I have decided that this lounging around thing is all very well, but I likely won’t be in Croatia again soon and I had better make the most of my time here. Thus, I decreed that we would be visiting a national park. I selected National Park Krka as the lucky recipient of our presence. Having been blesed with hind sight, I would have made a day trip of it. However, not being blessed with foresight, we set off to the Krka region to camp for three days and visit the park. We made our way via bus to Camp Marina, which is a couple of kilometres from the national park. We descended from the bus to find ourselves in trailer park country. We hadn’t realized that no one sane actually camps there for more than one day. This is because there is nothing there. Camp Marina (like Camp Krka next to it) is a one star campsite in a one horse town. Actually, the campsites are the town. There is no shop at the campsite. The nearest shop is three kilometres away. The woman from the campsite told us two, but she was wrong. It was three. This turned our doable four km walk into a six km slog. We walked six km to get groceries. When we got to the shop the selection was poor. The restaurant at the campsite was closed at lunch time and managed to confuse our supper orders. Busses are infrequent. The campsite is clearly geared towards mobile home campers, who bring everything that they need with them. The nicest thing about the campsite was the showers. The water was hot and the pressure was good. We spent a relatively uncomfortable first day at Camp Marina doing admin on our computers.
Trailer park purgatory at Camp Marina:
The next day we went to the park. We walked there, of course. Just a couple of kilometres. On the way, we discovered what I believe to be block houses from the war. I can't believe that this country was viciously at war for its independence from Yugoslavia, less than twenty years ago.
N climbing anything he can out of frustration at not having cliffs:
The Krka national park is worth a visit, for the novelty of it. It is situated around the Krka river, which flows through a karst landscape. Layman’s description: the water is heavily laden with minerals. The minerals leach out of the water and into the plant life (algae in this case.) Apparently this happens in many karst rivers, but in Krka the petrified plants (called travertine) have formed themselves into a set of seven beautiful waterfalls.
Travertine falls without the water:
Wooden paths have been constructed and tourists get to walk an eight hundred metre course about the park and look at the lakes and the falls. I shall let their beauty speak for itself:
The best part was swimming in one of the lakes below the lowest falls. I am the rightmost small blob in the water:
There are other areas in the park apart from the travertine falls, but we didn’t feel like coughing up even more money for a boat ride to get there. Having walked, gawped and swum, we left. Well, we walked back to Camp Marina. I reckon we clocked up more walking distance in the two days at Krka than we did in the ten preceding days at Omis.
We couldn’t handle another day in trailer park purgatory, so we cut our stay short. This morning we left Camp Marina and made our way to national park Paklenica. We are staying in Camp Marko, which is one km from the entrance to the park. The vibe here is much nicer than Camp Marina. There is a kitchen, so we will be able to cook again. Well, I will be able to cook. N will be able to pretend that he is incapable of cooking and suggest that I cook…
The reason we have come to Paklenica is the climbing. Paklenica is reputed to have some of the best climbing in Europe. N is refusing to believe that Croatia will be able to compete with Spain and France in terms of quality of climbing. Hopefully Croatia will prove him wrong! Will keep you posted….
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