29/30th
July 2017
We arrived in Slovenia mid afternoon and
had a look at the start of this part of the TET. It left the main road just
after the border, climbed through some houses and then ascended steeply past a
little wood yard into the trees.
Once we sorted out the start, we got the
map out and made a riding plan for the next day, which meant a drive upto Nova
Vas, find somewhere to park up and then head out in the morning.
We did this and ended up in a pizza place
for dinner where we met a father & daughter from the local area. We got
chatting about Triglav National Park and various other things including
updating this blog!
We found one of the quietest places we have
camped on this trip, in the forest just outside of Nova Vas by some kind of
hut. There was no wind, no other sounds all night long. At around 3am I needed
a nature call, when I stepped outside, the view of the stars was brilliant, all
hemmed in by the trees and with no unnatural light for miles. So I stood for
awhile just enjoying the view...
We were up and about next morning prepping
the bikes and set off by 8am, the trails back to the start were all very
straight forward and well groomed. As I came round a corner I saw a bear sat on
the trail, a real life shaggy brown bear! I’m not sure who was more startled,
me or it, but it was off into the woods before I could get my act together.
(Lucy has been pouting that she hasn’t seen one all day since!)
There is an interesting place called Glazno
which was a German glass making place up in the mountains, for various reasons
it was abandoned around WW2, then the whole area was closed off and used a POW
camp for awhile, there are some good sign boards to explain the history. We saw
a few vehicles on the trails but the best was the party of teenagers all on
horseback or in carriages with their local music playing as they cantered
along. On the way back we ran into loads of traffic coming towards us, some
asking for directions so we think there was a fete on somewhere but had no way
of finding out where.
Once back at the van we loaded the bikes
back up and decided to complete the TET as far as we could today as the
distances weren’t all that far. We did this and only found two sections we had
to bypass as the trail was too rough for the van. Keep an eye out for the
limestone pillar box from WW2 in the forest and the Russian plane tail on the
edge of the one of the villages!
We reached Most na Soci, which is the end
of the TET GPX file around 6pm, there is a beautiful wide river here running
down from under Triglav which is the highest peak in Slovenia at 2860 ish
metres. You can have a ride on a paddle boat in Most na Soci if you fancy it.
We’re gonna take a couple of days out of
TET land now for a bit and just go do tourist stuff in the National Park. Next up for us was supposed to be the Italy
section, but we gather there are now issues with this and the GPX file has been
removed temporarily, so we’re in touch with Alessandro, (the Italy Linesman), for some help and we’ll see where we
end up. We can use the next couple of days to make alternate plans as we need.
Useful
Info:
- Slovenia is a beautiful country, there
is lots of forest riding on good smooth trails with a few bits of tarmac & villages inbetween. They
are laying more sealed surfaces each year so expect to see some of the trails
change as time goes by.
- Fuel is widely available in all the towns
- Places close between 12 – 4 in the rural
areas, not sure about the big city of Ljublanja as not got there.
- Cash is the Euro
- If you camp in the forest, be aware
there are brown bears around, lots of them... we saw one on the trails first
thing in the morning about 400m from our camp.
- You can probably complete the whole TET
section in one long day or in two to make it more relaxed.
- There is a gap between the end of the
route and the border to Italy, so you’ll need to work out where you want to go
after. I'd recommend Triglav National Park as a side trip for a couple of days, the roads and scenery are great. It's really busy in July & August, so don't expect a silent wilderness!
That’s it for now...
