May 13, 2023
Plitvice lakes
Getting out of the house is so much easier when we don't have to take all of our stuff and we had a relatively relaxed start today. With completely unloaded bikes the 5km climb of about 150m up to the entrance of the Plitvice lakes national park took less than half an hour, even in jandals. In the high season, 10,000 people go through the parks every single day, so we were a bit nervous about feeling crowded, but it wasn't too bad. Everything was set up to control the flow of traffic and prevent bottlenecks. We were moving at Tobias pace, so anytime it got crowded because a bus arrived, they just went past and it was quiet again.
We were a bit unsure how we would transport Tobias through the park. He still needs to sleep in the middle of the day or all our lives are shit, but the only on-the-go nap method we have is the trailer. It does become a pram, but with lots of steps, slopes, and people it wasn't going to be ideal. We mentioned this to our host to get some advice and she dug out the front pack that she used to use when her now around 8 year old son was a baby for us. He hasn't done a front pack nap since before he was 1, but he managed just fine.
Besides napping though he was mostly keen to walk so we certainly had a lot of time to look at all the waterfalls. Highlights from him are calling the pools a "big bath" and the waterfalls "visjes up the stairs" (his way of saying that they are like stairs for fish). At the top of the park we shared a beer with a German couple road tripping with their almost 1 year old twins in a converted fire truck van. Travelling with 1 baby is challenging, twins is next level! It was fun to connect with other people doing similar adventures with little kids.
The ride back home was all downhill and sleeting rain so we put Tobias into my waterproof pants and all the clothes we had and just rode as fast as we could. I was worried he'd be cold. He spent the whole time yelling "mama motorbike. More motorbike". It was funny riding the unloaded bikes, they felt super touchy and responsive on the downhill.
We've revised our plans a wee bit for the next week. The forecast is still cold and rainy everywhere. We don't really want to stay put, and boosting forward isn't going to improve things, so we are just going to do short days and stay in houses rather than camp. We can't afford to stay indoors forever, and the further west we go the more expensive everything gets, but hopefully the weather will start to improve too. And while we are fine to rug up and snuggle in a tent, multiple rainy camping days with Tobias would get miserable.
Today's ride: 10 km (6 miles)
Total: 820 km (509 miles)
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