Day 108: Plitvice Lakes NP

JULY 20 - Plitvice Lakes NP is one of the most popular destinations of Croatia, and by far the most well known site that is not on the coast. Because it is a bit far from all major cities, I debated how to incorporate it as a day trip by bus. Traveling to it by rental car would have been simple, but I had decided not to rent a car in Croatia.

In the end I used Zagreb as a base for getting there. Despite organizing this day trip five days in advance, it turned out more difficult than I had anticipated. First, tickets to enter the park are all sold in advance, and are distributed by hour of entry. Hence, if there are no tickets until late afternoon, then that is your first chance to enter. I had the option of two different days to go, but one day had no tickets until 16:00. I chose today, as there were tickets still available for 13:00. Though I really did not want to restrict our entry until that hour, there was no choice. The other part of this was organizing a bus ride. It had to be round trip, because the park entrance is not a bus station and there is no guarantee of finding a bus back out without a pre-paid ticket. So the timing of the bus had to coincide with when we were allowed to enter the park, and when we were likely to make it back out. The park itself cost about $125 for the three of us, and the buses came to $65, so a day in the park cost $190. Overall I was surprised at how expensive and complicated this was.

A bit about the park. It covers 30,000 hectares and is the largest in the country. The focus is the Matika/Korana River, but the park itself includes extensive forests on either side. There are several roads and small towns also within the park boundary. As I understand it, there are larger wild mammal species such as bears and lynx out there.

The route there from Zagreb was about two hours. It wasn’t clear from the departure board in the bus station which gate we needed, so I had to ask the Flixbus representative (after figuring out where the office was). On the way, just after going off the main highway and toward the south, we pass a large complex with a fighter jet and old military vehicles, which is part of the Croatian War of Independence Museum.

Along that line of thought, we pass a few houses near here that looks suspiciously like they’ve been fired upon and just never repaired. It is only notable in that so little else remains of this war, which lasted from the declaration of independence in 1991 until 1995. All the fighting took place between ethnic Croats and ethnic Serbs. While the Croats wanted to preserve their boundaries as a newly declared Croat nation, the Serbs living within those borders backed an integration into a larger Serb-dominated state. The long, drawn out conflict gutted the country completely, causing substantial economic loss and a loss of some 20,000 lives. Technically it was a victory, as ethnic Croat aspirations were met and the Serbs unable gain any exclusive territory for themselves.

Also pass the scenic town of Slunj, which we did not stop in, but looks like a great place to walk around. The river here forms a deep canyon, and many homes are perched up on the cliff tops. After Slunj, the number of small hotels and B&Bs increases dramatically, all the way to the park entrance.

I had originally hoped for a full day here, or about 6-8 hours of walking (plus some park boats and buses). However, the restricted entry time allowed us only about five hours, so we stayed close to the river. The park quite helpfully gives maps of suggested routes based on available time, so, as usual with suggested times, I estimated that we could do a bit more than what was shown.

I was impressed with the organization of buses here. Our drop off point was at the northern park entrance. The bus itself continued on to an entrance in the south, but all this was clearly explained over the PA system before we got there. The ‘ticket’ I bought online was just a reservation, but I just showed this at the ticket counter and got it converted. As it was, we were given entry for 12:40 (our bus arrived at 12:00).

It is hot here, probably about 34⁰ C, and packed with visitors. Yellow jackets swarm the picnic benches.

Not surprising, we are back in karstic weathering! I did not see any mention of extensive underground rivers or other cave systems, but clearly there are some around.

We had not promised Odette much in the way of wildlife here, as we really didn’t know what this water would support. Obviously larger animals are not going to be anywhere around the thongs of people along the park paths, but there were plenty of smaller animals in and around the river. The rivers and pools are crystal clear, meaning that any aquatic creatures are easily viewed from above.

Parts of the park can be traversed by boat. The boats themselves are flat-bottomed ferries, that move so slowly that they create minimum wake. I assume this is intentional, to reduce damage to the shoreline. At this time of year, there are almost continuous ferry departures from each of the docking points to deal with tourist volume.

So, there are a series of lakes with hundreds of waterfalls between them. How did this develop to such an extent in this particular river system? As mentioned before, the water is saturated with calcium carbonate, which leaches into the water from the limestone rocks all around it. Over time, it precipitates, not only on debris that falls into the water, but also develops ‘edges’ that terrace the pools and create sudden drops from one pool or lake to another. These edges are called tufa barriers, and the oldest (but still active) here are thought to be 6,000-7,000 years old. The barriers can grow more than a centimeter a year.