It has been a busy week and too much computer work took it’s toll on back, wrists, eyes… Getting out became necessary! So I called a good friend to join me on a short hike to Zrmanja’s beautiful Veliki Buk waterfall. We considered an alternative route that would be a bit more demanding but, of course, we never did it before.

So, despite light rain, we headed north and soon arrived to a small village on the very edge of Zrmanja canyon. It can be approached from two directions and one leads from Muskovci up the hill but with beautiful views of Zrmanja valley…

Once we parked the car we followed a narrow path that, we assumed, was leading to the waterfall. The path was following the edge of the canyon and the views were breathtaking!

After a while we realized that we have to go down to reach the water. However, easier said than done! No real paths but tons and tons of rocks and stones forming moving slopes of this canyon very hard to walk!
It took us about 30 minutes to walk our way down avoiding moving the rocks too much but I had a very close encounter with few hundred kilos avalanche of rocks and stones! Hardly avoided it!
So, this is not the hike I would recommend to anyone as it is quite dangerous!
But, after we reached the banks, the view and the calmness of Zrmanja are very rewarding!

As the water was quite high, we were unable to reach the Veliki Buk waterfall but we did not care. The river is just mesmerizingly beautiful and the green color so unreal!
It was clear that at this very spot river has been heavy “adjusted” by us. Two really high waterfalls have been destroyed to make the water calmer. Probably for the electric plant further down… Only the remains of once tall waterfalls still remain…

Going up the hill was not as bad as expected although the sides of the canyon are really high (probably 80 – 100 meters at these points). Every time we stopped to take a break we were rewarded by a wonderful view of the river. The wild life, birds and frogs, kept singing the good bye song for us returning back to their everyday routine…

The drive back from this unspoiled part of Dalmatia was as beautiful as always and now even rewarded by a lovely rainbow!

Then, after going deeper to Bukovica, we noticed big machinery going through some of the most picturesque valley (where we pick mushrooms!) making some pipe line! When we will stop with all this devastation? Gas pipe line?!??! How about a solar power plant? Gas is brought from Russia and Sun we have in abundance. I would rather see one nuclear plant than miles and miles of pipeline…

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