Day 19 - 10th November 2016

WOW what a great sleep in.  Steve slept for 12hours solid – he must have needed it!

We packed up and then downstairs right next door is an Illy Patisserie – man-o-man was it doing a roaring trade with the locals – we could barely make it to the counter, let alone be served. We were clearly not locals and the locals were jumping in ahead of us.

We were eventually served and we had 2 of the largest hot chocolates EVER!! OH WOW they were magnificent!!

Steve went back to the counter to order some croissants and a vanilla slice (thank god one of the wait staff spoke a bit of english to help Steve in his plight to order and pay), then we were back on our way to check out and say good-bye to Roberta and start making our way to the Slovenian border.

Well, the border to Slovenia was basically 5kms away! Ha ha ha – no check point, so we drove on in. We got onto a motorway – these things look new and are big and wide and clean and best of all, there is hardly anyone on them! And tunnels everywhere! They go for miles and miles, and they don’t leak and they don’t make you slow down to 40km an hour in them – they are great! (We should be learning a thing or two from these people!).

Slovenia looked pretty nice from what we saw. The countryside is very pretty. Luckily for Steve a lot of the restaurants were also advertising things in English, so he might be very lucky with the food side of things later. We were probably in Slovenia for about an hour only.

Before long we came to the border of Slovenia and Croatia. We were stamped out of Slovenia and then we moved to another check booth and we were stamped into Croatia.

We passed by the Adriatic Sea, and it was blue and vast and we could see a large island out there. The town or city we passed was quite “tuscan” in its style of terracotta roofs and the pencil pines everywhere – it was very pretty.

We felt the countryside changed fairly quickly from here. We passed the city and then turned inland into the forest area’s. If we were here in September, we would have been blown away by the colour. 99% of the forests here are deciduous, so all the trees lose their leaves. So today the forests looked kinda scrappy and bare. In September/October with the Autumn colour, they are gold & red. It would be amazing to see!

We drove and drove, and we seemed to climb high into the mountains. There was a light dusting of snow on some parts, but nothing like in the Dolomites. There were big overpass’s for the bears and wolves to cross over – just like what we saw when we were in Canada. There were bear signs and big fence’s along the freeways for them. Alas we did not see any bears or wolves (god knows I was looking for them!)

We went through two toll booths in Croatia. The first one cost us about 1 Euro, and the other were we drove for a few hundred kilometres was about 6 Euro. Not bad – in Australia a trip like that would have cost us a few hundred dollars with the way they charge! Lol

Finally we turned off the freeway and headed inland towards Plitvice Lakes. Hmmm, this is where you could tell you were in a different country. The style of architecture became very basic and poor. Most houses weren’t even rendered, and just left in the brick block. Some houses you could still see bullet holes in them from the war!

The villages became poorer and poorer as we drove in. Most homes looked derelict and abandoned. Such a shame.

The earth that had been ploughed looked so rich and fertile. We saw only corn fields planted, and whilst most “road side stalls” were selling home made cheese – we only saw 2 cows the whole drive over 80kms in this area! Oh and honey was also a big thing to sell.

We made it to Plitvice around 1pm, and we were greeted by our hosts mother. Her English was surprisingly good, whilst basic. Steve tried to have a conversation with her, but she knew enough to get the guests checked in and that was it.

She invited us to sit down and take a shot of “schnapps”! Awwhhh thats nice! BLOODY HELL – thats not like any Schnapps I’ve ever had – the damn thing almost blew my head off! It was more like Grappa than anything. It certainly was not sweet.

We met Bingo who is the dog – a Malamute, only 1 ½ years old, so still a baby! Lovely boy, very friendly, but they have to keep him chained up as he can be intimidating to guests who don’t like dogs – when he jumps up to say hello, he is very tall!!

Bingo is also there to keep the bears away! The bears usually only come around in summer, to the garbage bins during peak season, but the bears are not too much trouble as they run away. But don’t mess with Mum and her cubs though – mum is dangerous! The bears are now getting ready for hibernation, so we wont see any. Bugger.

We dropped our bags up into our balcony room. It was lovely. Exposed wood ceilings and the bathroom was very new. It was a small, but very neat guest room. There is everything you could need.  Best thing of all was the bed….OMG, its soft!!! YAY!! I am going to stay here for the next 2 days and not leave! Ha ha

But the lakes were calling as the weather today was good, but not so good for tomorrow, so we thought we better make the most of things. We were only going to case out the area and not take our cameras….yeah right, who are we kidding!!

We drove down to a little bridge we crossed earlier on the way in and parked. Right there was a gorgeous little cascade. So I had to photograph that.

We grabbed our camera bags and crossed the road and right there were the biggest main waterfalls. We were opposite them, which was great for photography. We were up really high too, so it was an interesting view to look down across at them- it’s a view not often seen. So many waterfalls – where do you start?

I have to mention here that the Schnapps had hit me hard by now. Blimey Charlie – I can hold my liquor, but this stuff, omg – has hit me like a freight train! I am giddy and dizzy. What a cheap date I am!

On one of the tracks we passed a guide who spoke awesome english. We showed him the photograph of the particular waterfall we would like to see. He said it was in the upper lakes, but that area was closed now. They have had a lot of rain in the past week or two and the boardwalks there are all under water. OMG - not only is there no colour and the tree’s are just sticks….we can’t even see the nice waterfall! Ugh – so disappointed. Never-mind, I am sure we’ll find plenty of things to see elsewhere here.

We hiked around the rocky hill for a while and then went back to the car to photograph the cascades, when Steve found another composition to photograph.  So beautiful!

