Coming to Slovenia was going to be the start of the trip where I could think about saving money as things get progressively cheaper the further east you go in Europe. However Bled is a little different because its a sporty little place with heaps of companies offering all sorts of adventures. And these aren’t cheap. When I checked in to my hostel I found out the Emerald River Adventure day trip was running the next day. I had planned to do this all along so there goes 88 euros. The outing consists of being driven to various places around Bled, including canyons, waterfalls, rivers, towns, etc. Its a great way to see the beautiful scenery that Slovenia has to offer.
I was picked up outside the hostel with 3 others at 8am the next morning. The weather wasn’t that great, it was really cloudy, but I wasn’t going to take the risk of not doing it that day and hoping they ran it again while I was still in Bled. I can’t remember the names of any of the places that we went to, but I couldn’t even pronounce them at the time either. One of the first stops was to a set of artificial swimming lakes that had a mountain goat statue on the shoreline. The guides explained the story behind the legend of the goat, and it wasn’t that happy. It ended with the goat kicking a young boy off a cliff to his death. Interesting. We drove up and down various mountain passes, with the fog covering basically everything. The whole day started with the thought of ‘wow this tour would be amazing in summer’. Went to a section of the Soca river and did a walk/hike to where the water comes out of the mountain. Pretty sketchy walk, fair part of it was basically like via ferrata climbing (holding on to a metal rope or you will fall and die). Pretty weird place, theres just a hole in the mountain with a pool of water inside that the water flows out of. In times of huge rainfall the water shoots out of the mountain.
After lunch we drove to another part of the Soca river to do some white water rafting. I have never done this before so it was quite exciting, even though it was obvious it was going to be rather tame. And thats exactly what it was. The time rafting is split in to three different parts with the first being cat 1, the second being cat 2 and the third, thats right, cat 3. Cat 1 rafting is basically just floating down a river, and cat 2 isn’t much different. The guide was obviously trying to make it interesting and steering us into as much shit as possible which was good. We had a rest before the cat 3 part because i don’t know maybe certain fat bats who do it get tired or something by this stage. The cat 3 part was ok, but the cool parts were too few and far between. The consensus between the people I knew was that if the entire thing was the good parts from the cat 3 section then it would have been wicked. Still glad I did it…but in the future I now know I have to go on more advanced guided rafting.
Next stop was to a pretty sweet waterfall and swimming pool. Walked through the forest for a while and then you get to the source of the water, about a 10m waterfall with a big swimming area underneath it. Its a pretty damn sweet waterfall, and in the summer the tour stops here for a while and you can go swimming there, but the water is about 8 degrees so that wouldn’t be too fun. The last part of the tour is going to a 12m high bridge that has a jumping platform. A few of us that were wanting to do it found out that the guides were planning on skipping it because of how cold the water was. So we spoke up and said we will do it anyway because we are hardcore harries. We drove there and checked it out, the water was the craziest blue green colour id ever seen. The first dude to jump had done it before a few times so did it without anyone even really realising. I was the next one to go. Highest ive ever jumped is probably 5m so its a bit of a step up. Peer pressure is a fantastic thing though. In the end it was piss easy. The water however was so cold my balls retreated in to my body in 0.01 seconds. I have never ever been in such cold water. It was totally worth it though. I wanted to keep doing it but we were strapped for time and now knowing what the water is like is not good.
From there we went to the closest train station and drove the cars on to a special train. The train ride goes through multiple tunnels, the longest of which is 6km with no lights, so its pitch black. Got back to Bled around 8pm and then the guide burnt a copy of the photos they were taking all day and gave everyone a copy which was cool.
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