Plitvice Lakes National Park...

WOW!!!

BIG TIME WOW!!!

Words can't really describe the Plitvice lakes national park. We had about four and a half hours drive to get from Pula to Plitvice, so we made a whole day of it, driving initially to Rijeka, about an hour and a half (if my memory serves me right) from Pula. Along the way you pass through a 5km long tunnel that goes through the top of one of the mountains (stunning views before and after, not so great views during, and probably not so fun if you're prone to claustrophobia). Rijeka is a great and modern wee city set on the coast at the end of the Istrian Peninsula (the land end, not the sea end, which is probably the start but such semantics get confusing!) Goal of Rijeka was to find me an optometrist that could do some prescription sunglasses in a hurry... in the end, after three days of brilliant sun and no sunglasses, I settled for the more expensive option and got some contacts instead and some non-prescription sunnies. Quite stylish too. At least that was my wife's opinion (which is really the only one that counts). After breathing that sigh of relief that one breathes after squinting consistently for three days and suddenly having glare-free vision restored, We had a bit of a wander around the city centre, through some markets, had some lunch, then decided to head for Plitvice. Again the drive was stunning, starting initally on the coast and winding around the dramatic landscape (at one point there was a 180 hairpin corner that went out on stilts over a section of the hillside that was practically a cliff - looked absolutely amazing - if a little scary. Sorry couldn't get a good enough photo of it as I was driving and the point we got to stop at was too far to zoom in on it!). Loads of Gorgeous wee towns off the side of the road (which stayed fairly high for a while, before dropping right to the water's edge to snake sleepily around the craggy coastline)

The view on the right is from a fort on top of the mountain range nearest to the coast, just before disappearing into inland Croatia. Just a stunning drive, and was quite happy to take a break from driving on heading inland. Turned out to be just the right time too as Mez doesn't appreciate windy hill roads so much and this one would put even the Akatarawa hill road to shame...

Inland Croatia is almost a different country. In the Wake of the homeland war Croatia has rebuilt and re-branded itself at a phenomenal pace. On the coast all the buildings are shiny and new and the roads immaculate, but disappear inland for a hundred miles or so and a very different Croatia emerges. The countryside is not so dramatic, as the mountains near the coast flatten into vast valleys covered with farmland and dotted with a few lonely trees and the odd clump of forest here and there. The towns are more sparse, less populated and there are loads of empty, shot up, and neglected houses, previously owned either by Bosnian Serbs who had to flee during the war and who still haven't returned, or by people who died in the war and have no family left to claim their property. Grim reminders of the recent past for sure. We passed a fair few Churches like this one, with it's Bullet strewn side, and mortar shelled roof. As almost inevitably seems to be the case with most wars, this one also had a religious element to it, with Catholicism being the major religion in Croatia, and Islam in Bosnia, I'm not sure what religion the Serbian Aggressors were affiliated with, but they took apart loads of Churches in Croatia, and Mosques in Bosnia. A real shame. Interestingly though, there were some towns completely spared, such as Medjugorge which sits in the middle of the mountains, not far from the major city of Mostar which had all its religious buildings decimated, along with its famous bridge, and was second only in damage to Sarajevo. If you didn't know (and I didn't) the homeland war followed the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989... In 1990 the Croats rejected communism at multi-party elections, and democratically elected their own government. The Serbian's wouldn't have a bar of it, so with the backing of the Yugoslav army and the Chetnics they attacked and conquered nearly one third of Croatia in 1991, and then Bosnia in 1992. The war continued through till the Dayton Agreement of 1995.

