Croatia - Rabac to Karlobag

Plitvicka Jezera

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We headed inland this morning to the Plitvicka Jezera Lakes. It was really interesting to leave the coast and drive inland and see the villages and houses. The coast to date has actually been really barren and dry.
Very stoney beaches, and the islands we can see off the coast are completely barren with very little vegetation at all. We will wait till we get further south before we start island hopping. However, as we travelled inland we rode through a farming area and it was green and lush and lots of crops and fruit trees. We are eating lots of yummy peaches and nectarines!! Warwick found the ride quite frustrating as we went through a string a small villages (often only 1 or 2 houses) and strict speed limits 60kph, then 40kph - then back to 60 for 500m and 40 again. It was really hot and made it quite a long trip. This was quite a small back road we took, rather than the motorway, but the police were out in numbers. However we could see evidence of years of fighting through this area with houses pitted with gun shot holes, and buildings left derelict or burnt out. Many houses have patched their bullet holes, and many more have clearly been reclad and repainted recently.

The lakes area was amazing though and well worth the trip. We chose to do the 4-6 hour circuit, but being good kiwi trampers we did it in 3 ½ ! The lakes are a beautiful turquoise colour and start high up and then flow down through a series of waterfalls and terraces. A wooden boardwalk has been built for miles through the whole area as it is all wetlands underfoot - it was quite spectacular. The waterfalls are everywhere and - as waterfalls are - quite beautiful. There are thousands and thousands of fish in the lake system - don't know what kind and no fishing allowed. But thousands of them so we presume they are released into a river somewhere for food eventually. The water in the lakes was so clear you could easily see to the bottom - and not a spec of rubbish anywhere! We were surprised that there were no birds. Lots of water, lots of trees and bushes … and not a single bird call in 3 hours. Weird.

Anyway – we left there about 4pm and headed back to the coast - a quicker road with very few villages. But also no farming here – it was very dry and rocky. The drivers are so bad, Warwick followed another car for over an hour down the hill. He figured he would rather an oncoming vechicle coming up the hill on the wrong side of the road could take out the little white car in front of us before they had a go at us!

We stayed overnite on the coast at Karlobag in a tiny campsite - really just someone's backyard and they have built a toilet block on site. But the cleanest toilets seen to date !!!!! I know – there's still the squat blocks to come.... I'm not excited! As the shoreline is so rocky lots of towns have built concrete steps into the sea – and that is the case here. As we walked down to have a look at the water after pitching the tent I decided to put my toes in the water – not thinking concrete gets very mossy and slippery! The obvious happened. Oh well – might as well have a swim and watch the sun set before dinner!