Europe winging it

I already wrote this but penguins vanquished my essay so forgive me if I sound pissed (I am).

30th June, last day in Slovenia having been surrounded by by gorgeous mountains. Often being encircled by Italian, Slovenian and Austrian alps. It would’ve been a crime against humanity not to do a hike. My original hiking plan of reaching base camp of mount Triglav a measly 2,550m Elevation, with a 10hr hike and 1500m of elevation gain was slowly dashed against the wall as I witnessed the fitness levels of my younger sister (sorry Luci but be fitter). After some investigation and putting off the hike for 2 days due to record high 37 degree temperatures I landed on a seemingly chill walk that had good views through a daffodil meadow and grass paddocks. The Mt Golica summit walk, a supposedly chill 2hr walk (4hr return) to the summit (1967m) and back.

The information on this hike was very sparse and I’d only heard of it through word of mouth of Slovenians. As such even finding the starting point was somewhat of an adventure. However, I found it and we started at 900m elevation. The hike quickly became very very steep (hiking poles would’ve been very helpful), with the trail becoming somewhat confusing in places. Luckily we figured out that the trail was usually lined with these white and red bullseyes to mark where you should be walking.

The hike started off slow with Hugh and myself stopping every 40m for Luci to take photos of something. Luckily for us and very unluckily for Luci this was short lived as her film camera ran out of battery. As we progressed up the mountain the going got tougher with steep gravel inclines with very little traction (these were much worse going down). There was a few crossroads with small red signs in Slovenian. Both mentioning MT Golica, which direction to take though? Luckily a solo hiker had passed us not long before and I hailed her asking what they said. She told us what they said and we were off. This solo hiker was a lovely grad student from Czech doing her exchange at the university of Ljubljana called Bara (Czech nickname for Barbara) and so we had a new member of our group. She had done the 10hr MT Triglav summit the day before and was doing this hike as a “easy hike.” Before she went back to Czech.

We climbed through dense pine, wet terrain, rocky terrain and eventually surfaced out of the tree-line at around 1600m elevation. There was this cabin we came across 40min from the summit serving beers, that you could actually book accomodation in if you wanted to do the Slovenian ridge line hikes - a 750km trail that can be entered and exited at various points. We came across a fellow Australian here doing similar things to what Rowan did in France, hiking with bags transported for them from accomodation to accomodation. The accomodation had a sort of semi zip line attached to it with a cart similar to a mining cart. This was winched up the hill to get supplies to the cabin. Hugh remarked how he wished he could’ve just gone up that way, which I agreed with.

Out of the tree line the wind majorly picked up with nothing at all to protect us, our sweaty backs were facing the full brunt of the wind. Heat quickly turned to goosebump cold. As we got onto the ridge line after a deceptively long walk up the grassy mountain. We were treated to truly breathtaking views that a camera cannot do justice too. MT Golica borders Austria with the ridge line being the border between Slovenia and Austria. The view over Austria was absolutely stunning and completely unexpected.

As we made our way to the summit, one foot in Slovenia one foot in Austria, I remarked that if Austrian border cops were anything like the Italians we should expect to meet them here. With the summit reached spirits were very high, stunning scenery and a nice break. We sheltered from the wind on Austrias side and sat for a while.

We then made our way down the mountain taking a 40min detour to see the daffodil meadows that didn’t exist for us unfortunately. I felt very lied to by google. On the walk down it slowly dawned on us that, what goes up must come down. Unfortunately for us the hike up was very very steep and as such the hike down was quite hard on the body and legs, especially the knee joints absorbing all this impact while trying not to slip on the loose gravel. This is probably the only hike I’ve ever down where I feel hiking poles would’ve been useful. This slow realisation of yay we have summited to oh no I have to go down now, could very easily be seen on everyone’s faces. It took us about 2hr to get down.

I took a funny video showing everyone’s moods of all of us before the climb, at the summit, and finished with the hike. You can clearly see excitement at the summit, and hunger at the end. Little Luci took a few slips on the steep gravel. With Hugh and I, coming close many many more times. Our Czech friend Bara did not slip. She did remark that this was not anywhere near as easy a hike as she was led to believe which was good to hear.

24,000 steps, 12km (straight line distance), 1065m of Elevation gain and descent and 4.5hrs later a ravenous meal at our favourite restaurant at lake bled was had. No words exchanged just sounds of chewing and lots of “mmmmmmsss,” a truly spectacular meal, with Hugh and I having the mixed grill with what I believe to be the best set of pork ribs I have ever had and Luci having sausage and potato. With included deserts that Luci made sure to reserve a little space in her tummy for.

The Hike was absolutely stunning and completely worth it, if it was an easy hike it wouldn’t have a great view.Read more