Hiking the Alpe Adria Trail: Day 26

If you’ve been reading the blog of this trip from the start you may remember I said there were five days on the trail classed as difficult by my guide book. The first, Day 5, was certainly difficult for me, as I can’t forget arriving at the hotel throughly exhausted at 7 pm in the evening after about ten hours walking. Fate, in the form of the weather, intervened to mean I missed two more of the ‘difficult’ days, and I chose not to walk across from Austria to Slovenia on day 22, a fourth of the five. So that left only one ‘difficult’ day left, today’s walk. With temperatures forecast to hit 34 C and a lot of climbing and descending involved, naturally I was a little apprehensive about what was in store.

I needn’t have been. The climb up, although reasonably tiring, was in the shade, and more or less all over by 11:30, when I reached the little white Planica chapel, built in World War I in memory of Italians who died on the Isonzo front. There then followed a walk through woodland, and it was at this point, not having seen anyone at all, that my mind turned to the potential danger of bears.

Apparently Slovenia has one of the most thriving brown bear populations in Europe, thought variously to number anywhere between 500 to 1000 individuals. Now I’m not sure where they all live, but in my mind it’s bits of woodland or mountainside where there aren’t many people. And you’re always told don’t surprise a bear. Of course, if you walk on you own you can often be pretty quiet, so best to try and make a noise. After worrying about this on a trip three years ago to Slovakia, also home to many bears, I’d invested a couple of euros in a set of bear bells that I could hang from my rucksack.

On Monday I’d tried using them for the first time. Without much success I have to say, and today I thought I’d have another go. Now it’s probably because I bought some cheap tourist trinket, but these bells don’t seem to want to make a noise. In fact you had to violently shake them to get them to make a sound at all. So I tried tying them to my rucksack, but realised that didn’t move enough, or touched something to dull the noise, so it was going to have to be legs or feet. I didn’t really have anything I could attach them to on my shorts so I tried my boots instead. But then I had to make sure they weren’t too loose that I tripped over them. And even with them tied to my laces, I found that they only really made a noise if I flicked my foot as I walked. Which was a bit of a pain to be honest. I felt a bit like a failed Morris dancer.

So it was back to plan B. Which involved singing, humming or making a noise. For some reason when I’d done this before I’d found myself singing ‘Colonel Bogey’ (must be a peculiarly British thing I guess). So that’s what I did. Until I emerged into a cattle field and didn’t think it was necessary any more. Luckily later in the day, when again in the forest, I seemed to be making so much noise crunching dry leaves, rocks and clicking my walking poles, that I thought I could dispense with the singing and the bells altogether.

When I emerged from the woods, it was to a wide ranging open mountainside with farmland around. All around the views were big and impressive, and once again were different from those on previous days. It really was beautiful. You could see paragliders launching themselves off the top of a nearby peak (last night’s hotel in Dreznica had advertised itself as a paragliding centre) and later in the day, I saw them landing near Tolmin. They seemed to be able to take their time to glide gradually downward on the air currents.

Finding myself into the sunlight I’d expected it to be incredibly hot but luckily there was a bit of mountain breeze up this high ( I was now at about 1200 metres). There were some non plussed cattle that were grazing on the trail, but they don’t seem to worry about me thankfully.

I passed a nice looking mountain cafe, Koca Kohinja, and might have been tempted to stop, but I’d brought my own lunch and knew that these places often were quite slow. But it was certainly a lovely spot, and reasonably busy.

Shortly after I bumped into the couple I’d met on Sunday walking up to Vrsic. Johann and Marianne were from Austria, and it turned out we’d been staying in the same hotel the night before and hadn’t known. They’d taken a day off earlier for a swim, and were now back on the trail. We had a quick chat and then they forged ahead, but I bumped into them again later at a restaurant, when I barely recognised them without sunglasses and headgear and they told me they’d had another swim. I expect we’ll meet again from time to time.

Next, the trail led through the village of Krn, before turning off into woodland again. And the descent began. I think it must have gone on for two and half hours at least. Essentially plodding along this one path that gradually descended. It was semi shade most of the time so wasn’t too bad, and I’d did as I planned and taken three litres of water today, which turned out to be needed.

There weren’t that many notable features on the way down and you couldn’t always see much of the view around. At one point I passed a waterfall, and then an unusual little viewpoint, just off the trail, down to the Soca valley, where you had to look through a hole in the rock to see it below.

I also couldn’t help noticing the dry, crispy leaves underfoot, and looking across at the tree covered hillsides, that the leaves of some were already turning red and brown even though it was only early August. It can only be yet another effect of manmade climate change, I would think, as I’m sure that’s not usual even here.

After a quick stop for an ice cream at camp site, there was a further three or four km into Tolmin. Although this was on flat easy roads and paths, down on the valley floor the temperature was much hotter and there was hardly any breeze compare to up higher. So I arrived in Tolmin, tired and hot, for my final overnight stop in Slovenia, by about 5 pm, and the bliss of an air conditioned hotel room.

Tomorrow I’ll cross into Italy, and it should be an interesting day of history and borders, as well as the usual fine scenery I’m sure. Plus the last big, 1000 metre plus climb of the trip.