Another very pleasant day walking among trees, bushes and flowers.
Waking early I continued along the ridge on vehicle tracks following my planned route, enjoying the birdsong, the emptiness compared with city life. Initially I was looking down on clouds covering lower ground, with a reddish sky above, as I dropped in height I was in the cloud itself walking through mist. In places there were numerous crisscrossing vehicle tracks but later the track I was following disappeared in what looked like an area farmed long ago. There were indications with stones and bushes of field boundaries but thorny scrub had taken them over. Fortunately there were gaps between the bushes growing on the thin soil so I could find a way through to a later part of my route, where I picked another faint vehicle track. I followed this as it headed over a slight summit then downhill to the road gradually becoming clearer and more rutted.
The road took me through the large village of Beli Potok with its red tiled roofs. Like many villages in the area a number of buildings looked abandoned, others had gay, red and yellow tulips in their gardens.
A few kilometres down the road I was planning to turn off and find a track along the north side of a valley. I was concerned as I was not confident that the path I picked on Google Earth actually existed. Maybe I was skilled in interpreting satellite images, more likely I was lucky, the track was there and with a few deviations took me to a view from a grassy promontory of one of the tributaries of the Timok where I enjoyed lunch. It was a route blessed with meadows, dense with spring flowers. Leaving the track I had been following I turned down one old and overgrown path to a rocky spur with a good view, but could not progress further. Fortunately the track I had been following took me through some tidy orchards to the road near the village of Rgoste. Then it was following the road into Knjaževac.
My entry to Knjaževac suggested the town is not a wealthy one, with horses tethered by the roadside and washing hung over nearby fences. However the centre had a pleasant riverside walk, shops to stock up on food and my hotel is fine. I did however see a youth steal some Ice lollies from a shop and run off...
34 kilometres walked today. A gpx file of the trail can be downloaded from wikiloc.com, or the route can be found on ViewRanger as johnpon0031.
Waking early I continued along the ridge on vehicle tracks following my planned route, enjoying the birdsong, the emptiness compared with city life. Initially I was looking down on clouds covering lower ground, with a reddish sky above, as I dropped in height I was in the cloud itself walking through mist. In places there were numerous crisscrossing vehicle tracks but later the track I was following disappeared in what looked like an area farmed long ago. There were indications with stones and bushes of field boundaries but thorny scrub had taken them over. Fortunately there were gaps between the bushes growing on the thin soil so I could find a way through to a later part of my route, where I picked another faint vehicle track. I followed this as it headed over a slight summit then downhill to the road gradually becoming clearer and more rutted.
The road took me through the large village of Beli Potok with its red tiled roofs. Like many villages in the area a number of buildings looked abandoned, others had gay, red and yellow tulips in their gardens.
A few kilometres down the road I was planning to turn off and find a track along the north side of a valley. I was concerned as I was not confident that the path I picked on Google Earth actually existed. Maybe I was skilled in interpreting satellite images, more likely I was lucky, the track was there and with a few deviations took me to a view from a grassy promontory of one of the tributaries of the Timok where I enjoyed lunch. It was a route blessed with meadows, dense with spring flowers. Leaving the track I had been following I turned down one old and overgrown path to a rocky spur with a good view, but could not progress further. Fortunately the track I had been following took me through some tidy orchards to the road near the village of Rgoste. Then it was following the road into Knjaževac.
My entry to Knjaževac suggested the town is not a wealthy one, with horses tethered by the roadside and washing hung over nearby fences. However the centre had a pleasant riverside walk, shops to stock up on food and my hotel is fine. I did however see a youth steal some Ice lollies from a shop and run off...
34 kilometres walked today. A gpx file of the trail can be downloaded from wikiloc.com, or the route can be found on ViewRanger as johnpon0031.
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| Morning view from my hilltop campsite |
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| Village of Beli Potok with its red tiled roofs in the morning mist |
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| Track through flowers filled meadows |
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