May 27, 2023
Ljubljana to Brezje
We were up early to see Rohan and Max off. I was actually up before Tobias for once. It was so great hanging out with another family for a while. I think Tobias liked it too - he cried "come" when they were leaving and has been talking about "baby Arlo" going on the airplane all day. At least we will see these guys again sometime soon when we are all in NZ again.
James had to head out early and pick up both bikes since our host was off on a cycle trip of his own. Packing was a bit more work than usual. After 5 nights in the same space all our stuff got a bit everywhere. Luckily the others had already left so we weren't wading through 2 families worth of stuff. We made it out by 10 which exceeded my expectations, and packing the bikes went very smoothly since there was a digger working in the back yard to keep Tobias occupied.
We left Ljubljana via our favorite bakery for lunch bread and then headed out past Tivoli park. There was some kind of running event on and the park was teeming with people including lots of kids. We've seen more kids on bikes here than the rest of our trip so far. The city must be awesome to live in with a family - lots of safe spaces for kids to exist, lots of green space, and there always seems to be some kind of event on. The ride out was on a cycle lane of varying quality - I really like that there is cycling infrastructure, I look forward to not having to go up and down over a thousand driveways.
We stopped for a quick coffee at the edge of the built up area then found a picnic table for lunch in Smlednik. Leaving big cities is not usually the nicest ride, but once we left the buildings behind we were on quiet roads through forests and small villages. After lunch we rode through Kranj then had a really nice smooth separated cycle path for a while. Tobias woke up as we were talking to a French couple cycling to Istanbul so he got out and climbed up and down the ladder to the slide without going down it.
We had been gaining elevation all day, but so slowly and with a glorious tail wind so we hardly noticed. In the afternoon we had to drop down to the river or the road a few times then gain all the elevation back again which was a bit exhausting. Tobias was a bit over it by the end and I was getting a bit over trying to catch his shoes and sunglasses while also trying to keep the bike going uphill. Because we were with friends I didn't really spend as much time vetting the Komoot route as I usually do so we got taken on a questionable tikki tour which started off as a soft muddy forestry road and ended as an overgrown single track with a big drop to get to the road. Tobias was fine until he thought the trailer was going to tip over with his bike on board which brought on a few tears.
We were all ready to reach the campground tonight. It's a nice place amongst the trees, just unfortunately it's situated right above the highway and is quite noisy. Also it's not quite in season so they have only one hot shower open, but it was far away from the pitches, with no door, near the rooms which were occupied by a few too many intimidating guys for me to feel good about. The cold shower didn't do much to make me happy, especially when another couple showed up later and the hosts decided to turn the hot water on so I could have just waited.
We have a short day to Bled tomorrow. Originally we wanted to go all the way in to the Bohinj valley because it's one of the places we've spent the most time in Slovenia, but we are meeting a friend next week so we have an awkward amount of time to spread out our next few days. Hopefully we can check in to the campground before Tobias' nap.
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Today's ride: 46 km (29 miles)
Total: 1,137 km (706 miles)
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