Swanning Up River

Swimming at the falls, Krkr National Park

Krkr National Park, Croatia

The Krka National Park lies at the head of a large “fiord-like” river system, and with many others, we chugged up-river to spend a day at Skradin and take in the waterfalls beyoind. 

Firstly, one has to negotiate the Kanal Sv Ante, the busy, narrow channel that leads from the Adriatic; skirt a Venetian built Fortress, Sv Nikola, getting a facelift, and then avoid visitors exploring WW2 submarine tunnels known as Hitler's Eyes, to get to the port city of Sibenik. 

Sibenik itself has a long and illustrious history, a ship-building tradition and a special Cathedral, Sv Jakov (1433).  This town was also badly damaged during the Homeland War (1991-92).

Submarine tunnels near Sibenik

However, we were on a mission to get further up-river to secure an anchorage on Prukljansko Jezero (just had to include that name!).  

We found a very quiet spot just north of Rasline, in St Kate Bay  and off-loaded Bruce for his next big adventure; 3 miles further up-river with lots of charter boat & swan dodging along the way. 

At the pretty village of Skradin, we swapped Bruce for a ferry (and left him to entertain all those swans).  The ferry was Krka National Park bound. 

Krkr National Park upriver view

The park itself is quite large and day trips can be arranged to travel beyond Skradinski Buk, the waterfall area we found ourselves in.  We took a well-marked trail through some lovely wetlands, full of fish, turtles and brilliant blue dragon flies.  At this time of year (summer) the falls are relatively tame, so when it rains, the view over them from the highest vantage point must be something.  

Aside from the timbered 5km walk, park authorities had converted a few village houses into a heritage museum, designated a large picnic area and created a bike/walking trail between Skradin and the falls. 

Not wishing to join the throng swimming at the bottom of the falls, we made for the ferry and took Bruce home for a swim (in St. Kate Bay), watched a swan family glide by with 5 ugly ducklings in tow, and noticed our beer quickly evaporating.

A Swan family takes an evening constitutional at our St Kate Bay anchorage