Today started with serious disappointment from the early hours - rain and a forecast that it would continue until well into the afternoon. The main point of a full day at Plitvice Lakes was to enjoy walking around what are regarded as a highlight of visiting Croatia, but the forecast (sorry no pic of my iPod) was for 100% rain until about 4pm, with a maximum temp of 5-7 degrees.

As neither JJ or I came to Croatia armed with multiple long coverings for our extremities (I think that I was well prepared based on the weather forecast and actually have 6 t-shirts and just one long sleeved T) and seriously waterproof coats, we felt unprepared to tackle the walks around the lakes, and given that the weather forecast for tomorrow is brilliant sunshine (now cloudy but no rain), we decided to take a break in our fast paced adventure touring and delay our visit to the lakes till tomorrow.

If you are not familiar with the lakes you can either wait till tomorrow to enjoy my happy snaps when the weather is forecast to be fabulous (semi), or check out the Wiki site….she says hopefully.. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plitvice_Lakes_National_Park

So, that decision made, the day was pretty uneventful in comparison with our other days, but still we had a very enjoyable day of local sightseeing, eating, drinking and chatting. And generally trying to stay warm and dry (which totally excluded outdoor activities as the scene out our window at 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11am was pretty consistently heavy rain and cold.) And when we emerged the trusted (but slow Alison Astra) told us that it was 5 degrees.

Our first point of call was breakfast, several hours after our original plan, which was well done in the hotel and the coffee lifted my energy levels considerably. While the choice of menu items was not quite as vast as that offered at Dubrovnik where the choice was considerable, in fact I had the same food… I am easily pleased!

After a couple of hours checking out emails, FB and various other bits and pieces of communication with home, we decided to head out to the park entrance/s and see if the weather was as bad as our opinion from our hotel room – which it was and in fact worse, because in our room we were immune from just how cold it was out there.

Our initial point of call was to the first souvenir shop – me to purchase a 2017 Croatia calendar (which I am sure to forget it so long till 2017) and JJ to wisely invest in a waterproof rain coat. I chose to limp along in my OK but not entirely satisfactory coat, with the perhaps naïve confidence that the rest of the trip would bring vast amounts of sunshine. Our next stop was for lunch in the restaurant at the top entrance to the park.

The outside of the building was less than impressive (see pic) but downstairs, past the umbrellas and rain coats the inside was warm and cosy and quite upmarket for a National Park restaurant (I later learned that the restaurant / café across the road at the park entrance was much more casual and incredibly crowded). We enjoyed a meal of soup (as the driver I stuck to coffee while JJ enjoyed a wine – see pic) followed by (quite rare for us) dessert. My apple strudel was excellent, but sadly no ice-cream.

Our next adventure was to try to find a road that was marked on the local map that our hotel gave us on arrival, which in general showed the park and the bits and pieces of the lake (top and bottom lake walks, the boat trip and trains), but also had a road marked from well outside the park, which looked like we might get some views of the lakes from another perspective without exposing us to the elements.

Armed with the wisdom of Gertie Garman GPS we thought we had the 30-40 minute drive under control until we were directed to a road which was extremely narrow and with significant unpaved bits that I was not happy about, especially as it took a turn around a bend out of sight into a heavily wooded are (which I thought might be the home of the local axe murder or such like … thoughts of Ivan Milat… and I have too many goals to die this young… LOL) so we reversed, tried some other ideas and eventually headed back.

Notable highlights of our trip included absolutely incredible scenery – my pics don't do it justice, but the step hills with an amazing variety of greens, the freshness of what appears to be the spring foliage on the majority of the trees which are evergreen (interspersed with some conifers), enjoying the challenge of not knowing what speed is the speed limit (sometimes posted clearly and other times not, though I have worked out at the end of each town there is an assumption of reverting to the 90km limit, though at other times there are other numbers posted); enjoying the driving on what are good roads with unfamiliar advice signs such as the serpentine equivalent for the major U turns / windy bits (by windy I don’t mean fast air – but a 170 degree turn which there are plenty of); seeing lots of signs for cattle for our whole trip but today was the first we saw of a cow – behind a fence that looked as if it was just a string strung across metal poles (I am sure it was not an electrified fence); and then on the way back seeing snow in the hills, which I am sure is a result of the -1 overnight forecast last night and the heavy rain that we woke up to.

So after the enjoyable dawdle around the countryside we returned to our hotel to enjoy a pre-dinner drink and for me that meant enjoying one of several beers that I bought yesterday. While I had forgotten to bring one up and put it into the fridge in our room (unusual for Croatia) the fact that it was in Alison’s boot out in the 5 degree day meant that it was actually at a good temperature for drinking.

Quote of the day – again from JJ, when asked whether we would again have a bottle of wine with our dinner (in the hotel) was her response "of course, why not?." A 10/10 response from my perspective. And the Croatian rose is very drinkable.

Then dinner – as per last night in the hotel. Pre-ordered delightful chicken vegetable soup (common to all meals here and delicious – Geoff its about 6/10 as good as yours) followed by a main of choice. Ever conscious of what I ate, I chose the vegetarian option tonight and was astounded that the large salad that came first (which is often the way here, particularly as a lot of mains are meat + potatoes) which I assumed was my dinner, was accompanied by a large platter of other yummy vegies.

During dinner we chatted to our table neighbours, an English couple spending 9 days here. They had fortunately spent a ½ day at the lakes yesterday so only had another soggy ½ day enjoying them today. It was good to hear what they had experienced and what they had planned for the rest of their trip. I am still intrigued that they knew we were Aussies! But then we knew they were pommies without asking – more LOL. J

That done and another happy day behind us, we retired to our room, some contacts with home and communication with our Venice hotel about credit card stuff and it was time to head off to dream of a day totally full of sunshine tomorrow and other things.

I hope yours is too.