As the Juliana Trail was only officially opened in 2019 I couldn’t have heard of it that long ago but I do remember being enchanted by the idea of being able to explore a country by foot and this hike was meant to take us around a beautiful part of Slovenia where we would stay in villages and explore parts that most tourists didn’t get to see. The trail was developed by the government in Slovenia to encourage tourists to do more than simply come to Lake Bled or climb mount Triglav (the highest mountain in Slovenia) and is approximately 330km long and divided into 20 stages each ranging from 15km to 20km. On paper it seems pretty doable.
While I had heard of the hike a while ago we had taken a bit of time to be able to do it. Our first stumbling block was that towards the end of our Larapinta hike (a mere 230km in Australia’s red centre) we both decided that we weren’t going to do another long multi day hike. Well since then our memories have obviously faded or become distorted as here we are (not even 2 years later) in a hotel room in Nova Gorica at our starting point of the hike feeling both excited and a little nervous.
We have been researching and planning the trip for some time. Admittedly I bought the guidebook for the hike last year but unfortunately we were unable to do it so it was only about 5 months ago that I started really planning.
We decided to do the trail in May as it would be warm enough that we shouldn’t encounter too much snow and early enough in the hiking season that we wouldn’t encounter too many other tourists. We also decided to not only do the trail but also an additional 4 days of side trips as well as stopping in Bled for a couple of days to explore the lake. This would mean that our hike would end up taking 29 days and involve a bit more hiking than the 330km.
The major plus side was that the accommodation would not be in a tent but in guesthouses along the way which we believe is going to make everything a whole lot easier as it’s one thing hiking for 15-20km a day but it’s a lot different when you don’t have to pack up and put up a tent/campsite and then boil and collect water to cook food. Instead we should have the comfort of a bed and on most nights a good meal.
Our first step was to plan out our starting point and route and then jump online to try and book accommodation along the way. This turned out to be not too difficult as either we were early with our bookings or not too many people are doing the hike that it hasn’t become too crowded. Either way we have a plan and as long as all the addresses are correct and I have booked the right places we should have a roof over our head for all the nights.
The next major planning item is what to bring and this time we have some personal experience or what we might need and again because we aren’t camping and should be able to wash ourselves and our clothes along the way things have been a little easier. I won’t give a full packing list but basically we just have 2 sets of hiking tops and shorts and a set of clothes to wear in the evening plus waterproofs and warm jumpers…and gloves (something we forgot last time). In addition to this we have medical stuff and some emergency kit as well as chargers and a chair to sit on during our breaks while we enjoy the scenery.
Although we shouldn’t have to carry much food for most of the hike for our first few days we are doing a more remote part of the hike and the places we are staying in aren’t guaranteeing food so we are having to take food for the first four days which is obviously resulting in heavier packs to begin with but hopefully they will lighten as we go.
The third main preparation has been to make sure we are fit enough for the trip and while we have been very active and done a lot of hiking up and down mountains I still know that the days after days of hiking are going to be exhausting and ultimately we are just going to have to get ourselves through them and hopefully our enjoyment of the adventure and exploration out weigh our tired bodies.
As always we like to do enough planning so that we are able to enjoy the trip but not too much that we remove all sense of adventure that comes with doing something like this so right at this point while we are lounging on our bed in Nova Gorica we are both excited about the journey ahead and feel ready for the hike (maybe not so exited about the rain forecast for the first 2-3 days)
As I mentioned we are starting our hike in Nova Gorica and to get here we have driven 6hrs across the northern part of Italy. My expectation was a glorious drive through the foothills of the Dolomites with beautiful villages on one side and a mountain range on the other. The reality was unfortunately not quite so appealing as the motorway provided few views once we descended from the Alps having driven through the Mont Blanc tunnel and the rest of the five hours felt like a fight on the roads to stay unscathed in between a bunch of crazy Italian drivers and hundreds of lorries. We survived. On the plus side it demonstrated to us the number of possibilities for exploration within an easy day’s drive from our base in Chamonix!!
Once here in Nova Gorica we were pleasantly surprised by our hotel (we are the only guests) and have enjoyed a little walk around town (but have decided to keep exploration by foot to a minimum and actually have a rest). Most of our time has been spent buying bear spray as the one thing everyone we have spoken to about the hike has mentioned has been the bears. We originally thought black bears (similar threat to large dogs so no big deal) but actually they are brown bears (2.5m tall and 450 pounds…grizzly bears are brown bears). So on learning this we decided to get the only protection really available and that is a spray that apparently deters them during an attack. Hopefully we will never find out whether this works or not. The positive has been that in our search for the spray in the outdoor shops none of the hiking enthusiasts that we had encountered had seen a bear so hopefully we won’t either!
Oh and to be completely honest I forgot my camping chair so had to track one down or face sitting on the floor next to Sarah while she enjoyed a view in comfort.
Now the only thing we have to do is walk. Looking forward to it. T