Making memories

Friday 15/06/2018 Apartments Cirjak 411 Sveti Petar na moru, Sveti Petar, 23207, Croatia

My day started at 3.30 am with a bang a literal bang into the wall just outside our bedroom door... I walk straight into the wall of a cement pillar with full speed ahead, and busted up my nose big time... blood everywhere, still not 100% I haven fractured it, but now I look like Miss Piggy with a huge dressing on it .... I put the dressing in to 1 stop the bleeding and 2 help to heal it as it split along m operation scar line from where I had my cancer op!!! Great! I am alive to tell the tale, but such a stupid thing to do... I was heading to the loo half asleep and just buggard I know what was thinking, but bang hit the wall with full impact....no where near the door really... had to wake John, blood everywhere.... then the task if repairing what I could..
Lucky I have a pretty good First Aid it... trouble is so much of it is getting old now, many of th dressings due to age are just falling apart.. but managed to fiddle around with what I had and got it to stop bleeding and keep the plaster on the nose...

So morning comes I really had very little sleep after that, so felt a bit tired but other than that not too bad considering I nearly knocked myself out....... had our breaky then off to the KrKa National Park, past Sibenik.... the drive there was interesting in that the hills and landscape are all limestone rock, with sections of red dirt cleared to grow veggies... where no veggies it’s either grape vines or hundreds of olive trees... the ground darned if I know how must be as fertile as... like Crete same thing... ugly landscape but unreal fruit and veg grown with millions of Olive trees... fascination to be honest it really is..
We crossed over the KrKa River past a NP box and just around the crn was a guy waving us into his car park, so in we drove, not many cars wow how did we manage that.,,, Cost $10 kuna = $2 pretty good, but then and you didn’t have to... you get a coffee from the guy running his cafe where he lets the NP people park cars... it suited us as we wanted a cuppa anyway....
Kym the guy who owns it, from Denmark very chatty and friendly, told us the ins and outs. Best way to do it best way to get ripped of and if we survive when we return he will have an ice cold beer waiting for John...to pay for of course...

He gave us instructions on how to get to the ticket office in the main town...a bit of a walk along the river across a small bridge into the main centre of Skradin... another totally quaint village with a huge fortress Knin on the hill in the cute of the town... past all the tourist stores onto a yes we should have known a massive line up to get tickets... the ticket included a Ferry trip up river to the main part of the falls... Kym the cafe owner suggested we either walk to the falls about 3-4 k and get the ferry back or do the opposite... we were going to do the first option, then changed our mind and decided on doing the boat ride first... just as we were lining up another Aussie women very talkative ended up just behind us... her husband had gone to the ticket office while she waited in line to get on the boat... sensible idea...we ended up sitting with them on the Ferry ride up the river... they were on 2 months holiday, heading to Split then onto a cruise ship for 7 days along the coast to Dubrovnik......lucky ducks going on a boat... anyway by the time the boat load had ended we knew their ins Nd outs... he was a school teacher on long service leave,,, shave had quit her job...

Once off the boat we only saw them once again.... we quickly discovered that even though technically the tourist season doesn’t start until tomorrow the hoards had arrived... my glory talk about a dog eat dog situation.... everyone is out to push you out of the way so they can get there first... if it wasn’t for the sheer beauty of this place I would have left ASAP. But the sheer beauty of these falls was truly astounding which lead us on and on around , the walkway to all the different sections of this massive Travetine which is a phenomenon for a surface water course, of the Dinaric karst..... which rarely has waterfalls in its course but fir some unknown reason a KrKa NP has, making it unique... Travertine is the building of mosses and Algeria that creates various geomorphological firms... all sounds double Dutch but apparently this is a unique area... so there you go...
Wha eve caused it is is amazing and well worth seeing even with the hordes...
This was only on section of the massive park p, we had planned to see it all,but with the sheer volume of people it made it very slow getting around, this slowing us down to the point of only being able to complete this section...

