Except at the impressive waterfalls at the end, today was a flat walk along quiet roads and river embankments.
I was waved off from the "Guesthouse for Adventurers" by my hosts and confidently set off in the wrong direction, should have checked my GPS first! Once re-orientated I walked a few kilometres up a road to join the E4 route which the "Rambling through Serbia" booklet has circling Negotin. The booklet takes you right out to the Danube before turning back towards the village of Mokranje. As one man off fishing on his bike put it in our common knowledge of a little French, the route was "plus loin", some 28 kilometres to Mokranje rather than maybe 11 by a more direct path. However it was a pleasant, flat walk along river embankments, by some fields and through some woods with a green fuzz of bursting buds and yellow celandines carpeting the ground. The most significant point was where the track almost reached the Danube. There was a bridge across a channel to the Danube riverside but as the water level was high, half the bridge was underwater. At this point three countries meet: Serbia, Bulgaria and Romania. An old border look out tower stood rusting, a reminder that this was where the iron curtain was once located. Now it seemed a favourite spot for fishing. The river Timok joins the Danube here, a river I will pass later on my trip. High water in the Danube meant that the Timok had flooded the fields within the embankment. Load croaking showed the frogs approved, while ducks flew off the water on one side of the embankment as I walked passed, pheasants hurried into the air from the fields on the other side, making noisy complaints about my presence.
At the road at the end of this section, the booklet implies the E4 goes to the north of the Mokranje road through woods and across a ridge. Nothing was visible on my maps and I had tried with difficulty to pick the route it might refer to on Google Earth, but looking at where it began made me think I had picked a drainage ditch instead of a track! So instead I followed the small, quiet road into Mokranje.
My host at the "Guesthouse for Adventurers" encouraged me to visit the waterfall at Mokranje and his colleague at the local mountain society had suggested it was a good place to camp. I was expecting a modest waterfall such as I had seen elsewhere, but they were most impressive, two parallel waterfalls in fact in full flow coming from a rocky, limestone gorge with a 10 metre or so drop. Large logs had been stranded at the top. Apparently in summer the falls can dry up altogether. Not so easy to photograph as trees got in the way.
I am now camped near a viewpoint on some rocks which has a great view across the village and maybe Bulgaria in the distance. On the lookout for ticks.
30.3 kilometres walked today. A gpx file of my route can be downloaded from wikiloc.com or wandermap.net. The route can also be downloaded from my.viewranger.com as johnpon0029.
I was waved off from the "Guesthouse for Adventurers" by my hosts and confidently set off in the wrong direction, should have checked my GPS first! Once re-orientated I walked a few kilometres up a road to join the E4 route which the "Rambling through Serbia" booklet has circling Negotin. The booklet takes you right out to the Danube before turning back towards the village of Mokranje. As one man off fishing on his bike put it in our common knowledge of a little French, the route was "plus loin", some 28 kilometres to Mokranje rather than maybe 11 by a more direct path. However it was a pleasant, flat walk along river embankments, by some fields and through some woods with a green fuzz of bursting buds and yellow celandines carpeting the ground. The most significant point was where the track almost reached the Danube. There was a bridge across a channel to the Danube riverside but as the water level was high, half the bridge was underwater. At this point three countries meet: Serbia, Bulgaria and Romania. An old border look out tower stood rusting, a reminder that this was where the iron curtain was once located. Now it seemed a favourite spot for fishing. The river Timok joins the Danube here, a river I will pass later on my trip. High water in the Danube meant that the Timok had flooded the fields within the embankment. Load croaking showed the frogs approved, while ducks flew off the water on one side of the embankment as I walked passed, pheasants hurried into the air from the fields on the other side, making noisy complaints about my presence.
At the road at the end of this section, the booklet implies the E4 goes to the north of the Mokranje road through woods and across a ridge. Nothing was visible on my maps and I had tried with difficulty to pick the route it might refer to on Google Earth, but looking at where it began made me think I had picked a drainage ditch instead of a track! So instead I followed the small, quiet road into Mokranje.
My host at the "Guesthouse for Adventurers" encouraged me to visit the waterfall at Mokranje and his colleague at the local mountain society had suggested it was a good place to camp. I was expecting a modest waterfall such as I had seen elsewhere, but they were most impressive, two parallel waterfalls in fact in full flow coming from a rocky, limestone gorge with a 10 metre or so drop. Large logs had been stranded at the top. Apparently in summer the falls can dry up altogether. Not so easy to photograph as trees got in the way.
I am now camped near a viewpoint on some rocks which has a great view across the village and maybe Bulgaria in the distance. On the lookout for ticks.
30.3 kilometres walked today. A gpx file of my route can be downloaded from wikiloc.com or wandermap.net. The route can also be downloaded from my.viewranger.com as johnpon0029.
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| Look out post, now old and rusting, close to where Serbia, Bulgaria and Romania meet |
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| Mokranje waterfalls (behind the trees!) |
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