Digital Wanderer

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Montenegro — 5, day 2, Biogradska Gora park

2012-06-16

So, closer to noon we finally made it to the Biogradska Gora national park, located between the rivers Euphrates and Tigris Tara and Lim. The park, covering an area of just 54 square kilometers, promised us a massive list of beauties and heights: forest, mountains up to two grand in meters, six glacial lakes, authentic native huts, and a crazy diversity of flora and fauna, including three types of trout.

Tracks:

Everytrail:

Montenegro day 2


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GPSies:

 

A wide turquoise river with fast currents flows through a mountain valley, towered over by a large concrete arch bridge, and the mountain slopes are covered with forest with emerging greenery under a blue sky.

Even on the approach to the park, a beautiful colorful river revealed itself, making it clear that advertising doesn't always lie!

A blue-and-cyan road sign with a green border indicates 'Biogradska Gora National Park' and the direction to 'Biogradsko Lake'. The sign is located by a road with a green metal fence in the foreground and a steep rocky slope with sparse vegetation in the background.

A signpost to the only easily accessible lake for lazy "car" tourists

 A man in a yellow cycling jersey, a helmet and with a backpack is riding a mountain bike along a forest road. In the background, a second cyclist is riding along a winding path.

Rob

Robert, aka Rob, besides all his other virtues, played the role of our videographer (using a touristy video camera called Contour HD, if I'm not lying) and occasionally our cook (with the help of his wife and Indian spices). Guess what's sticking out of his backpack in the photo?

Robert is also a marathon runner; here's his result from the recent Nordea Riga Marathon. 3:48:47, which, in my opinion, is very cool. The first world record, by the way, was 2:55:18 at the beginning of the last century, set by an American, and the current one is  2:03:38, set last year by Kenyan Patrick Makau. I'm not dreaming of running a marathon myself yet, but overall the idea is appealing, I'd like to do it someday.

 

An asphalt road goes deep into a dense spring forest with trees starting to turn green. Parked cars are located on the left, and wooden structures and a lake against a backdrop of mountains are visible on the right.

And here is that very lake, Biogradsko

There was a sign hanging nearby saying that all these little houses and bridges were built with the help of an Austrian fund. As you can see, you don't even need to join the EU to gobble up some cash. Old rich Europeans also understand their benefit in sponsoring such projects — there will be a place to vacation, there will be more jobs for the locals and less tension in the country.

A wooden pier with moored wooden boats on a calm mountain lake, surrounded by forested slopes. Mountain peaks are visible in the background under a cloudy sky.

So far just pure mountain air, and not a soul

The lake, by the way, is glacial, the most beautiful and largest of all the lakes in the park, shallow though — on average only 4.5m, but the altitude we are currently at is already over a kilometer. The water in the lake is chilly, around 5-10 degrees. For Doomer, of course, this is no obstacle, but there were tourists rubbing shoulders nearby, and he decided not to embarrass them with the sight of his naked flesh.

A group of tourists on a wooden pier of a mountain lake, surrounded by wooded mountains. In the foreground, a girl in a red t-shirt stands on a wooden gangway, and wooden boats are moored on both sides of the dock.

But now we've rolled up too

A bald man in a blue polo and sunglasses sits relaxed in a wooden boat on the lake, against the backdrop of a wooded shore with leafless trees.

This is how the locals chill

Two cyclists are resting by a mountain lake on an overcast day: a man in glasses, holding a helmet, stands on the left, and a woman in a helmet sits on the right on wooden stumps. In the background, leafless trees, mountains, and a wooden pier with boats on the lake are visible.

And this is how we chill

A wooden sign reading 'zabranjen ribolov' (fishing prohibited) stands on the shore of a lake surrounded by forest and hills.

Note that the sign is shaped like a fish! Lebedev would be pleased

A translation of the inscription, I think, is not required. I hope the trout promised in the guidebook is indeed in the lake, because in practice it's impossible to find out due to the sign. This is roughly how we communicated with the locals too — only Andrey had communication problems, for reasons more of excessive pensiveness than real ones. Wave your hands and go through all the Russian, Polish, and Belarusian words you know until you get a reaction — that's the whole technology.

A wooden spring with a spouting stream of water and a filled trough in the foreground in the forest. In the background, trees with moss-covered trunks, parked cars, and a bridge with yellow railings by a body of water are visible.

