X-TREME Weekend

5 Days in Slovenia | 21 Sep 2006

Thursday til Tuesday camping at Lake Bled in Slovenia with a sporadic troupe of adventure seekers. More adventure than humour to report. Had the pleasure of sharing a tent with Ross, who although it was agreed had reached new levels of ‘hotness’ during the trip (note: this was not my judgement call), was just not as affectionate as my old sparring partner Richie Robinson.

Lake Bled was stunning, the weather amazing, and the women…a bit of both. The people were friendly, spoke English perfectly, and everything was so damn cheap. Fair to say the latter impressed more than the usual.

Campsite was fantastic. First day took the 30 min walk around the lake to the town. The island in the middle must have felt like a Class A celebrity with the ridiculous amount of photography taking place. We could never get sick of this view we all said to each other. Oh how wrong we were. Little did we know at that point we would undertake that trip at least twice a day. Every day. Oh how I came to loath that island. Never getting any closer, bells ringing in the church, almost ridiculing me over the 30 minutes of my life I would never get back.

10 of us went Canyoning on Saturday. Basically involves navigating your way down a river through a steep gorge. Involved a lot of jumping off ledges and sliding down waterfalls. Best to just check out the photos I think.

At the campsite we met a couple of Germans and a fella from Iceland. This Icelandic guy was more obsessed with Manchester United than I am with stuffing my reports with analogies. Most would consider it a gross understatement for me to say I quite like talking about football, but I became sick of arguing the finer points with a cycloptic arctic scum supporter. He tracked me down the next three days wanting to talk about football, or specifically Man United. I was unsure of the Slovenian word for ‘restraining order’ so found myself scurrying for the nearest hiding place when someone gave me advanced warning of his impending approach. I’m surprised I didn’t see him appear from behind a rock during the Canyoning. Bloody DM.

Craig, Debs, Ross and I went mountain biking to Vintgar Gorge on Sunday. Pretty cool, but was reminiscent of so much NZ national park that perhaps we didn’t appreciate it as much as we should.

Which brings me onto my customary shitting-related story. Bread. Cheese. Meat. Not a vegetable in sight. How in the name of chipped porcelin does your standard European dump?? I was so concerned with the potential ramifications I went about pilfering apples and pears from rural Slovenian orchards during our mountain biking. The pear came back to haunt me. I have never tasted anything as bizarre as a Slovenian pear. It felt like a Saudi had tipped the contents of his sandal in my mouth. Drier than the wit of a Dickson.

6 of us went Canyoning again on Monday, followed by whitewater rafting. The Canyoning was unreal. Standard 5-6m jumps into pools, which should have been abseiled. Unfortunately we were unable to get any photos, but it included abseiling down a 50m waterfall. Nervous? Never has a turtle come closer to breaking its neck.

Visited Ljubljana before flying out. Pretty cool town that can expect to see a lads weekend in the near future. The Ross Paterson Nightlife Radar indicated the potential for large fronts, heavy pours, and long dry spells the following day. Yuck, yuck, yuck.

Locations Visited: Bled, Bovec, Ljubljana

Add Comment

Comment Policy:

Only signed in members can comment on journal entries. Please sign in now or register if you would like to leave a comment. Comments are sent to the owner of this journal for approval before being made live on the site.