Krka National Park

The Next day we woke early and got on the road to head to Krka National Park. I Have to say I was generally stoked with our selection of parks to visit - Both Plitvice and Krka were outstanding. Mljet suffers in our memory because it came after these two and was not nearly as spectacular - but was also entirely beautiful. There are of course other National Parks we didn't see - but we saw enough to convince us it would be worth returning for more... we'll have to bring the kids next time (cos by the time we can afford to come back there will almost certainly be plural(s) of the current kid!)
Krka was made a national park in 1985 and is (apparrently) ornithologically one of the most important regions in Europe with 222 species abounding. We saw a few pretty ones too (birds that is, for those who don't appreciate such a gigantic word... I had to put it in though!) Don't think i'll ever be a bird watcher though. In addition to lots of birds, there are also lots of Markets near the entrance to the park, in Skradin. One of which sold me a cool hat, which will likely feature a lot on my head from this point on in photos! The Waterfall pictured is called Skradinski buk and has 17 different steps with a total height of 45.7m... The huge width of it made it far more impressive however than even the tallest waterfall we'd seen the previous day... and the fact that you can swim at the bottom of it was a big plus. As there are no travertine falls below this one, the Croats are obviously not so worried about the presence of organic matter in the water... And being able to swim under such beautiful falls certainly heightens the attraction of the park.

The series of falls was also home to the first ever (worldwide) operational hydroelectric station. I say operational because there was one built before this one, on the Niagra river in the states, that was opened two days before this one but it didn't get operational till well after the Croatian one in 1896. Good ole' Croats for green energy eh? way back in 1895! and it generated power for the major town of Sibenik (nearby) up until the first world war. (I don't think it was destroyed in the war, just allowed to fall into ruin and then later dismantled).

We took a boat ride from the town of Skradin to get to these falls, then wandered our way up the 17 waterfall steps (there were a lot more human steps than that...) to the top where we took another boat ride across another huge lake (which is really more a river than a lake...) The Krka River opens to lake Visovac, with the islet of Visovac at its centre. Situated on the islet is a beautiful Franciscan monastery which you get a bit of a tour through. I do mean a 'bit' of a tour - the boat, with it's destination being Roski slap (another waterfall) at the end of the lake, stops only for thirty minutes, and that includes the whirlwind tour of the monastery! The Monastery had a moving photographic exhibition of lots of the Catholic churches destroyed and desecrated during the homeland war. Powerful images. The Monastery also had a museum/treasure trove with lots of exceedingly old books and bits of saints and old chalices and patons and other sacramental garb etc etc. Cool photos. Nice church too. I don't think I quite get the fascination with having bits of saints in the house. Kinda macabre. But I think what impressed me most were the pumpkins... one of the things that lots of monasteries seem to do is grow their own food. I think these friars were specialist pumpkin growers or something - they had a few huge ones on display, and I snuck a quick preview at some up and coming ones they had growing on a VINE! i've never seen pumpkins grown on a vine before, so I was quite excited (as i'm sure you can imagine...) totally a highlight!!!

So after the monastery the rest of the boat ride was really just a formality, going to see yet another waterfall. After two days of stunning views, i've got to say that Roski Slap was a let down, but we took a nice photo of Mez and Abbey by it anyway (see below). Then the boat dropped us off at this little townish place that had a cafe, a place to swim and some old traditional stuff. There was a woman in traditional costume/clothes doing some weaving - and you could of course buy the bags she was weaving, and some old grinding stones, the most interesting of which was one that was used to grind cornflour. I guess by the name, I should have guessed that cornflour came from corn, but the traditional grinder was really cool! Dried kernals dropped down into the centre of a massive stone that was spinning inside an even more massive bowl. Of course the kernals were then ground into a very fine powder... or flour. So why is our cornflour white then eh? instead of the pleasant light yellow that this freshly ground stuff was?? Anyway... service at the cafe was excessively slow, so despite the fact that you were allowed to swim there, we never got a chance to because we were waiting on our dried bread and slightly hardened cheese. I tell you, no amount of hunger could make that taste good. But the lemonade was downed in a flash. Then it was back to the top of the other waterfall, and a quick scoot down the hill to where we were allowed to swim under the waterfall. I say quick, because the day was one of the more sweltering ones, where you dash from shady spot to shady spot and really long to throw yourself in the water all day. The more perceptive readers may have noticed a distinct lack of cute little dress on Abbey - which was because the poor wee lass was suffering a bit (yellow sheet thingy was moistened to provide some cooling...) Fortunately for us, the boat had just enough noise and vibration to put her to sleep, but as soon as we got off she let us know that she was displeased with the status quo, so we had to get her to the place of cooling and fast. Truth be told, she screamed like a blighter when I first dipped her bum in the water, but the ensuing few dips she calmed down a bit and by the time she was out of the water, dried off and a new nappy applied she flaked out for the rest of the afternoon in her pram... There's a great lesson there about knowing exactly what the wee one needs - in this case cooling off, which she initially didn't like, but which cooled her enough to get comfortable and be able to sleep. Mez and I also managed a dip to cool off - and was fabulous to be able to swim right out till you could feel the spray from the waterfall (it was roped off so people couldn't disappear under it...) Then we headed back for Skradin, where we had some dinner, and played in some markets... I toyed with buying this exceedingly cool helmet, but then realised I would also need to buy a scooter to go with it (and I didn't have enough Kuna for a scooter as well!)... retiring for the night was bliss and just a couple of kilometres down the road, which after a litre of the local 'o' beer and another failed attempt at ordering Karlovacko passed almost in a blink! (mez was driving, and i'm sure my slightly tiddly self made it seem longer for her!!) As they say in Croatia: "good appetite"! (their very literal translation of bon appetit!)