In the boardwalk it was just full on with toy groups, school groups, family groups, traveling groups all wanting to see each special point of interest... mingled into the midst of the water course were heaps of old stone buildings turned into something for the tourist... local ladies along the oath selling their wears..And of course all the different plant species, to try and take in amongst the 1,000’s thronging along...

It was in amongst all this goings on, that I had a little altercation again... this time John had gone ahead of me and was no where to be seen... I was on a little bridge above a waterfall that was about 10-12 feet, 3-4 metres down, I had just taken a pic with my phone was putting it away in my little over the shoulder..when it missed the bag flew past my hand straight through the bottom rial of the bridge down below into at first I thought it was in the waterfall... I just died... then panicked, looking for John but then in a flash decided I had to climb down over the edge of the bridge to see it I could find the phone.... at this point there wasn’t a soul on the bridge.... I had no sooner climbed over and started to climb down when I got stuck in all the thorny bushes and there were 100’s I was literally surrounded by them, and as I tried to move I got stuck even further... but I only had a window of time so I looked into take off my hat and glasses as they were in the way, some guy put his hand over to take them and as I looked up and all these eyes 👀 were peering back at me must have been about 30 sets of eyes... I still had to keep going on the mission, but the further I tried to get down the side of the bank leading to the waterfall the more I became untangled in the brush!
The my scale bemoan totally entangled as well,so I had to get it off from my neck the more I tried to get it off the more thorns took a hold of it and weren’t going to let it go... I managed to get it off and gave that too the man... all this time I had to hold on to the footing of the bridge otherwise I would have fallen backwards down the straight down slope into the waterfall... I finally freed myself enough to bend forward to where I thought my phone was, I could see what I thought was the screen on, but on touching it I realised it was just a piece of paper.... I was also at this point praying like mad again for the Lords help that I didn’t topple into the waterfall, if I had off I really don’t know if I would have survived as it was a big waterfall with a pot of power pushing the eater through to the lower section... so holding on with my fingers, I tried again to feel what was a very small muddy ledge the only bit of dirt I could see and as I felt under the bushes I had pushed my hand back as far as it could go there I actually felt my phone... I couldn’t believe it was actually still on a ledge and not in the falls... I tell you praise God we’ll and truly by all,accounts that phone should have been gone... now I realised it was there I really had a hec of a time trying to hold on with one hand and grab the phone with the other, all the time praying I didn’t fall from where I was... really when I look back I may not have fallen too much further due to the thorny bushes holding me that now I think about it was my saving grace... for with out them I really do think I would have fallen into the waterfall base... This whole time which seemed ages but must have only been a few minutes if that the man above was trying to do his best to see I was ok... once I finally grabbed my phone he knelt down and grabbed it from me to keep it safe... as I tried to haul myself back up the man put himself a risk by coming around the bridge barrier as well to help pull me up... I really had to take most of my weight as best i could to pull my self out if the thorny hold the plants had on my and stop myself from slipping... finally back up the man also relieved 😅 who could speak a word of English was as relieved as me by the look on his face... I thanked him continually and then he and the rest of the people left also... I just sat on the edge of the walkway shaking like a leaf trying to take in what had just occurred... It had to have been a good 7 ft 1 3/4 m over the edge how I managed to hold the bridge footing and not slip again truly is a God thing.... only He could have kept me from falling, by all accounts I should have gone over the edge... as I had a little dry to myself 2 lovely English ladies who I don’t know if they saw this happen or not, but they came along asked if I was ok,.. by now I had all the thorn cuts bleeding on my arms and legs, little thorns in my skin... they gave m some wet ones to clean myself up again I was so humbled by people’s care and help... both within 10 mins or each other... all this time John was AWOL....I said to the English lady I have lost my husband, I think she thought I meant he had died and she said ohh so have I... ohh dear I though, no I said he is here just missing been gone for ages... this whole thing took about 20-25 mins and here was a John when I finally found him standing by a post wondering where I was.... I tell you typical bloke... ohh he said I was wondering where you were I thought you must be taking along time to get your pictures I as just about to come looking... ohhh yeah I bet...

