Krka National Park

When I came down, expecting to look for breakfast in town, the landlady surprised me by beckoning me to a table set with breakfast. She seemed to be in a much better mood. Maybe she had an off-day yesterday. Or perhaps the rent, which I paid in advance, injected a bit of cash into the household, enabling them to buy provisions. Unemployment in this region of Croatia is stubbornly high, more on that later. I suppose the reason for that breakfast will be one of life's little mysteries.

The main attraction near Šibenik is the Krka National Park, which, along with Plivitce Lakes NP, are jewels in the Croatian tourist treasury.

About the name Krka, and all other Slavic names short of vowels like the island of Krk up north: well apparently the reason is when the printing press arrived, the rulers imposed a tax on vowels, so printers used as few of them as possible. Ah no sorry, ha ha ha, I made that up, just pulling your leg. It's one of the characteristics of Slavic languages that's all.

The first stage of the journey was by bus to a river landing at Skradin. The bus was quite packed. I was squeezed between a pretty lass carrying a Fitness FIrst bag, which I thought indicated she was from Oz, but it turned out she was South African, working in London; and a Canadian couple, Al and Margie, from Edmonton. He is a biologist and told me that I absolutely must visit the Galapagos Islands. From the river landing, we boarded a boat which took us upriver. We spotted many waterfowl on the river and when we reached the lowest falls at Skradinski Buk, we had an inkling of the beauty ahead.

Here we disembarked and had some free time to admire the scenery. Krka is karst country. The river dissolves the soft limestone (calcium carbonate) and redeposits it further downstream on various substrates, such as moss and algae, forming travertines. Along the way the river tumbles down many slap, which is not what a Croatian lady does to you if you insult her, but a waterfall.

There is a decommissioned hydro power house here, which used to provide electricity to Šibenik.

One of the local residents, having a day off, like every day.

From here we walked up a path skirting the river to a recreation area at the top of the slap, getting glimpses of cascades along the way.

Here we boarded a different boat.

The water was exceptionally clear and you can plainly see fish in it. The weather was perfect with cool breezes carrying birdsong.

The boat took us to a monastery on Visovac island in the middle of the river. Unfortunately I didn't have my helicopter camera attachment with me that day so I can't show you an aerial view, but you can easily find one on the Web.

One of the halls in the monastery was given over to an exhibition of atrocities committed by the enemy when they overran this region (a longer discussion later). Pictures of old folks who would not or could not flee from the advance murdered in their homes, houses torched, and general pillage. Forgive but do not forget, said one of the signs. It's was a loud Croatian cry of: look what they did to us. And who can blame them? In the course of our walks, Al and I discussed at length the fault lines that triggered the wars.

Resuming the excursion, the boat chugged upriver, through an impressive gorge, until we reached Roški Slap, another spectacular set of falls.

On the boat I struck up a conversation with a group of German tourists. They were a group of Christian Democrats holidaying together. I mentioned that we had the award winning German film The Lives of Others in our cinemas, and how scary the East German border police were when I first transited into Berlin. I expressed my admiration for and desire to see their new Reichstag, as I had not been to Germany after the fall of the Wall. I confessed my impatience for a change of federal government and they said, patience, your chance will come. (Note from the future: And so it came to pass, the Australian voters brought about Howard's End late in 2007.)

These are but three of the many photos I took there.

We were allocated an hour for sightseeing, but after having lunch at a kiosk, there was only time to dip my feet in the cool water.

The return journey was uneventful. The Social Democrats boarded their tour bus and the rest of us waited at Skradin for the public bus back to Šibenik. The bus was late causing worry. An impatient German tourist with his wife was periodically punching a fist into his palm and saying "tempo tempo".

Back in my lodgings I tried to nap without much success as workmen were noisily renovating the house. A sign that the family was moving up in the world?

I settled for a dinner of spaghetti with speck down by the harbour, and finished with an excellent Mozartkugel gelato. Ah how the Salzburgers have commercialised Mozart. There were other mixins like Snickers and Kinder Surprise on offer. And so to bed.