Hi All,
Zabljak. The good weather didn´t hold out. We got chased off the mountains with thunderstorms either side of us on the previous day and took it easy with a walk out to the black lake via town. We picked up a dog along the way which despite our repeated attempts to discourage it from following us into the national park it persisted and after it chased and caught a bird in the forest we stopped being nice and started pelting it with rocks and pine cones. Even then it continued to follow us for a while so maybe instead of aiming just in front of the dog we should have been aiming at the dog!. It was a nice walk and we found a yellow capped woodpecker along the way and the jade coloured water of the lake contrasted nicely with the changing colour of the deciduous trees which had started to turn. The rain started tumbling down on the way back to camp and in the morning we woke up to the cool fog one might expect in early winter. The fog stayed for most of the day and other than a 4km return journey into town ,of which we only walked 2km after being picked up by the owner of the camp grounds who was driving into town, we took it easy after the previous couple of hill climbing days. Later in afternoon we walked (struggled)up to the raspberry and blueberry patches which were about 2km away from the camping grounds. There were a lot of people on the trail we had found deserted the previous days so we had timed it well and their timing had been unfortunate as they had climbed the mountains and seen nothing but fog……bugger
We really liked the cosy huts in the camping area just on the edge of the national park, the price was excellent at 6 Euro each, but we had to plan to get moving again. Certainly could recommend this place even if they let campers bring their initially intimidating, territorial, big black dogs, with soft hearts, into the camping area. I had caught a cold and it was doing its best to dispatch me so I was reluctant to get moving and probably could have stayed in bed rather than take another bus ride but the decision was made it was time to leave out mountain hideout.
Bye,
David and Vanessa
