Journey: None
Distance: 0 km
Campsite for the night: Camping Bled
YouTube link: Day 20

The weather is definitely turning, it is a lot cooler and getting cloudier as the morning progresses, but we don’t care because today we’re going to try white water rafting. Emma has found a trip where they pick us up at the campsite after lunch, take us rafting and then bring us back.

When we arrived at the launch site on the Sava river, we were very grateful that we had our swimmers under our clothes because we were just given wetsuits and had to change by the rafts.

We then got to know our instructor — who initially seemed like a gun fanatic — but actually was a really interesting guy. Ex army (hence the gun talk), big fan of archery but also really knowledgeable about the river and its surroundings.

We were grouped with three other Brits and a German lady as the other rafters were in a big group — team Britannia as our instructor called us! After a safety talk, we set off. It was a lot more relaxing that I thought it would be as often we were able to float along with the current with only minimal paddling. And then we’d hit white water, so a bit more frantic paddling and shouted directions until we were in calm waters again. Emma and I were at the back of the raft nearest the instructor, so we chatted about wildlife and Slovenia in general with him. The river itself was incredibly clear with a blue tinge and beautiful, although all his talk of snakes in the water and hanging out on river banks made us slightly nervous.

We stopped a couple of times to allow for swimming — the first time, the two youngest in our group who were staying at the same youth hostel went in, but their shivers did not convince the rest of us to join in. But when we stopped for a break, most of us tried the body surfing. This involved wading out into the middle of the river, lying on your back with your arms crossed over you before being pushed off and then floating down with the current. We were in wetsuits which reduced the cold significantly but they were a vest style top so the water was breathtakingly cold once you led down. After a little time floating, I could see Emma waving frantically and shouting SWIM. I could see other rafters getting out of the river further down than Emma but I started swimming across to Emma anyway. Or at least I tried. The current was incredibly strong and although I was swimming as hard as I could, it was very slow progress, and I ended up further down the river too! One of the instructors had also been telling people to start swimming a lot sooner but no one could really hear him.

Although the water was cold and it wasn’t sunny, I actually warmed up really quickly. We set off again rafting down the river and chatting with our instructor — turns out he was a big fan of English music. After a while we reached the end, having paddled about 9 km. We expected somewhere to change and maybe hot showers, but we were just in a field, with a small building that all the women ducked behind to change. It was not a very modest changing space!

All in all, we both thoroughly enjoyed our first white water rafting adventure and would be up for doing it again. I can imagine it’s even better in the summer, when the swim stops would be a welcome break from the heat.

That evening, we’d booked a vegan tasting menu at a nearby hotel so set off in the rain to walk to the hotel. We knew it was away from the lake a bit but hadn’t twigged that meant up hill all the way. We had a vey enjoyable dinner and a bottle of Slovenian sparkling wine. It was quite a posh hotel and the service was formal, but it was very friendly and we didn’t feel out of place in our very casual crumpled clothes. We then wandered back via the lake and enjoyed the night time scenery.