A day to the falls

Up earlier than we would've liked considering the state we were in didn't really seem as bad as it should have. Seemed to be the only people awake as we walked back into the palace looking for our tour group. Managed to find them just in time and delayed them by a minute waiting for some really bad takeaway coffee. The tour group walked back through the square of last night's revallry. All the spilt wine had been cleaned up. It was empty and quiet. No doubt patiently awaiting a new crowd. It's hard to imagine that every night they get such a highly charged group from downunder that took control as effectively as the night before. However we can only assume that the place has special qualities and magical things happen there all the time. Our small group tour bus looked fancy unfortunately the suspension was failing and the seats were more cramped than a Ryanair jet (which is really saying something). Our guide was quite witty and insightful. It was comforting that most of the items and highlights that he mentioned that Croatia has to offer we had already sampled over the last week. It took 3 hours drive to get to the Plitvice National Park. In doing so we passed into another region which is predominantly rural and as such doesn't have the luxury of the tourist dollars flowing in. Apart from the lakes of course. This is well set up to cater for 20,000 visitors a day. They can either be bussed from one end to the other, take a slow boat across key points and or do what we did and walk around. Closely followed by a snuffling gentleman who couriously looked and sounded like a pug we emerged from the bus immediately realising that once again we'd failed to do our homework. In this case it was the fact that this is a different climate.

Significantly colder. So whilst we'd bought swimming gear, everyone had bought warm clothing. 40,000 legs. 4 in shorts. Oh well. Being the tough downunderers we are we grinned and beared it. Hopefully no one noticed when the grins turned into grimaces.

The park has a very unusual geology where algy and calcium build up to create a series of natural walls which invariably create waterfalls. Lots of them. With crystal clear water lakes behind them. So what would normally be a valley with a river flowing at the base is now a significant tourist destination. To cater for the mass of humanity that need to capture every angle, perspective, light change, water colour shift, tree type and duck so they can either show the folks back home how clever their devices are or make them jealous about the fact that they are yet to join the touring juggernaut, they have constructed a network of interconnecting wooden pathways. At times these looked extremely dodgy however they did seem to hold up OK. Some were astutely placed to have the cascading torrents flow directly below the creaking planks. Needless to say, we took heaps of photos during a our 4 hour, 7 km hike around the main areas.

The trip back got very interesting as we stopped for lunch between 3 & 4. This meant that not only did the coughing in the seat close behind increase, the alcoholic restocked his beer supply, the snorting pug up front kept on regurgitating his phlem, someone else's goulash was boiling away and building pressure - creating a delightful aromatic effect though their escape valve. Then the seat in front of the blogger somehow found a recline button. Prompting a startled yell, and a sarcastic remark. As the seat was not put back, a war of attrition ensued with the recipient in the seat continuously being kneed in the back...for the next 2 hours. Some people are either just plain dumb, ignorant, rude, purposefully obnoxious or possibly all combined. On the bright side the blog got written during the journey. Even if it did take sore knees to achieve it. Just hope that coughing is not contagious as I'm sure obnoxiousness isn't. Back to the roof top den after sunset for packup (including bringing the washing in off the complicated series of pulleys), dinner of the lunch we purchased but didn't need (another lapse in research), wind down, blog construction and getting ready for the next leg of the journey.