Still quite shaken I got up from where he had been as I sat down to tell him what had happened, stood up and nearly knocked myself out with a tree... really banged my head... what a day, it didn’t help that the whole day with a big white plaster across my face people had been staring at m where ever I went... really as starting to feel like a beaten old drum... sore and sorry for myself well and truly... but on we must go so off we went to the next amazing section of the park... it was high above all the big waterfalls..... unreal views but you had to manoeuvre yourself across running water on the path to the lookout section again having to climb through fences and across rocks to access the sight, but worth it in the end.... got the shots and with every single good spot you have to wait for others to get out of the way... some do quickly others don’t and could give a stuff that people also are lined up to also take a shot... others jus stand there like it’s just them in the world.... and if your a girl then you have to take that selfie 🤳 or should I say selfies many being the word... while others wait... I felt like doing the same but I do consider the next one take the shot and move on.... I did have a spot there was no one else just me a young girl with a good camera came along and as I had taken my time being alone I thought at the time she got really shifty I didn’t get going fast.... painful process this touristing...

Finally got to point A again, only you access it slightly different... but on accessing it there were literally 100’s of bodies laying around in the sun... many mainly girls with very little to cover their flesh... some had amazing flesh others not so, but as I said in other posts, everyone no matter the size wears a bikini.... good to see so many not body conscious and yet so many it’s all about me...

We decided to walk back.... no sure why thought it was a good idea in the beginning, but in all honesty as nice as it was it was very tiring after all the emotional 😭 issues I had dealt with since 3.30 am this morning....

So back we trod along the dirt road that started out in the shade.... then that went and in the sun, but as we made our way along the road, (with people either passing us going in the same direction others heading into the oral, most on push bikes) I started to notice the wild flowers 💐 and very unusual plants growing all tucked into rock... then the river wow it looked beautiful with its bluey green colour... plus the road become very high above the river bank with no rials along the bank it sure looked amazing but very scary if you went over the edge. My highlight was the Mum and Dad Swans below us protecting their 2 babies looked so cute... finally back and as Kym promised John a big extremely cold beer Aussie style.... Kym then sat down telling us all about buying into this area of Croatia 🇭🇷after living in Denmark 🇩🇰...... seems he was a burnt out executive who realised stress was killing him... He and his wife had gone in a holiday to Spain 🇪🇸 and had all but bought a place there when they found out the owner wasn’t all he seemed... so they canned that and ended up in Croatia running this place, which looks like an upmarket restaurant, but as he explained they can’t sell food without the right licence and all this goes with the licence.... he told us if he out in food he had to do a monthly poo sample to prove they don’t have bugs in their food... according to Croatian food safety laws... he doesn’t want to deal with that so he just sell drinks, has a back packer hostel at the back and said he was going to build a big hotel complex to be up and running by next year.... would be interesting to come back and see if he does it.. his wife wasn’t there she was visiting Denmark at present... he seemed ok on the surface but a couple if his stories didn’t quite ring true... plus he was really nice to us and another young Sri Lankan Couple who came back while we were there, but a Croatian women come to use his loo and he was very curt and rude to her... it was more his manner than what he said... so after all the D&M’s we headed off to look around... we tried to find the fort but ended up who knows where, so changed plan and headed to Visovac, which we could have walked to 1/2 around our other 5 k walk we could have walked another 4 ks up stream to this spot.... looks unreal,here glad we didn’t walk it driving was so much quicker, it has an Island in the middle of the River with a setting of unreal craggy mountains behind it... it is Visovac Island a Franciscan Monastery of Our Lady of Visovac built in 1445 we could hav done a private tour here, but too late now for sure...

It was by now late so we headed for home going a back road through heaps and heaps of old villages... the funny thing is so many have not that older homes in them, a few old ones, heaps of abandoned ones unreal to see so many, maybe from war times I don’t know... certainly an unreal day scenery wise and stress wise...

Seeing the massive mountain range in the background, puts such a different perspective on the lay of the land... so diverse so different in terms of terrain and geographical wonders...Leggi altro