Lake Vransko

My kind of campsite:- on the side of a lake (although we had a discounted pitch so we could only just see it),under the trees, with long flower covered grass, birds singing by day, frogs and scopse owls singing by night. It’s another Acsi site at €23, I’ve accepted Croatia will cost us a lot in campsite fees now. We had been going to go direct to Split but I noticed this lake on the map and decided a nature stop was called for. Our first day’s stroll took us past a nature reserve so we walked along the boardwalks and enjoyed the purple herons, pygmy cormorants along with the ever present little and great egrets. Leaving the nature reserve behind we looped back next to the field with the purple heron and we were treated to masses of them taking to the air. Alas the walk also took us past numerous fly tipping sites, a major problem in this country. The second day we took to the bikes and cycled the whole circumference of the lake. We started on the bike path, but our bones are old and my risk taking is limited, hence I hate cycling loose deep gravel and rocky tracks. After about an hour of simply watching the track to try and make sure the bike stayed upright we left the track, walking the bikes up a footpath to rejoin the road. It meant we could no longer see the lake, but I hadn’t been seeing it anyway and we were still in the hills with appropriate good views. The road took us past lots of bombed out houses, in one hamlet all the houses were shells, a reminder of the war less than 30 years ago, Amongst the rubble were new houses, built in red air bricks, as yet unrendered. It’s very unsettling to see the devastation of war.