Slovenia

Slovenia is an amazingly picturesque country, lush and green, mountainous and plenty of valleys with rivers running through them. The capital was Ljubljana which was my first stop, a quiet capital with a nice old town and once again a castle on a hill! I spent a day or 2 relaxing here and drinking good coffee and eating some nice food before heading up to Lake Bled. This place is stunningly beautiful. Picture a massive lake with a church in the middle on an island, surrounded by mountains and having a castle overlooking the lake. It is stuff that fairytales are made of. I spent the days swimming in the lake, hiking around mountains, biking out to a gorge with white-water running through it. After 2 days here I made my way over the Kranjska Gora pass in the Julian Alps into the Soca valley for 4 days of action adventure activities at a campsite called adrenalin-cek. The campsite looked over the mountains and right in front of it was a emerald green river which was so cold we could chill our beers in it. After arriving here I put my stuff in my lean-to tent and then went off with an awesome bunch of Irish guys and girls who were on holidays and a couple of guys from England and we went canyoning. This is one of the most bizarre but fun things I have ever done. It involved hiking into a canyon with a creek running through it and then jumping off rocks, going down natural water slides, and climbing things as you make your way back down the gorge. It’s just like being a child again. Fortunately none of us broke our necks and we all survived the 12m vertical slide at the end!

The next few days saw us go white-water rafting on a boat that I was sure was going to sink, kayaking, mountain biking and climbing and eating a whole lot of fried cheese whether we wanted it or not (This goes very well with vegemite!!). Nights were spent sitting around the fire singing and as most of us were musically inept we could generally only manage a verse and the chorus of a song before forgetting the words. They also involved bush mojito’s and a whole lot of river cooled beer!

After 5 days here I said goodbye to my new friends and headed back to Ljubljana before catching an overnight bus to Split in Croatia.

For pictures click here.