Senj - Plitvice - Senj

There were a couple of things I wanted to do when we were in Europe and this was, if not at the top, very near to it so at an early (for the Griswolds) 8am we left home and drove to Plitvice National Park.

Plitvice is a UNESCO designated national park in Eastern Croatia and one of the oldest in Europe and although pricey to visit it is worth every dollar.  ($55.00 for the family but included buses within the park and a boat transfer).  Both help you cover more of the park and save you backtracking.  (Would have been $8.00 more but Ryan was only 6 years old today and therefore free.)  

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Just a quick digression for a minute or two here.  

All through Europe Ryan has defied the laws of space and time and existed in parallel universes (with attendant multiple personalities but that's a story for another day) where his age varies from 6 to 8 years old.  The varying age of Ryan depends on the discount or the age restriction applying in the relevant situation and in which reality he needs to exist in on that day.  

(In general terms Ryan flits between one of three alternate realities.  

Universe (A) Here time ticks more slowly for a younger Ryan due to an age discount.

Universe (B) Our reality, time ticks by at the standard second per second.

Universe (C) A place where times ticks faster.  This may occur where an older Ryan is required for, say, an adventure ropes course.)  

Higgs Bosun chasing particle physicist boffins working at the Large Hadron Collider should spend a few days with us and we'd show them how to warp the space-time continuum no trouble at all.

It should be noted that just after briefing Ryan on his script for the day and porting him into his parallel existence (Matrix style) Nicki is quick to remind Ryan that "you know Ryan you shouldn't lie because it's wrong".  

(Unless it saves you a few bucks that is.) 

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We hit up the tourist information office after purchasing our tickets and we decided to follow the 9km walking trail covering a large swathe of the park.

All we had to do now was board a bus to take us to the far end of the park and commence our journey and we'd be right.  Of course we got on the wrong bus and watched the bus we were supposed to be on pull up adjacent our bus and before we realised what was going on it'd had departed and we were left scrambling to get off the one we were on.

Cue a rather large dummy spit as 2kms had now been added to our 9km walk as I wasn't waiting for another half an hour for the next bus.  

Being one of the only 2 adults in our party of five I did the mature thing and stomped off down the track to our initial drop off point muttering unmentionables under my breath.

Half an hour later we commenced our walk around the park staring at the dozens of waterfalls and the crystal clear water.  Water which was so clear you sometimes had trouble delineating where the water started and where the air ended.  The fish, of which there were an abundance, seemed to float in mid-air and you could easily see metres into the lakes.  

It really is something special.

Words (and probably photos) won't do the park justice here so I'll just bung up a heap of photos and you can see for yourself.

Stray observations:  Children aren't the only ones capable of tantrums.