After a long day of travel, we arrived in Plitvice Lake National Park Area, staying in an Airbnb close to the national park. After catching an early morning long-distance bus in Venice, we arrived mid-afternoon in Zagreb. We elected to pick up our rental car and continue our travels immediately to optimize our time in nature by continuing. The weather was cold and cloudy, this meant there were far fewer tourist in the famous National Park. Given the cooler temperature and our bodies adjusting to temperatures around zero we all appreciated our cozy temporary home. It was quite rural and there were lots of kittens around, which the kids really enjoyed. The National Park was beautiful with amazing waterfalls and wooden walkways throughout the and rock canyons. On the first day it was partially cloud and sun, we saw lots of beautiful fall colours and steam rising off the lakes. The second day was much colder, there was ice on some of the bridges, making for dangerous walking. We took a very chilly ferry ride across the lake to see the upper lakes and falls. The hoar frost on the trees was beautiful. The kids really enjoyed the thin layer of ice on the leaves, figuring out a way to remove the layer of ice so they could see the leaf’s vasculature imprinted in the very thin layer of ice. After a long walk, we negotiated with the park Ranger to warm up in his office while waiting for shuttle bus to take us back to the parks main entrance. Alastair and Sophie took great caution to free chickadee like bird that was trapped on the shuttle bus. While travelling through the countryside we saw lots of birds of prey up close. The next day as we drove through the Croatian mountains on the way to Split, we had amazing views. Alastair and I laughed that the speed limit seemed to change every few hundred meters to accommodate tight turns and small towns. We stopped at KrKa National Park, another one of Croatia’s beautiful National Parks centred around waterfalls. We had blue skies and late afternoon sun making for beautiful fall colours and a great walk. Alastair and I enjoyed listening to the kids spontaneously play an acting improvisation game together and watching them wrestle with each other on the trails (only possible because the park had very few visitors in low season).