A huge bus load of sight-seers all converged on where we were, when a guide came up and asked if we were professional photographers. I had to explain to him that the photography was just a hobby etc. He took a bit of convincing. You need permits to be able to shoot commercially here. It is still ruled by a lot of corruption etc, so money talks.

Once I finished speaking to the guide, I looked around and the huge bus load of tourists and no one had anything bigger than a point and shoot. Mostly camera phones. So our big cameras and tripods with filters looked very obviously “professional”. So we just have to be careful I guess.

It was then that a lovely lady – Rachelle from Hong Kong came to speak to us. I saw her hiking when we drove in originally to our accommodation – she’d walked a very long way to where we were now. She asked us how to get to Gate 1. We weren’t sure and we didn’t like to think she would be out there alone for many hours as it was now 3.30pm and the sun starts to get low at 4pm and sunset is at 4.30pm and its dark by 5pm.

So we all got into the car and we drove around to find Gate 1. OMG – the poor thing would have had to have walked another 12 kilometres to get there! So happy we were able to drive her to safety.

We checked at the Gate to buy a ticket, but we can only buy on the day we want to attend, so it means coming back in the morning.

Next to our apartment is another gate entrance. It is now closed for the winter season. So you could basically just get into the park without paying. They say they never check you for tickets especially at this time of the year, but knowing our luck they would single us out – especially with the big camera equipment, so we will do the right thing and pay. Its like 7 euro or something cheap, so no big deal.

We got back to the apartment where we were greeted by Carlo, the local host. His english is brilliant! We talked and Steve got the wifi organised. He organised dinner for us for tonight, it is fish!! Oh No….what the hell is Steve going to eat?? So I will eat the fish and Steve will have to eat the remaining croissants and chocolates we have.

We are the only guests staying here tonight. The apartments are really lovely and are somewhat “chalet” like in style. Carlo says we are likely his last guests for the season now, as the weather is turning and no one will come to stay.

Its the whole European thing…. Everything closes in November it seems and runs on empty again until Spring, unless you are in the alps and in the ski fields where you open back up for December. They all clearly make their money during peak season and have to limp through over winter. Must be a hard life, but a good one when you have a few months off a year! Apparently they can have over 15,000 visitors to the park a day in summer!!! They are trying to only let 8,000 in a day via a bill in government, but due to the corruption and money side of things, they doubt that will get passed through. I wouldn’t want to be here in peak summer – it would be insane. We had a lot of people in our photos today and the park was basically empty!

The sky lit up in a brilliant sunset – shame there was nothing to photograph, this was at 4.30pm and by 5pm it was pitch black. And it was cold…. Bloody freezing! I was colder now than I was up in the Dolomites at minus 6. Apparently it gets to minus 25 in winter and freezes the waterfalls and in summer it gets up to 35 degree’s! What a variety of temperatures!

I had a nanna-nap on the very soft bed and we went for dinner at 6pm. Poor Steve had to sit and watch, but not before Carlo came to greet us with some pre dinner Schnapps!

Oh No Thank You I pleaded with him, but he wasn’t taking no for an answer – he insisted, it was a “welcome to Croatia” drink. So Steve and I skulled a schnapps each! OMG!!

Carlo bought out a tray of bread with cheese and olives. Thank god for the bread – it helped soak up the alcohol! The cheese was just beautiful – made by Carlo’s neighbour and their one cow they have! YUMMY!! I might have to get me a cow when I get back home….

Carlo saw our shot glasses were empty so he came back to fill them up! No Thank You I said...but again, Carlo said NO – you will drink! So we had another glass. OMFG, this stuff is so hard to knock back. My head was basically blown off and my insides were dissolving. Steve thought it was the funniest thing to watch me skull this stuff. So that was 3 Schnapps for the day.

Then Carlo bought out my meal. A whole trout served with Mashed Potato (not sure what was in it...it was very buttery and there was green stuff – spinach perhaps?) - It was delicious! Also a big bowl of local salad – coleslaw of sorts. Delicious, but filling!

Carlo came out to fill up our Schnapps glasses again, and again I let him fill mine up, but this time I was NOT drinking it. Poor Steve had to skull 2 glasses!! ha ha ha – but Steve has obviously played this game before and the skill is to just let the drinks sit – don’t drink them otherwise the glass will be refilled.

Carlo then bought out some desert – a lemon cheesecake. Carlo even bought out one for Steve too! Then Steve had no choice but to drink the Schnapps again! Ha ha ha The schnapps is home made, and it is plum. They make 2 varieties here – plum and pear. The pear is divine apparently, but they had a very poor pear season this year due to frost, so plum it is.

Breakfast will be served for us at 9am – a glass for Schnapps…. NOOOOOOOO! Carlo was now having me on and he thought he was hilarious! Funny bugger. Breakfast will have a selection of cheese and salami’s and bacon and egg’s so Steve can at least eat something.

Carlo helped us with the park and where to find the waterfall we like. He isn’t 100% sure, but he said we must go in via Entrance 2, catch the ferry across to P2 and walk the 30mins around that area to find it. He said it isn’t where we were today. And he did confirm that area’s of the parks boardwalks will be underwater due to the rain. But the water can go down really quickly, so they might be good tomorrow, but there is no guarantee.  Especially now they are expecting rain - it is most likely to remain closed or parts underwater.

I hugged Carlo goodnight – I think he enjoyed it! My cheeks were glowing bright red now – Steve thought I looked hilarious with my glowing cheeks and very glazed over eyes. The schnapps didn’t seem to have any affect on him at all!

Now to bed and a sleep in till 8am! This is the life! Really on holidays now!

Not sure how to say Good Night in Croatian, so

Good Night Pletvice!

xxx