After yesterday afternoon's storm and lots of rain overnight, today dawned with clear skies and bright sunshine. The Jezero Hotel where we are staying is a big tourist hotel with lots of tour groups but located right next to the park entrance and is actually quite good for a large hotel. It was built as a resort under the old communist government and still reflects that in style and in the number of staff running around. The ticket we purchased yesterday was endorsed to cover today and tomorrow as well so we set off after breakfast and purchasing the guide map.
Took the cross-lake boat and then the other boat to the far (Northern) end to start the walk. Found that their signage is pretty terrible so used the back-up plan - follow the nearest Japanese tour group and that worked perfectly. This walk took us (after an hour and a half) to the Big Falls which are immense - photos attached! The whole area consists of about 16 lakes which cover a total area of about 217 hectares (water only) -the whole park is about 30 000 hectares. The lakes descend through the valley with waterfalls of varying heights connecting them through vegetated steps - it is quite an extraordinary sight. We took the shuttle "bus" back to base for lunch and then the cross-lake boat again to walk up to the highest (Southern) lake, coming across each set of falls as we went higher up the valley.
Along this walk we agreed that this is undoubtedly the most beautiful, varied and amazing walk we have ever done. The scenery is extraordinary and new sights greet you at every turn. Reaching for the "superlatives thesaurus" to try to relate the beauty of this park. Additionally, Autumn has clearly arrived here so the autumn colours of the beautiful mountain forests along with the amazing blue and greens of the lakes (they actually differ from lake to lake) is like nothing we have seen previously. The sound of running water is everywhere.
Not sure how far we walked, but we managed to go from one end of the park to another so it was a pretty good effort! Caught the shuttle (unlike the signage, their boat and motor-train shuttle system is terrific) back and were back in time for a welcome coffee/cake afternoon tea (we'd earned it!)
Dinner in the dining room is really quite good - they separate the "independents" from the tour groups and they have a huge menu. Had a really good steak and musrooms last night (it WAS Saturday after all!!!) and beautiful whole fish tonight. Off a bit earlier in the morning - drive to Trieste to leave the car and then catch 3 trains to end up in Milan tomorrow night. Unforgettable day.
Cheers all
Trivia: No other Australians here - just hundreds of Japanese in dozens of tour groups. When we did find an Australian on the walk today, he turned out to be Irish!!
Pictures:
*The Big Falls (they are VERY BIG)
*along the walk-way
*inter-connecting water falls
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