A black day

Not today, that has been fine, wonderful, lovely… But in a couple of weeks time we are going to have a black day.

Come late September, Dora is up for sale.     If you or anyone you know is looking for a reasonably priced motorhome then please check out the following link; https://www.2wanderers.com/dora-for-sale/ or if you have any questions email us at; info@2wanderers.com Thanks

And it’s to do with IT, our little external hard drive to be exact. It has been playing up a little lately, and rather than doing something about it, it was fingers crossed time until the inevitable happened. Original we thought it was the cable, and I think there is something wrong with it, but also we were getting other worrying signs. Stuff Susana was putting on the disk I couldn’t see and vice versa. Then we got duplicate folders, just a few, and I stupidly deleted them. Then we couldn’t get any response from the disk at all. It required formatting.

These are hold your breath and count to ten moments.

Now we have all our memories of this fantastic experience, but probably the next most important thing we have with us, except each other, is the data, all the photos, all those reminders. Everything else, if we were to lose it, we would be sad, but the hard drive, that would be devastating.

We looked back at the backups, they ended just after Greece!

This means we may have lost three months worth of memories. SM

We kept trying with the hard drive, and eventually we got on it with Susana’s laptop and we could copy all but three days, probably the ones I had deleted the duplicates. It wasn’t looking so bad after all.

Now you may not know this, but when you hit delete on your computer it might disappear, but it might still be there if you look hard enough, it depends on whether your computer has written new information over where those deleted files used to be. There are software programs that can trawl the dark areas of your hard drives to see if anything exists. We used Recuva by Piriform, you can also get this done professionally but it will cost you.

Best advice, as soon as you know something has disappeared run one of these programs and you might get the files back.

Of those three folders we probably retrieved about half of the photos, so these next two posts might have less images than we had hoped for.

We now have a new system in place; copying duplicate sets from one laptop to the other. Once we have retrieved all the data from the external hard drive or the laptop back up copy, the external hard drive will be returned, replaced for the second time as it is still under warrantee.

 

We had a quiet night, close to the sea and overlooking an olive grove, the cicadas noisily rubbing in the background. It is good to be back with Dora. It is still hot on the coast. Time to head north, but one thing we remembered from all the excursion trips advertised down by the harbour, a natural park in the centre of the country. We passed through it on the way down, but didn’t appreciate what all the fuss and commotion was about. Now we know and we are keen to have a look.

So we travel back up the coast intending to veer inland, pretty much the way we had come down. Just before we do, we see another national park sign promising waterfalls, so we decide to deviate and see what it is like. Eventually we find the car park and it is mayhem, absolutely packed. This must be good, but it is €15 each, seems a lot to see a waterfall, however there is another entrance, and if we go there we also get a boat trip. A tough decision, but we may never be passing this way again, we get back into Dora to find this other entrance.

We are quite late in the day by now and we are not sure whether to get the boat today, then rush up to another site, another waterfall. What the hell, lets do it now. Luckily the boats seem to go every few minutes.

They gracefully cruise up the bay.

We pass under a large road bridge. Boys are jumping from the structure underneath.

Reeds cover the banks of the river, there should be a lot of birds around here at the right time of year.

Eventually we pull into a small timber quay and disembark. There were not that many people on our boat, maybe 20, so what confronts us is a real surprise, several hundred people are queuing to get the boat back, and as we wander further into the park, thousands; at kiosks scoffing food, ice cream, drinking, laying on the grass sunbathing and swimming.

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But swimming with the most perfect backdrop, an amazing cascade of water, what a shape we haven’t brought our swimming stuff with us.

We continue to follow the thousands around a set route that follows a series of falls. The water is amazingly beautiful, the crowds are not so.

There is something about moving water I find really mesmerising and I love to photo.

Blurred, where you capture all that motion, or an instantaneous freeze frame, every droplet crystal clear.

It is such a powerful scene, all those thousands of litres, all that natural energy.

Rainbows formed in the mist.

What is really surprising, and I still don’t quite get this, but the calcium in the water is deposited to form travertine barriers, which create these series of steps. I thought, wrongly it seems, that all waterfalls were produced by erosion of rock, no depositing of sediment.

We are at Skradinski buk, the last set of waterfalls before the river flows out to sea, but there are more sets further up river. The whole of the Krka national park is one big waterfall.

We climb high above it, from every angle it looks quite magnificent.

Higher and higher we climb, there are less people up here, but only slightly. This place is crazily popular.

The travertine deposits are known as tufa,

and must have taken millions of years to form.

I think we are approaching the top of this set of waterfalls.

Here they have bridged across the deposits with boardwalks, allowing you to pass across the top of the waterfall.

Trees and pushes have taken route amongst the numerous flows of water.

Everywhere you look, everywhere you tread are channels, channels of fast moving water, but also numerous fish, trout mainly, fighting lazily the flow of the water.

A momentary lapse of concentration and they would be ejected through all that white water.

The benefits of living here must outweigh the problems however, as the waters are teeming with fish, big and small.

All this water has created an exceptionally lush landscape, so lovely in the harsh sun.

which filters through the canopy, dappled light, everywhere you tread.

We have crossed the top most waterfall now and are on our way back. A group of boys are jumping into the surf.

Our boat back is crowded. There is a party atmosphere on board. We are so glad we came, glad we didn’t miss the spectacle, the experience.

But our ticket covers the next falls up. It is getting late and they close at seven, so we rush over to Dora, quickly pack up and drive off north.

The drive is quiet, very little traffic on the road. We suspect the tourists only cluster around the lowest fall. Perhaps this will be a more personal experience.

We have come to Roski slap (slap, we presume means waterfall in Croatian). This is the same lake created by the top most waterfall back at Skradinski buk.

Very few people are around as it is just before seven, but it doesn’t look like we are about to get chucked out. A narrow road passes across the top of the falls. It says it is 2.2m wide. Dora is 2.3m, we take the risk and she squeezes through. Perhaps she has lost a bit of weight, all those mountain climbs.

Here they had harnessed the power of the water, funnelling it down channels and chutes, using it to turn a mill. Now all that is left is a museum and a restaurant.

We take a dusky walk to the top of the falls.

More tufa, more falls, shallower this time, but with the absence of all the people, a lot more tranquil.

As the sun sets the low light angle is particularly beautiful.

On the way here we passed a little layby. We drive back to it. Although close to the road we suspect there will be very little traffic coming this way this evening. It is a risk we will take as the views back across the lake are stunning.

We were correct, a peaceful night. We have one last slap to see in this triptych of falls. Further north, the highest of then all, Manojlovac slap with the largest drop at 32m. Only two other couples have made the effort.

This is an incredible area that we nearly missed, we spend the rest of the day driving back towards Plitvicka Jezera national park.

The journey takes us close to the border with Bosnia and Herzegovina. We chose a different route, seeing an alternative landscape and trying to get away from the tourist traffic.

The barren plains give way to undulating hills.

Before once again we return to the dramatic landscape of the national park. We return to the same peaceful barren spot of land just outside the park, a few lorries our only company.

It may be the case that further trawling through our sickly hard disk will prove fruitful. If we find additional images we will update the post and let you know.

GDR