling the 6km to Plitvice Lakes and had a 10-11 entrance time.
The lakes are a UNESCO World Heritage Site and open at 7, when the crowds are the lightest. But that’s way too early for me to get going these days so went for a later entry, much to Sue’s annoyance.
After a quick shower and the regulation eggs and ham for me, we set off on our bikes. It’s just the one road from the Bear Campsite to the lakes, but it’s really busy, there’s no cycle lanes and the traffic is fast. So we were in two minds about whether to get the bus, take the bike or even do a quick tear down and do the van.
In the end we braved the bikes and it was probably the right decision. It was 6km of road but about 350m of climbing to the lakes, which got me very sweaty by the time we got there. We were 30 minutes early, of course, so bought a drink, had a wee and also bought a map, that we probably didn’t need. We entered through the nearest entrance for us, which was entrance 1.
The Plitvice Lakes are a series of 16 named plus some unnamed lakes, connected by waterfalls. The drop between some of the lakes is only a meter or so, but between others the drop can be 10’s of meters. The water is a very strong aqua-marine in all of the lakes and is stunning- something the photos don’t really do justice to (poor photographer, clearly!)
The lakes are a combination of limestone and carbonite, However, the minerals in the water flowing over the waterfalls have created dams out of deposited tufa or travertine, a bit like stalactites and stalagmites.
You get a bit of a sense of the different waterfall drops from this diagram…
The Plitvice Lakes park has a number of suggested “hiking” routes round it, ranging from modest 3.5k, up to an all day 18k route. We were a little undecided about what to do but plumped for Tour C in the end… 8k of walking and a boat ride.
As you start the tour you’re greeted by a view of the lowest lakes and the falls into them. Each of the lakes you can see in the pictures are at different heights…
For scale, you can see one of the boardwalks half way up the left hand side of the previous image. The people look tiny!
From there on you wander along rustic, but very sturdy board walks as well as stone and gravel paths. Though it’s the boardwalks that stand out as you walk over the lakes and from one lake to another, above the falls, beneath your feet.
We were expecting to hear a big splash at some point in the day as someone tripped and went in. We thought there’d be a lot more handrails etc if the park was in the UK. We did see one family at the start trying to get 3 or 4 year old back onto the path as he was screaming his head off looking at a 10’s of metre drop with him hanging onto the wrong side of a post!
Here are some more shots of the lakes and waterfalls…
There were lots of, we think, trout in the lakes, some looked to be a foot and a half long (not these ones)…
Somewhere in the middle of all those pictures we took an electric boat across the biggest lake…
We did take an out of the way, discrete selfie (see below)…
And then at the end of our trail there was a loo and refreshment stop (ST3) where we both had a cold drink… and Sue opened up international relations with a Korean trio (see below).
Then we headed for the road train that took us most of the way back to our starting point, and chatted to a couple from Sheffield for most of the ride (see below).
We spent about 5 hours at the Lakes today. There was plenty of shade on the boardwalks and trails, but we were both pretty done in once we got back to Ollie – I’ve picked up a cold of some sorts that I’ve been nursing for the past couple of days and completely lost my voice talking to the Sheffield couple on the bus.
While we didn’t take one of the really early lake entrance slots… the crowds were mostly tolerable. If we’d have been on a yomp then they would have driven us mad.
The entrance fee to the park was pretty steep at €20 each, but that gave you unlimited run of the park, rides on the boats and the road-train too.
What really did wind us up though, was the continual stopping for selfies that everyone seemed to be doing. We try to be sensitive to other walkers and to stop at the edge of a path when taking pictures (not just selfies) but there were countless times we were stopped on a boardwalk while some boyfriend/girlfriend took a pouty picture of their other half, both standing in the middle of the path. We even saw one girl pull a hairbrush out before said picture was taken!. How many bl**dy selfies do people need to take!
3-2-1-pout!
They were also jumping over barriers and standing on things they shouldn’t have been to get their once in a lunchtime opportunity to be famous on Instagram! Grrr!
Another side note: we’re seeing way more Police on the roads in Slovenia and Croatia than we’ve done in any other countries. There was even a random stop happening on the main road into the lakes today.
When we got back to the campsite we were talking to the girl on reception (we had to pay for an extra night) she was telling us how they had to put in fences on the routes at the Lakes because people were going where they shouldn’t and were hurting themselves.
We both had a shower in the open air mini-shower block just up from our pitch…
We’re going to miss the plums falling on the awning and sounding like a gun’s gone off…
Today’s Meetings
We had three memorable meetups today…
Firstly we met a Korean couple living in Amsterdam with the guy’s brother visiting them. We talked to them at the end of our outbound walk, at the loos and refreshment area. They were on a few day break to Croatia and had hired a car to get them to the Lakes for two days.
Just after meeting them we stood in a queue for the road train and got talking to an English couple from Sheffield. She is a deputy head of a primary school, years 5 and 6 maths, he works for the Outdoor shop in Haversage.
Finally for today we met another British couple while we were picking up our bikes at the entrance. They were also heading to Dubrovnik, but in a 7m MotorHome and had spent a few nights in Lake Bled Camping while we were in Bled too. He worked for the UN. We were warned that Sue shouldn’t go out walking alone in Brindisi.
Tomorrow we’re off to Trogir, just outside of Split. The campsite we’re aiming for doesn’t take reservations so we’re trying to leave before 9 so we can get there about midday.
Harry’s just about to do the first tri-wizard trial.
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