More rain today on my last walking day. I went to Zelenci today which is a wetland nature reserve between the villages of Podkoren and Rateče, west of here. Very pretty, even on a wet day, and a hungry bird was not distracted by my presence (see photo). Very cold here today (top of 10 today) and the bonus has been that we got our first snow up in the mountains.
Walking tourism is very well organised here, with excellent signage and corresponding map available. The hotel has also been very good. It is Kranjska Gora's largest hotel, so generally caters for groups. After my burnt pizza fiasco I ate dinner in the hotel a few times and the price and quality has been very good. One night they literally had chunks of shark on the menu - I've not seen that before. The restaurant only has a buffet as it caters for organised groups, with their meals included as part of their package.
I will have to come again as there is still a lot more walking (and cycling) to do in this region! Back to Piran tomorrow.
Hello, today's theme is rain, because that's what it has been doing all day. Nevertheless, I went on a short walk to Jasna Lake, to the south of Kranjska Gora which is only 30 minutes' away. I walked mainly on forest paths (along the side of the Pišnica River) but that didn't stop me from getting wet as the rain was fairly strong. Unsurprisingly not many people at the lake which is usually packed. I saw a dog house on the lake which appeared to be for swimming dogs (picture below)...or was it for ducks? Anyway, here are some photos (sans mountains because of the low cloud!)...
Hello, today's walk was supposed to be a bit easier but there was a lot of up and down. I still hurt from the waist down. Anyway, it was to the Martuljek waterfalls - there is a lower one and a higher one. The waterfalls are about 4km east of Kranjska Gora and are located in a spectacular valley, On the way there I took a nice, but not flat, forest path. First, I walked up to the higher of the falls. On the way I saw a baby's dummy hanging from a tree. I don't know why you would need to drag a baby up there. I don't think I got the best view of the falls as I skipped the last bit of rock climbing that was involved. Then it was back down, past a chapel, to a mountain farm hut. No coca cola but they had some very sweet homemade apple juice. Then it was down to the lower falls that were truly spectacular. I came across a lot of foreigners coming up on these trails and they seemed unperturbed by or oblivious to the thunder and increasing cloud. On the way back to Kranjska Gora I walked along the bike rail trail were I saw an interesting sight: a rider on a mountain bike in the "aero" position holding on by the forks. I wonder whether Chris Froome will be adopting this innovative method to go faster. Knucklehead. Anyway, as I was getting back it started raining and has been raining ever since. The weather forecast for the next two days is not good, so my adventures may be somewhat curtailed before I head back to Piran.
Hello. Today my walk was from Rateče again (where I caught the bus from Kranjska Gora) but this time I went across the other side of the main valley into the Planica Valley (where the ski jumps are). I then went up to the Vitranc Mountain (1638 metres) - where there were spectacular views back to where I started and also Tromeja (yesterday's walk) as well as the Planica Valley with its big mountains. The path was quite good but there were quite a number of trees down across the path, especially higher up - which required some limbo dancing. I then walked off the plateau (it's a ski area in winter and a chairlift operates in summer for part of the way up) and down to Kranjska Gora (where there were good views down into the valley, including Kranjska Gora). I intended on walking up to the higher Ciprnik mountain but the weather wasn't looking great and either was the last part of the trail up there, I turned around after 10 minutes and I am glad I did as the walk down to Kranjska Gora was very steep, loose and took a long time. Definitely a path not to be on in bad weather. Looking back when I got down, it looked really dark up where I was. But I really pitied the people coming up that track. It's a killer.
Another hard day's walking and thank goodness there were huts on the path which had coca cola. I can now confirm it's a sports drink (for me anyway).
