Croatia Trip September 2015 Post 8

Day 24 Friday 02/10/2015 - Still 94162 on Speedo  

We had to get the van sorted out to move early as we had to drive to the Krka National Park which was about 4 km away from our site. The site usually organises an excursion for 40 Euro but had now finished for the season. We arrived at the park and there was a massive free car park which quite surprised us. We bought our tickets at a little kiosk 90 Kun each and walked to the shuttle bus he pointed to. A lady scanned our tickets and said the bus would leave in 5 minutes so we sat on. and waited, and waited. Steve then spotted a sign which said it was only 400 mtrs. “We could have walked it by now!” but by this point the bus would probably have left as soon as we stepped off. Well eventually after more than half an hour the bus left, well, it was probably 400 mtr vertically but about twenty hairpin bends later the bus arrived at the drop off point so we were glad we stayed on. We walked where a ranger lady pointed on to a very nice “Board Walk” just like in the everglades in Florida.

We were ahead of the crowd so had a very nice walk amongst various lakes and steadily iincreasing in size waterfalls until we came onto a long bridge over a lake to see the very large collection of waterfalls.

I don’t think the pictures really do justice we realised that it was the end of the season and the most water would obviously be in the spring but it was quite impressive and beautiful.

Another interesting feature was that the nearly first Hydro Electric generating plant was built there but uunfortunately started operating just two day after the one at Niagara Falls built by Tessla another Croatian Engineer.on 28th august 1895. But it started supplying power to the nearby town of Skradin almost a year before the American one.

After looking around at some interesting exhibits showing a typical family house and the Croatian  lifestyle, the traditional Croatian dress and a demonstration of their wool weaving technique we decided to take a boat trip to see a lot more of the park and lakes. It was three and a half hours for 130 Kun about £13 each so seemed good value. The boat left at noon so reasonable time to walk the 400 mtr it said to the boat. The boat left on time fully loaded, then passed through some beautiful scenery to our first stop at a Franciscan Monastery on a tiny island.. We were met by a park employee who gave us a short history of the island then said we had half an hour to visit the museum and church. Boarding the boat again we continued along the lake and past through a dramatic gorge to finally arrive at Roski Slap first arriving at what should have been a mini Niagara Falls with the boat coming right up to it but although it was good the pictures in our brochure showed just what it should be in like in spring.

The boat docked and we had an hour to explore, which unfortunately was not nearly enough. There were a number of water mills which used horizontal turbines rather than the vertical water wheels we are used to in the UK. Venturing further in search of the lake feeding the falls we saw the series of small falls called the Necklace by the locals with a boardwalk crossing it then we came to the lake which was so still and smooth like a mirror. By this time we only just had time to get back to the boat. There were signs to a cave but it meant a climb of over 500 steps which we were told would take at least twenty minutes each way so not possible. Back on the boat we had a straight voyage back seeing more things in the scenery and actually noticing just how small the Island was which had been occupied by the monks for hundreds of years. We were told in the talk earlier that it was just a lump of rock when they had arrived with no foliage but now after they had imported soil by boat over the years it was green and covered in trees and shrubs as you can see from the photo above.

Back where we started we caught our shuttle bus, after missing the first one because we were waiting at the wrong place. and finally arrived back at our motorhome for the short drive back to the camp site. Hot and tired we actually used the extremely clean site showers then had a meal in their restaurant, unfortunately as it was late in the season we were the only customers but they still produced an excellent fish meal for us at a very reasonable price. A very long but interesting day. and hopefully a curtain raiser for our next stop at Plitvic National Park where the falls are supposed to be even more spectacular..

Day 25 Saturday 03/10/2015 - Still 94162 on Speedo

Steve had quite a bit of paperwork to sort out for the business and important emails so we had a quiet day at the site where we had acceptable. Wi-Fi.. The Mateo forecasts rain for tomorrow so it will be a good day to travel on to the Plitvic Lakes