Krka, Paklenica & Plitvice Lakes National Parks

The next section of our trip was visiting a bunch of Croatian National Parks. First stop was Krka (Kur-ka) NP, a park that covers the lower reaches of the Krka River. This river contains many travertine (a type of chemical limestone, precipitated out from water after having been dissolved from original biological limestone) formed waterfalls and lakes with the largest one, Skradinski Buk, a great place for swimming. We walked around the park, had lunch, then a swim before heading off north again towards Paklenica (Pak-len-eet-sa) NP.

Dave at Skradinski Buk, Krka NP.

We stayed the night on the coast just below Veliki Paklenica (the larger canyon) heading into the seriously impressive mountain range known as the Velebit. The next morning we headed up into the canyon and watched all the rock climbers scaling the very high limestone cliffs. It’s a really popular place for rock climbing and many international meets and competitions are held here every year. We drove over the Velebit via a gravel road through Mali Alan Pass. Amazing limestone mountain scenery and well worth the side trip!

View of Paklenica NP from behind the town of Vinjerac.

Rock climber in Veliki Paklenica.

Mali Alan through the Velebit.

We arrived at Plitvice Lakes NP (Plitvicka Jezera – Pleet-veech-ka) early afternoon and spent 4.5 hours wandering the whole trail section of the lakes (the lady at the info desk got rather grumpy when we said we wanted to see it all and that it would take us 6-8 hours and we should have been there early morning!). It was really cool – such amazing clear aquamarine water, lush vegetation and neat limestone and travertine formations. We’re a bit overdone on waterfalls now though – so many!

View over the lower section of the Plitvice Lakes.

Kate and waterfall.

Dave and Kate enjoying dinner at Korana Campground, Plitvice Lakes NP.

Leaving Plitvice we headed west towards the northern peninsula of Croatia – the heavily Italian influenced Istria. Our route took us through some funny back roads again. Warning – these are NOT shortcuts, even if they look shorter! Croatian roads are very irregular – on the maps they have them colour coded for how major they are. Typically, for the single lane each way road red is the biggest, orange next, then yellow, then white are the real local small roads. Unfortunately, while red is reliable, orange is a bit dodgy and yellow is downright misleading. We’ve had some yellow roads as good as a red road, then some orange roads that were worse than a local white road! The “orange” road we followed leading out of Plitvice wound its way through a lush pretty land-mined region of ruins and abandoned bullet-ridden Serbian villages (the region around the lakes was part of the front line during the war). Actually a really lovely drive but quite tiring when it goes down to one lane and lots of potholes!