Mljet National Park

Mljet (pronounced mmme-yet) Island National Park sits about an hour and a half's journey from Dubrovnik (by Hydrofoil). We looked at prices to get out there via the normal slow ferry (2 1/2 hours trip time) and lunch and national park entry fees, and decided it was worth having a bit more time on the island and go with the all inclusive hydrofoil 'tour' which was all inclusive for only 50 kuna more (about 5 pounds)! 'Tour' is very much in inverted commas, as it was more of a ferry trip out to the island, a brief timetable of when to be back at the hotel for lunch (and which hotel lunch would be served in, handing out of lunch and national park entry tickets) There was a reasonably informative talk though once we got to St Mary's island in the middle of the Large lake. Mljet Island National park covers some 3100 hectares of the western part of Mljet Island. It is basically a big bush reserve (more than 70% of the Island is bush, with a couple of lakes, named exceptionally originally: The Large lake (145 hectares, 45 m deep) and the Small lake (24 hectares, 29m deep)! The two lakes are actually sea water, with the large lake being linked to the sea by what used to be a small narrow, natural canal, and is now 30m long and 10m wide and 2.5m deep. This is thanks to the intervention of the former yugoslav president who decided he wanted to come into the large lake in his private yacht, so he had the bridge (for walkers) taken out and the canal widened. He then decided not to come to the island, making all of his renovations completely unnecessary!! Communist dictators eh? who would have one?!

The large and small lakes are also linked by a small canal, only a couple of metres wide and probably less than that deep (pictured left). In the Large lake, sits a small Islet with St Mary's church on it, and an old Benedictine Monastery (which has recently been handed back to the Benedctine's after it was converted to a hotel and restaurant by the Yugoslav dictator.) Restoration work has begun, but is being completed by just two monks, so might take another hundred years or so!!! You get to the island via boats - which are filled almost to sinking point... another example of where OSH would have a field day if the same venture were in NZ. All the tour boats we got on throughout Croatia were jammed with as many people as could fit on. Not that comfortable for the short journeys you take on them, but all part of the fun of being there, and if we do get to go back in the future Safety regulations will probably preclude such pratices (not to mention the church bell towers!).

Interestingly Mljet was originally known as Melita island, and there is a running debate between inhabitants of the Island of Malta and Melita as to which of the two islands St Paul the great Christian Apostle and Evangelist of the 1st century was shipwrecked on. Interesting because Melita/Mljet is right on the route St Paul would have sailed, where Malta is literally 100's of Miles away and off course for Rome where he was headed...

The Monastery complex is interesting enough - the various orders who have tried to make the island home over the past few centuries (there were others before the Benedictines) all had a bit of a rough time due to the fact that the island (Mljet/Melita) was on a major ancient sailing route from the East to the West. Hence the Monastery was raided and plundered by almost every big Sailing and warring faction over the course of many centuries. Due to the repeated plundering of Sacred objects etc, various orders erected huge inner and outer walls to protect the place (which didn't work). This makes for some interesting ruins nowadays. There are a few private chapels which are kinda cool, and a great terrace which looks out over the lake (see pic of Mez and I and Mez and Gwen). Would be a really beautiful place for a spiritual retreat... hmm if it wasn't for the tourists!! Not much to do there other than swim and wander around the island, which only takes about 20-30mins, maybe an hour if you're really slow and labour to take in the views!

Our time on Mljet kinda fet rushed all day which was a bit of a shame... Despite this, we did get to see a lot. All of which was exceedingly beautiful, but probably not as beautiful as Krka or Plitvice lakes, so because we had already been to those, we weren't nearly as impressed as we might have been if we hadn't and if we'd had a bit more time to relax and have a swim on the Island in one of the lakes. Lunch was fab though - a big (i mean BIG) buffet at a hotel near where the Hydrofoil leaves from, which meant the rest of the afternoon after lunch was quite relaxed. I went wandering along the Marina and found this boat, which I'm sure was from our original Croatian plan... Explanation needed.

We originally got interested in travelling through Croatia from watching a travel programme about it in NZ. I then stumbled across a website of a company that does Cycle tours and MTB tours through various places, one of which was Croatia. So we had planned to do a trip with this company this year, at the same time. Obviously when Abbey came along the MTBing trip went out the window, so I just looked at their itinerary and used part of that to formulate ours. I think this was the boat for the tour (basically the tour hops from island to island, setting you down to cycle around each island and explore it for yourself before heading to the next island - for more see http://www.globaladventureguide.com/ ) So that was kinda cool to see. Maybe we can come back and do that some time in the future - when Abbey is big enough to ride as well!

The Hydrofoil ride back was not nearly as pleasant as the ride out too the island, as the sea had got up a bit, so all those with weak tummies were constantly dashing out onto the deck to vomit over the sides, and the captain had to slow down, which made the misery last a bit longer. I was glad to retain my lunch... though did feel somewhat worried for it at one stage. We treated ourselves to a nice dinner once back on solid ground though, which more than made up for it! Cheers!