Dancing with the...Foxes
Day 2 - July 31
I slept rather well, much longer that I had intended to. It was only around 8 am that I got ready, went to check out and there four Hungarian biker ladies were having their breakfast. We talked for quite a while, exchanging information about the roads (we were headed the opposite direction).
There was no sign of the thunder of the previous night, it was a nice, sunny morning. I soon reached the town of Velenje, which is the fifth largest town in Slovenia, passing through a gorge. It was a pretty town, with ruins of a castle and a nice palace up on a hill.
After the town, I turned to a smaller road, heading towards southwest, more or less towards the capital, Ljubljana - however, I had no intention of actually getting to the capital (been there, done that...). The landscape was green, hilly and pretty - very much like somewhere in Austria. I did suffer a bit from the heat, but then it is part of the game, isn't it? I recall, one road sign was in the direct sunshine, so I took a photo of it, then moved to the shade to look up where I was.
Some more castles, more hills and I arrived at River Sava - which was a lot larger than I had thought (and very pretty for that!)
There was a covered wooden bridge spanning across the river.
Riding a dozen of so miles along this nice river towards the west, I turned southwards, into the hills. What followed was yet another castle, Bogensperk, a major one for that and rather nice, as you can see.
It was uphill for quite a while, then I found a nice, flat road, which I was crazy to leave, as it yet again meant a lot of climbing. It was extremely quiet - and very beautiful - in that area. The sun was setting slowly as I was cruising through mountain villages, when I came across a beautiful stone church.
The villages were also very quaint.
I was now on a very small forest road and felt really tired. I noticed that it was lightning, for that rather frequently, but did not hear a thunder, so whatever it was, it must have been very far. I yet again found a spot for my tent, this time ended up pitching it and praying it would not rain, I rested. Ha! Rest it wasn't. When camping in the wild, I often hear animals: in Romania, two horses snorted the entire night (and spotted them only deep into the night), in Denver, a herd of elk strolled right through the small camp I was resting in, in Sweden, I have no idea, but it were two big animals (moose maybe) fighting each other for an hour or so. What do you do when you think there is some sort of an animal (or animals) around you? Keep as quiet as possible or shout like a madman? The thing is, there definitely was something around my tent that night, nearing me from various directions. OK, I decided to let out a big shout - it was then quiet for a little while, but this something was back again. I left the presumed "safety" of my millimeter thick tent and got hold of my flashlight. I was quite startled to see not one, but two foxes - both of them about 2-3 meters away from me. I did all kinds of darting attacks, hooshing - to no avail, they kept coming back. Was it me they were after? What if they are rabid and bite me? After many different attempts, a stick of wood made the trick - I threw it at them and they left, not in panic, just apparently rather disappointed. Now that that trouble was taken care of, I once again kept my fingers crossed that the storm would not come down on me - the frequent lightning would not cease. It was not a very peaceful night, no.
Here is the link to the map, it was about 130 km an about 2,400 meters of climbing.