Velika Planina was an unexpected adventure

As delightful as Lake Bled was, we had a craving to get back to the mountains. A bit of park4night searching and an enticing mountain campsite description later and we found ourselves back in the mountains nestled in the valley beneath the Velika Planina plateau. The next morning we woke up to warming sunshine, cow bells and idilic mountain views.

The advantages of travelling at this time of year when most tourist have gone are occasionally dented by things being closed or not running as often. We arrived at the cable car to take us up the mountain only to find that we had just missed one and the next wasn’t for 2 hours, kindly they rang up the cable car operator and requested they put on another one in an hour. 

Unfortunately as we neared the chair lift to take us the final leg (5 mins on the chair lift or a 3.5km walk) cloud descended on the top of the mountain and we couldn’t see anything more than 30m ahead. No chance of seeing the plateau, ancient settlements or distant mountain views. We decided to walk the heritage trail anyway but I was a bit nervous of getting lost in the fog so we stuck to the paths. Half way round after numerous encounters with eerie signage and shut places of interest we found a very cosy refuge serving sausage stew and beer. It was warm and seriously enticing but we decided not to stay to give us plenty of time to get back for the last chair lift at 3.30, to take us down to the cable car.

Off we went (in the wrong direction, still couldn’t see a thing) but quickly noticed and soon made it back to the Chapel that was less than 10 mins from the chair lift. We ate our very stiff and dry sandwiches huddled on a bench by the Chapel, they didn’t do much to buoy our rather deflated spirits so we decided to go and warm up at the bar by the chair lift. We had been walking for a while through the fog when I suddenly had the feeling we had been walking up hill for a lot longer than we had walked down early that afternoon. I said to Henry, ‘ do you think we might have gone too far?” he immediately said “I was thinking that too’ so we felt sure we had gone too far so turned around. 

At this point things started to feel a bit tense as the 30 mins to do the easy 10 min walk had turned into having only 15 mins to walk back for an unknown amount of time and find the turning for the chair lift. Needless to say things got a hell of a lot more tense! We came across a few land marks but it was impossible to navigate by sight so we followed the GPS towards the chair lift. Something wasn’t right though as it felt like we had been going for too long and in the wrong direction but it seemed like the only option. Our hearts sank and stress levels rose significantly when we noticed the old defunct chair lift looming out of the fog! At this point it was 3.28 and I resigned myself to running the 3.5km down the mountain to try and catch the last cable car. Henry however did not, so, we set off on a mad uphill cross country run, stagger, walk, sweat, swear, run following the GPS to the functioning chair lift. We arrived pink and panting at about 3.37 hoping that there was still someone there and that they might still be running the chair lift. Thank goodness there was someone there but the chair lift was finished and he said ‘you will have to go down the track’’. With only 23mins to get to the last cable car we set off at a trot down the mountain. Until this point I had been mildly disappointed with the day as we had paid a fair bit to take the cable car up, couldn’t see anything and everywhere was closed. At this point, knowing I could make it and embracing I was going to be running down the mountain, I felt the fun, freedom and joy of the adventure and arrived at the cable car having clocked one of my fastest 1 kilometre times, bright red with my hair slapping my my cheeks and a massive grin on my face. Not sure Henry enjoyed it quite so much!