Drinking water, most likely comes from streams that pour in abundance from the snow melting in spring on top of the mountains. The water is tasty, we filled up everywhere where we didn't see sheep pooping in it nearby.

A wooden information board shows a map of the nature park with a lake, forest, and marked objects, as well as the greeting "DOBRODOŠLI !!! WELCOME !!!" with a cartoon mouse. The board is set against a spring forest with a gravel path in the foreground.

Dobro Došli!

We arrived "dobro" here alright, but what happens from here on out is unknown. The asphalt has ended after all!

Two cyclists on a forest trail. One, smiling, waves his hand while standing in a stream next to his bike, and the second leads his bike against the background of fallen trees and exposed roots.

The terrain is gradually acquiring the characteristic features of cross-country mountain biking, meaning little streams, fallen trunks, roots and leaves, and a bit of sand are appearing. This is to all of our liking, because that's exactly what we came for.

A close-up of a man in a bicycle helmet and gloves, holding a Nikon camera. He looks at the viewer with wide open eyes against a blurred forest background.

Busted for illegally filming the secret facilities of the national park, Oleg is in a panic!

 

A landscape through a dense forest of bare trees, where a tall red-brown wooden tower is visible in the distance on the right, against a backdrop of snow-capped mountains under an overcast sky.

And here is the ziggurat itself for summoning aliens

Oleg managed to snap a pic of it at the cost of incredible risk, but anything is worth it to lift the veil of secrecy on why the Eurofunds are actually sponsoring Montenegrin facilities so actively. The whole secret is that the energy here is good, and therefore you can only send signals into space to communicate with extraterrestrial intelligence from here. You can catch them from anywhere, see SETI, but you can only send — from Montenegro. And that's how they live.

A close-up of a snowdrop with white petals blooming on the ground with thawed patches and dry grass, against the background of a blurred bicycle wheel.

Andrey is practicing his highly artistic photography for the umpteenth time

“The confrontation of two principles — artificial  and natural”. Whether his efforts make sense, or if these are banalities drearily embodied in shots taken with a super-point-and-shoot camera — is up to you to decide. I don't have an opinion, I've gone into Buddhism. But the photo has one undeniable merit — it depicts the very snowdrop that is the symbol and name of our tourist club.

A group of cyclists in helmets and sports gear is resting on a dirt mountain trail. In the background, slopes with withered grass, patches of melting snow, and bare trees are visible.

And here, suddenly, the first snow!

I, as a person who had previously only been with a bike in mountains without snow (I mean Vietnam), immediately wanted to take a picture against the background. Oleg, as a more experienced person, immediately calmed me down, saying that I would have the chance again, and more than once. And so it turned out.

A man in a blue t-shirt rides a mountain bike through a large muddy puddle, splashing water. In the background, patches of melting snow, dry grass, and sparse purple flowers on the slope are visible.

The snow, as you might guess, melts very actively in the heat and under the mountain sun, which Doomer takes advantage of, deciding on this occasion to wash the wheels of his iron friend.

A shallow body of water with a section of the shore overgrown with grass and fallen leaves. Numerous clusters of frog spawn are visible in the water, and small ripples run across the surface.

The frogs take advantage too, and lay their spawn

Frog spawn in the water, which is a cluster of transparent jelly-like eggs with black dots of embryos inside. Part of the clutch is covered with a whitish translucent coating.

Andrey is artistically shooting it in macro mode

A girl in a bicycle helmet and a red-and-white sports uniform carries a mountain bike over a small stream against the background of melting snow.

And then, suddenly, it turns out that there is much more snow than we'd like. You could even say it is omnipresent — and surrounds us from all sides. And according to the inevitable laws of physics, the higher we climb, the colder it gets, and the thicker the snow cover.

Actually, although you see a dense white mass in the photos, in reality it's not all that cold. For the torso and arms, at least. The feet, which after a few dozen meters immediately start to feel the icy moisture, have a completely different opinion.

But what happens next, we'll only find out in the next episode, which I'm tempted to give an obscene title. As you know, Russians only have two diseases — one passes on its own, and the other is incurable. And as usual, it seemed like we were in for the second one, but it turned out to be the first after all.

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