But enough about all that! Onwards went we, through the beautiful, yet scarred countryside... to eventually arrive at the Plitvice lakes National park. Usually it pays to do your homework, and I have to say our accomodation here was spot on the money - about 200m down the road from one of the two entrances to the park (Go the internet!). In saying that however we drove past accomodation for as low as 100kuna pppn (about 10 pounds) which was a little less than the €20 pppn we paid but who's quibbling over €5? We had nice accomodation, right beside the park, which meant that after a great meal at the restaurant recommended by the locals, we headed for bed... A random insert here about the language... Croatian is HARD!! despite our diligent efforts at buying a phrase book and vaguely glancing at it now and again, after a few days we had only really mastered one word. Hvala = Thankyou. However my trump card was ordering beer - I had discovered a local variety in Pula that I liked, so attempted from then on to sound like I had at least made some effort with the local lingo, by ordering Karlovacko (Car-low-vatch-oh). Unfortunately for me, nowhere else we went in the ENTIRE country had it, despite the advertising signs everywhere which indicated (at least to me) that it was one of the two major beers in the country!!!... so i was forced, rather glumly, and with language tail firmly between my legs to request 'the O one' - Ozujsko... how on earth do they expect people to pronounce that... really - I couldn't even understand the waiters, no matter how many times they rabbitted off the name to me. Nevermind. One day i'll have more time on hand to master another language. Did have some exceedingly funny moments throughout the country trying to explain or ask, or just chat in very non conventional sign language - all good fun, and mostly the croats, (and all of the young ones) speak very good English, which made our lives easier.

We woke to a chilly morning in the mountains, and after a quick brekkie, headed for the entrance to the park to make the most of the day. Totally glad we did, as the route designed to take 4-6 hours we managed to stretch out to just over 7 hours. In our defence, we did have a pram, and a child to stop and feed at random places. And prams don't easily go up hundreds and hundreds of stairs. All part of this parental learning curve.

I'm gonna let the pictures do the talking mostly here, cos my words won't even nearly do it

justice. God is definately a creative ole' chap! And when he lets that genius go (at various places across this backyard of ours we call Earth) He gets some breathtaking results. Plitvice lakes are 16

lakes on various levels,

interconnected by a series of waterfalls ranging in height from 78m (see right) to only a few cm (Ok that is probably more a rapid than a waterfall... whatever the smallest defineable height of a waterfall is!), and linked also by travertine bridges. This stunning spectacle is made accessible by an incredible series of interconnected board walks that take you around some lakes, across others, beside some waterfalls, over the top of others, snaking through caves, and through some of the most beautiful forest i've yet seen.

Travertine is the rocky by-product of dissolved calcium carbonate which has been being acted on by a few types of Algae. The Calcium carbonate comes from the limestone cliffs all around. Rain hits the ground and dissolves it to form carbonic acid which burrows holes through the limestone and carries its byproducts all the way down to the lakes where they are recycled by the alage. The Algae is particularly sensitive, and destroyed by the presence of any organic material in the water, hence there is no swimming allowed in any of the lakes, so as to preserve this space for future generations. Difficult indeed when it is 30 degrees plus and you're walking next to such gorgeous clear fresh water. But we managed it. Abbey unfortunately couldn't and so to alleviate her cries, we allowed her to dip her toes... She was much happier after that, poor tot just didn't handle when temperatures got above about 30 degrees.

There was one memory I will never ever forget, and which probably goes down for me as the single highest point of the whole trip. (Amid many high points!) In the midddle of the lakes there is one gigantic lake which you can elect to walk around... or take a boat across (pic of me in front of the boat). Having walked all morning, we elected to take the boat option, and as we had Abbey and the pram, we got seated on the very front of the boat (with the BEST views). About half way across the lake Abbey woke up and started to cry, so to avoid spoiling the experience for any of those allergic to baby crying, Mez picked her up and put her over her shoulder. 'Great' I think to myself, this will make a magic shot of Abbey, set against this stunning natural paradise! So I got up to take the photo from behind Mez and as I turned around I noticed that almost everyone (about a hundred people) on the boat was looking at Abbey, rather than the incredible UNESCO world heritage site around them, She had at least 3 video cameras trained on her, goos and gaas all around, with a couple of 'oh she's beautiful - well done!'(s), and countless cameras clicking and flashing away. I tell you, it was an exceedingly humbling and pride inducing moment for this dad, to consider all these people who had travelled from all over the world to see the amazing sights of this National Park, were most drawn to my Beautiful daughter.

I turned right back around and sat back down and had a wee moment thanking God for that moment and had a sense right there of just how much our heavenly Father delights in his creation, especially the live ones! Awesome memory. Just Awesome.