Today was one of walking across hills in the sun on tracks and roads, past vineyards, by fields and through woods, it included a major fight through thorny undergrowth.
First it was breakfast, stingy nettle pie, which also had cheese and eggs in a sort of bready base - very nice and enough left over for my lunch. The first section of the walk was from Rajac to Tamnič. I had some doubts about the farm track between the two villages that I picked on Google Earth but my host at the B&B confirmed its existence, drew a sketch map and took me to where it started. However in such tracks between villages farmers tend to go drive up and down from their fields to the nearest village leaving the middle or highest section of track little used and often overgrown, as it was in this case. Fields in this middle section most distant from the villages had also been abandoned, where once there may have been vines, there were now blossoming, thorny bushes difficult to pass through. The track itself, although marked by lines of small trees, became impassable as hawthorn, rose briars and similar thorny bushes tried to damage my clothing and penetrate my skin with some success. I tried to find an alternative path up and down the hillside, but no avail. Eventually I managed to bypass the most overgrown section of track. After negotiating some fallen trees the track began to improve as I approached the fields around Tamnič, where elderly women were busy planting potatoes while men did things with tractors.
I continued along my planned route without any other obstructions eventually reaching a tree fringed lake with a sad abandoned restaurant and leisure facility. Following the north side of the lake on a track through the trees I reached a major road, but only after crossing a deep, narrow, steep sided drainage channel. I had planned to cross some more fields on the other side of the road but with no sign of a track I elected to follow the main road for a while instead, keeping out of the way of the occasional truck and lorry.
I was offered a lift in a trailer behind a tractor for a second time and a van also stopped to ask if I wanted a lift. It was getting increasingly difficult to persuade people I wanted to walk. They obviously thought me very silly (could they be right?) so I was glad to turn off the road onto a track towards the village of Sikole, and after a final bit of road, passing locals getting ready for a football match, I reached the village shop. I topped up with water, bought a twix and a small can of beer which I drank on the bench outside the shop with fellow drinkers. A reward for a 30 kilometre hike on a hot day. Leaving the village I passed a place selling (?) wooden carvings of animals, people and ingenious swans made of old car tyres.
Now pitched on a grassy patch in some woods a few kilometres out from the village. Dear are barking but I don't think it's the hunting season so we should both be safe.
34.1 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.
First it was breakfast, stingy nettle pie, which also had cheese and eggs in a sort of bready base - very nice and enough left over for my lunch. The first section of the walk was from Rajac to Tamnič. I had some doubts about the farm track between the two villages that I picked on Google Earth but my host at the B&B confirmed its existence, drew a sketch map and took me to where it started. However in such tracks between villages farmers tend to go drive up and down from their fields to the nearest village leaving the middle or highest section of track little used and often overgrown, as it was in this case. Fields in this middle section most distant from the villages had also been abandoned, where once there may have been vines, there were now blossoming, thorny bushes difficult to pass through. The track itself, although marked by lines of small trees, became impassable as hawthorn, rose briars and similar thorny bushes tried to damage my clothing and penetrate my skin with some success. I tried to find an alternative path up and down the hillside, but no avail. Eventually I managed to bypass the most overgrown section of track. After negotiating some fallen trees the track began to improve as I approached the fields around Tamnič, where elderly women were busy planting potatoes while men did things with tractors.
I continued along my planned route without any other obstructions eventually reaching a tree fringed lake with a sad abandoned restaurant and leisure facility. Following the north side of the lake on a track through the trees I reached a major road, but only after crossing a deep, narrow, steep sided drainage channel. I had planned to cross some more fields on the other side of the road but with no sign of a track I elected to follow the main road for a while instead, keeping out of the way of the occasional truck and lorry.
I was offered a lift in a trailer behind a tractor for a second time and a van also stopped to ask if I wanted a lift. It was getting increasingly difficult to persuade people I wanted to walk. They obviously thought me very silly (could they be right?) so I was glad to turn off the road onto a track towards the village of Sikole, and after a final bit of road, passing locals getting ready for a football match, I reached the village shop. I topped up with water, bought a twix and a small can of beer which I drank on the bench outside the shop with fellow drinkers. A reward for a 30 kilometre hike on a hot day. Leaving the village I passed a place selling (?) wooden carvings of animals, people and ingenious swans made of old car tyres.
Now pitched on a grassy patch in some woods a few kilometres out from the village. Dear are barking but I don't think it's the hunting season so we should both be safe.
34.1 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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| Road section |
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| Lake with abandoned restaurant |
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