Slovenia~ Part 3 - Krangska Gora & Spik

Sept 3

Today we left Bled and traveled to Camp Spik which was very close to Krangska Gora. It was not a long drive from Bled. It was a 1 hour away. It was a big camp site. In the middle of the mountains. Krangska Gora is in Triglav National Park. The mountains were incredibly big, the were very pointy and grey in colour. They were so beautiful. When we stayed there we had beautiful clear lovely days.

Camp Spik was a great campsite, especially for us! It had a big play center.

The play center was a big obstacle course. It had 2 zip lines and 1 balance beam. It had hoops that you can crawl through. There were metal bars to jump over and lots of other cool stuff. It was all about 1.5 meters off the ground, so there was rope netting around it so you couldn't fall off. At the end of the course there was a wooden swing that would zip line you down to the bottom. You can see Brendan doing the swing zip line.

Sept 4

Today Dad went downhill mountain biking at Krangska Gora Bike Park. My dad got up and we drove him to the bike park. It was super cool. In order for him to get to the top he had to ride the chair lift up. This bike park is a ski hill in the winter, so the chair lift runs all year. He got onto the chairlift and his bike hooked onto the back of the chair and went up the chair lift with him. We was really pumped up and was really excited. He told us that he did some technical trails and lots of single track downhill. He said it was an amazing time. He rode all day and was able to get in 13 runs. The guys who ran the place was impressed- he told him that most only get about 8 runs in a day! Good job dad!!

Here are some pictures my dad took on the downhill mountain biking course. They gave him body armour to bike in. It kinda made him look like a robot. But mom said, "let's just hope he comes back in one piece!!"

While dad was biking we decided to do a hike up to some beautiful waterfalls near our campsite. The falls were called Martuljek Slap, 1 and 2. The word for waterfall in Slovenian is Slap. The first waterfall was about a 40 minute walk, which was pretty easy and it was so beautiful.

From then on the hiking got much harder. It was very steep and very hard to climb. It took another hour and a half to get to the second waterfall. Right at the end the trail had metal pins in the rock that you had to hold onto to climb along. It was kinda scary. But it was so beautiful.

Finally we made it to the last waterfall. There was one last bridge to cross and it was a bit rickety. We were glad to have finally made it. It was a 8 km round trip! Phew what a day!

Sept 5

We were so glad to wake up to another incredible day. Today we hiked to a very special place. The point where three countries meet. The point is Mt. Tromeja and it is the point were Austria, Slovenia and Italy meet. It was a very challenging hike. It took us 1.5 hours to get from the parking lot in Ratace up to the top of the peak.

It was a really hard hike and the boys were having a tough time, so I decided to keep them going by telling them a story. They were so excited by the story that they forgot to complain about the hike and just wanted to walk along with me and listen to my story. Before they knew it we were at the top!

At the top there was the most incredible views! In the winter you can actually come up by chairlift and ski down into Austria or Italy! We stayed at the top for a while, had some lunch and then began the big walk back down. It actually didn't take us too long to walk back down.

Krangska Gora is an amazing place, my dad is thinking that we should come back again in the winter some year and go skiing here. There were so many ski hills around here and this country has been so fun to visit.

This was the view from our campsite each night. The triangle shaped peak is Mt. Spik. Pretty nice view isn't it.

Sept 6th

This morning our beautiful weather finally came to and end. We woke up to rain, lots and lots of rain. My parents decided we needed a break from camping so we are headed to an airbnb in Italy in the Dolomites. But before we left Slovenia we were able to stop and see the Slovenian Olympic Ski jumping centre. What an incredible place. the workers were up on all of the jumps getting ready for the coming ski season. This year there will be a world cup even held in March at the site. It would be so neat to see. There were all sorts of different jumps, from the very beginner ones to the full sized Olympic ones. They were HUGE!!!!

Thank you Slovenia. We will be back.

Tia and Mari