We had been watching the weather forecast while in Bled quite closely as our first day out of Bled was looking like we were going to be hiking over 20kms in torrential rain.
Needless to say when we awoke it was cold and miserable and raining quite heavily but after delaying until about 9.30am we decided to just bite the bullet and put on our waterproofs and get going. I did try and convince Tim that catching a taxi to the last town which would take about 8kms off the start of the hike was a good idea but I didn’t win that one. 😂
We walked around half the lake and then headed up and out the valley hitting several little villages as we went. The rain was still pretty heavy so we just put our heads down and got on with it. From here we entered the Pokjuka Gorge with cliffs of 150m each side and us walking through beautiful forest on the gorge floor. We soon came to the end of the gorge and were wondering how we were getting out when the path took us steeply up but then literally through a cave in the rock face and out the other side into more woods. It was steep but not dangerous and lucky for us the rain started to abate.
Once we hit the top of the gorge wall we then had a really pleasant hike with a slow incline through high spruce and beech forest and mountain pastures. By this stage the rain had pretty much stopped completely. It was also the busiest day for seeing other hikers as we had 4 pass us while we were sat drinking our tea and eating lunch. We spoke to two of them and they were just doing this section and the next so it’s still only the American couple we have met who has been doing the full end to end hike so far.
Our destination for the night was a tiny little ski resort which consisted of 2 hotels, a guest house and a bar. A bit of a world away from Chamonix but the fact that it is surrounded by thick forest definitely gives it a rustic in the middle of nowhere feel. S