Journey: Plitvice Lakes, Croatia to Lake Bled, Slovenia
Distance: 347 km
Campsite for the night: Camping Bled
YouTube link: Day 18

After a chilly night and an early start — we were up at half 7 — I had the Boom Box chocolate and coconut oatmeal for breakfast, and can confirm it is jolly good indeed. I looked them up, and they are a vegan brand in Croatia, so looks like I won’t be seeing them again and sadly didn’t stock up.

We then set off back to Slovenia — a country we’d never visited until the other day — and now twice in one week. The end destination was Lake Bled, but on the way we were detouring to see a famous cave that had a train running into it — the Postojna Cave — described as the largest show cave in Europe.

Before leaving Croatia, we stopped to get diesel as it was the cheapest we’d seen anywhere at €1.28 per litre (£1.08). We also stopped at our first Croatian motorway services for wees and to swap drivers. It had a very busy cafeteria area, with lots of people having breakfast and coffees. Somewhat scarily though, was the number of older men sat in groups having a right jolly time with a beer. It was 11 in the morning at a services only accessible via the motorway, miles from anywhere.

When we got to the border between Croatia and Slovenia, we were stopped, and as Emma was driving (and we’re in a right hand drive vehicle so all the wrong way round) I had to do the talking. It was quite an odd experience. The man first asked if we were from the UK, which I said we were. He then asked how he could be sure of that, to which I looked blank, so he asked for our passports. As I reached for the bumbag where the passports were stashed, he just smiled and waved us through.

Just before arriving at the caves, we experienced a horrendous hail storm. It was crazy heavy and went on for about 10 minutes, leaving all the roads and pavements white.

As we waited to go into the caves, it started raining heavily — they’d put up parasols, so everyone booked on the 2pm tour was huddling under there for shelter. They then split us off into different language groups and we boarded the little train. The train took us 2 km into the cave, we walked 1.5 km around the cave and then took the train back out — it’s a 24 km cave system in total.

The stalagmites and stalactites were pretty impressive as we travelled in by train, but the best was yet to come. It truly is the most spectacular cave I’ve ever been in. The stalagmites and stalactites were huge as well as numerous. One was 16 metres tall, which took 160,000 years to create. There were also different types of formations, including curtains which form on a slanted rock instead of stalactites.

After the cave, we were both cold and tired — it was only 10 degrees in the cave — so the final hour to our campsite felt very long, and it felt cold at Lake Bled because the sun had gone down. We only managed a quick peak at the lake after dinner, but we were suitably impressed.