The Balkans

Upon Liam Hairs' recommendation, I found myself staying at a hostel that catered specifically to hikers, with the intention of summiting the highest mountain in Montenegro. Liam never made it to the peak because of the snow that was still covering the mountain when he visited Žabljak, so I wasn't entirely sure what I was in for. During a stringent and thorough briefing from Alex, one of the brothers who runs the hikes, we set off on our adventure. The briefing included some incredibly useful information, such as which paths to take to avoid dying, where to die if we did die so our bodies would never be found (apparently this saves a lot of paperwork), and what to do if we came across a dead body. Thinking these were just a series of macabre jokes, we laughed it off. That was until Alex explained that an Australian a few years earlier had found the skull of a Singaporean woman who had died somewhere on the mountain and had never been found. The Aussie had wandered off the trail, found the skull and apparently thought it would make a great souvenir, so he brought it back to the hostel. Alex was particularly frustrated about the paperwork that followed. Realising he was, in fact, not taking the piss, the obvious question was how many people actually die on the mountain. His answer? Fifty-six people in the last ten years. Seeming like a relatively low number, we figured we probably wouldn't be one of them and set off.

With all of this incredibly useful information now in our heads, we began our journey. Despite having to spend two days in Podgorica waiting for a space to open at the hostel, Žabljak was incredibly quiet. I only had one other person staying in my six-person dorm, and despite Bobotov Kuk being one of the most popular hikes in Montenegro because of its short hiking season, only three of us were heading up that day. There was me, a complete hiking rookie; another Australian girl, Zara, who was also a rookie; and an Englishman who was so quick that we never even learnt his name. I was incredibly grateful to have at least one other person around my skill level to tackle the hike with, because the climb was going to be far more treacherous than anything I'd attempted before. The first hour and a half didn't give us any indication of what was coming. The trail was relatively flat and cruisy, with only minor rises.

Eventually, though, we got our first proper view of the enormous mountain rising above a collection of already massive peaks. That had to be Bobotov Kuk. Luckily, we soon reached a lake where we could stop for a quick swim before beginning the final ascent. Out of curiosity, we checked the maps app to see how long it expected the next section to take. The next 470 metres was going to take us one hour and 50 minutes. That's roughly 0.25 km/h. Looking up and seeing people who looked like tiny dots climbing what appeared to be almost vertical walls hundreds of metres above us made me feel slightly sick. But I'd been warned.

So we began the proper ascent. The hike essentially broke into three sections: the flat beginning, the first ascent and the final ascent. The first ascent was that 470-metre climb, and it was brutally hard. We were scrambling over rocks and walking at ridiculous angles, forcing Zara and me to stop for regular breaks. The one hour and 50 minutes we'd been quoted had seemed impossible. In the end, it took us even longer. About halfway up, we ran into the Englishman who had started the hike with us. He was already on his way back down and looked like he hadn't even broken a sweat. It turned out he was an ultramarathon runner and an avid hiker. That made us feel slightly better about ourselves. While he was on track to be back at the hostel around lunchtime, we still had the hardest sections of the mountain ahead of us.

We powered through and reached the beginning of the final ascent. This section was shorter but even more vertical. At this point, I genuinely questioned whether I would have continued if I had been doing the hike alone. As we climbed higher, the terrain became increasingly treacherous. Eventually, we reached a section where a rope had been installed to help hikers zigzag up the final part of the mountain. There was barely a foot of rough ground between us and a sheer 200-metre drop, followed by another few hundred metres of slightly less steep terrain. I clutched that rope for my life and avoided looking down. The best we could hope for was that nobody started coming down while we were going up. If they did, one of us would have to backtrack and find somewhere to let them through. Luckily, we made it through without any issues.

That gave us a brief sense of achievement, before we realised there was still another ascent ahead. This section involved loose rocks and people coming in the opposite direction, making the climb even more awkward. It was brutal, but when we reached the top, all exhaustion and fatigue left the body. It was an incredibly clear day, and from the summit, we could see kilometre after kilometre of mountain ranges stretching across multiple countries and completely different landscapes. We stood there admiring the view and looking back at the route we'd just conquered, trying to comprehend how we'd somehow managed to get ourselves up there. Seeing the tiny specs in the distance and was both rewarding and daunting to think about. Then we saw something else humbling and interesting, A stray dog. Somehow, this dog had made it to the highest peak in Montenegro with us. Given that we'd needed ropes to pull ourselves up near vertical cliffs, I have absolutely no idea how this dog managed it. The mystery of the Montenegrin Mountain Dog remains unsolved. At one point, she sat on the edge of the cliff looking out over the landscape appearing as though also to admire the landscape sprawled out before her.

After spending some time on the summit and having some lunch, we decided it was time to start heading down. Getting down was arguably more treacherous than getting up.

We now had to deal with loose rocks and people travelling in the opposite direction, and if we slipped, it was going to be much harder to stop ourselves. Still, we'd made it this far and had no choice but to head down. I think I was running largely on adrenaline because we ended up storming down the mountain. It was also on the descent that we started noticing some of the plaques commemorating people who had died on the climb. Some of them were incredibly young. It was a pretty sobering reminder of just how dangerous the mountain could be. Fortunately, we'd already made it through the most dangerous sections, and we continued down towards the lake.

At this point, Zara desperately needed to use the toilet, which was a much bigger problem for her than it was for me. This hike was particularly poorly suited to that problem. There were no trees, no real cover - just endless rocks and grass. Her best option was to find a large boulder and hope nobody could see her, although the people still standing at the top of the mountain probably would have had a pretty good view. She decided to hold on until we reached the lake. I could tell how desperate she was because she absolutely stormed down the mountain, racing towards the water.

After another rest and some food, we began the final part of the hike: the flat beginning, which was now the end. For some reason, we expected this section to take around 30 or 40 minutes. We were very wrong. I don't remember exactly how long it took, but it was painful. Without the excitement of the hike or the adrenaline from the descent, it dragged, and dragged. Despite having walked and talked almost the entire day, we eventually reached the stage where neither of us had much left to say. We just silently dragged our feet towards the finish. Sections of the trail we'd completely forgotten about seemed to keep appearing, each one bringing another wave of disappointment.

Finally, we made it back to where we'd started. Except, of course, it wasn't quite the end. We still had to get back to the hostel. We tried hitchhiking from the car park but had no luck. Eventually, we decided to start walking towards Žabljak and try to flag down a car along the way. For whatever reason, though, absolutely nobody seemed to be driving in our direction. After another 15 minutes of walking, we started contemplating getting a taxi. Then, thankfully, a German couple stopped and offered us a lift. They dropped us at the hostel, where we stumbled inside as shattered remnants of the people who had left that morning. We had long showers and tried to recover before making our way to the communal area out the back.

And that's where the day got even stranger. Someone had checked into the hostel who looked incredibly familiar. He reminded me of a kid who had been in my common room back in high school. I didn’t think much of it given how rural this place was and how far away from Australia we were. Then I noticed he was wearing Caloundra Lighthouse footy shorts. That meant it had to be him. Riley Waugh. The little kid from PLC. I had somehow travelled halfway around the world and bumped into someone from my old high school in the mountains of Montenegro.

Eight of us headed down the road to find a cheap meal. It was my first time trying goulash, although I'm not sure I got the full experience because it essentially tasted like beef stroganoff. After dinner, we headed back to the hostel for some much-needed sleep. The rest of the guys had their big summit attempt the following day, so it was time to recover. As for me, I had just completed one of the hardest and most rewarding things I'd ever done. And I had the hundreds of photos to prove it. Picking just 20 for this entry was almost impossible.Read more