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I woke up to a spectacularly sunny day with huge puffy white clouds in the sky- it looked  like it was going to be perfect weather for a hike through the Krka National Park. I am one of those freaky earlier risers lately–my internal clock is set to 7:00am precisely (it was set to 5:30 in Nepal which pissed Helen off to no end…but we didn’t have any window curtains, so what could I do?). Anyway, while Helen and Jenn continued sleeping I decided to get in a few hours of free wifi, blogging, and work done before we packed our day packs and headed to the waterfalls. I actually really like waking up early, especially when every one else is still dozing, I make myself some tea, enjoy some bread and cheese and don’t have to talk to a single soul…it’s really rather lovely.

The other two started stirring by 8:30am and we headed downstairs for breakfast (included) and were soon ready for what we anticipated would be a full day of exploring and hiking through the park. We even prepared for the day with snacks bought from the local store: bread, cheese, and tomato sandwiches with an apple. Jenn filled her camelback and we set off.

A free ferry from Skradin is included in the ticket price (about US $20) so we had a lovely 20 minute ride across the river and up stream a bit. We passed a really cute family of swans – we’ve been seeing swan families everywhere lately.

When we got to the park and received our map we were a little surprised – the entire circuit takes only two hours tops and is wooden boardwalks the whole way. We patiently waited in line and asked if there were any hiking trails and she seemed confused – the only option was the lower boardwalk around the falls and then an upper part of the park with a monastery…no off-roading it allowed.

We were a little disappointed that there was only a set tourist track around the Skradinski Buk area, but in the end, it really didn’t detract from the absolutely stunning falls. Krka is a huge river that runs through Croatia but starts in Slovenia actually. The waterfalls in this National Park are just beautiful though and one of the neatest things about them is that the waterfalls never look the same on any given day because of the calcium-carbonate rocks.

Some days the water will turn stunning shades of brilliant blue and turquoise, other days, like the day we were there, the waterfalls were particularly green – but every single shade of green imaginable including fluorescent green.

Because we had our launch and extra snacks packed we decided to really take our time walking around the park and we let all of the tour groups and gaggles of teenagers on fieldtrips pass us by while the three of us fanned out and snapped pictures of the bright metallic blue dragon flies and other bugs, insects, and really any photographical creature we could find.

At the very end of our time wandering through Krka it actually started to get a little rainy. Never ones to be deterred though we all stripped off our hiking boots (they were completely unnecessary, could have been done in flip-flops) and hopped into the swimming area for some shots of us with the falls.

The absolute nicest American man understood the commitment it sometimes takes to get a good picture and he was stripped down to his trunks and snapping some great shots of his daughters near the falls. He was more than willing to take a couple of awesomely-framed threesome shots for H, J, and I. Check out the other many other  Krka pictures in the rtw visuals.

We took a bit long with the waterfall shots and ended up running to the boardwalk to catch the hourly ferry back to Skradin. Although it wasn’t quite as strenuous and secluded as we had hoped, Krka is just too beautiful to describe with words.