Mopeds and Waterfalls(Beth)

You might recall us meeting the Cantlay family in Italy, who we shared the ferry crossing to Greece with. They, among others had recommended Croatia to us, and the Krka National Park and it's waterfalls in particular. You can read their blog about it here.

Laptop purchased, we were keen to split from Split. We didn't actually visit the town but the campsite we stayed on was very large and not a patch on Nevio. Ask me sometime and I'll tell you an amusing anecdote about the seven minute showers, involving a walk of shame through the site and a soap assault from a mouthy Italian, but suffice to say, we weren't keen to prolong our stay.

On the drive to Krka, Nathanial was driving in his usual style; overtaking anything not doing at least ten k's an hour above the speed limit. Imagine his joy when we rounded a bend to be greeted with a queue of cars stuck behind a dozen or so mopeds. I tried very hard to keep a straight face while an angry tirade flowed from his mouth against both the riders who seemed quite happy to take up the whole lane and the unfortunate motorist immediately behind the group who was no doubt feeling the pressure from the traffic at his rear, all impatient to overtake.

The guy on the left didn't think he was taking up enough room

After a lengthy wait anticipating every opportunity to pass the mopeds, we finally came to a junction where Nathanial was determined that we would overtake, even if it meant taking three cars and the whole group at once. We pulled up in an outer lane, poised to accelerate away from the lights at speed (in our 3.5+ tonne home) and as soon as the lights changed, we were away.

We managed to get past all the remaining cars of the tail, and with a little bit of gentle persuasion the mopeds were nudged aside. Yes, I did have to close my eyes for most of the proceedings; you will have to rely on Nathanial's assurances that no moped riders were harmed in the undertaking of this manouevre.

Arriving at Krka some twenty minutes later, guess what we saw in the car park? Yep, more mopeds, shortly to be joined by the group we had aggressively passed on the road. We decided to stop in the van for lunch just in case any of them felt like taking out their frustrations on our paintwork, but luckily none did. Phew.

So, after lunch we bought our tickets and proceeded on 'a ten minute walk' down to the first of the waterfalls. Tom skipped off ahead with Alfie strolling behind while Nathanial ambled and I inched my way down a forty-five degree slope of loose rocks and gravel. Several sweaty people making the return journey indicated that the route was a bit longer than we had been led to believe, but we (I) eventually made it to the bottom.

After a few minutes deliberation, we made the decision to take a boat trip up river to the falls at Roski Slap. This proved to be a wise move as we got to sit down and admire the fabulous views.

After a quick stop and mini-tour of Visovac Island, home to a monastery, we headed up to the falls at Roski Slap.

Visovac Island

Roski Slap

We had a little longer here, which gave us time to have a wander across some boardwalks and see the river higher up.

After speeding back to Slapovi, we waved goodbye to our boat and had another long-ish walk along another boardwalk, which was beautiful, before finally arriving at the falls which I recognised from the Cantlay's blog.

I'm sure he was really sorry to see the back of us

Must work on Alf's picture framing

Still not amused

We had a brilliant time at Krka but it was pretty exhausting in the heat so we decided to treat ourselves to dinner at the park restaurant. Luckily the van was still in one piece when we got back to it (I sometimes wonder if we will ever be able to leave it without worrying again?) and we had already picked out an aire from the camperstop book which should have been nearby. Unfortunately something had gone wrong, with the book or the sat-nav we weren't entirely sure, but the aire wasn't where it was meant to be!

It was getting dark at this stage, so we reverted to the ACSI book and found a camp site an hour away. When we arrived reception was closed and nobody could help us at the bar. We decided to find a pitch and sort it out in the morning but the electric hook up point was locked and we weren't keen on paying for electricity we couldn't use, especially as we would have liked to use our new fan in the 35 degree heat.

Reluctantly, we made the decision to push on to our next destination rather than waste a night and have to travel further the next day. The site was an hour away and the boys both fell asleep before we arrived, exhausted as they were from the days exertions. We arrived at Zaton Campsite to quite a different reception than the previous site. Reception was still open (it was nearly midnight by now) and we were given all the usual information before being directed to a pitch, complete with electric! We turned on the fan, settled the boys, made up the bed and thankfully crashed out into a well-deserved slumber.