Thursday 11th October 2007

Perversely, we decided not to visit the Postojna caves but head a few miles South to the Skocjan caves. We decided that the Postojna caves were very touristy – you enter the caves via a 2km train journey and the trip also involves a boat journey. We decided that the Skocjan caves would be more dramatic and quieter mainly due to the fact that it is a 1.5 hour walking tour involving over 500 steps. When we passed the Postojna caves just after 10:00 and saw 20 coaches in the car park, we felt justified in our decision.
We intended to go on the 13:00 tour of the caves and we knew that there was an 'educational tour' around the area so would have time to do that before the tour. Although the educational boards were only in Slovenian, I would strongly recommend anyone visiting the caves to also follow the trail. The underground passage of the Reka river caused huge erosion inside the hill and this resulted in massive collapses of parts of the hills called 'dolines'. The original cave entrance is in one of these, called the Velika dolina and the walk takes one around and down into this and the Mala dolina, some 160m deep. It really is spectacular and helps to put the caves into perspective before the visit.
The Skocjan caves are one of only three cave systems that have been given World Heritage status, the others being in the USA. The feature that makes them so special is the underground, 100m deep gorge through which the Reka river runs. The caves were known in antiquity - Posidonius of Apamea (135 – 50BC) wrote: “The river Timavus springs in the mountain, flows into an abyss [the Skocjan caves], reappears after the distance of 130 stadia and flows into the sea.”
The early part of the cave had the normal collection of impressive stalagmites and stalactites, although the 'Bat Stalagmite' was different, created by over 100 years of bat droppings from a small roosting area. However the magical part of the tour is the approach to the gorge from the 'murmuring cave' in which you start to hear the sound of the river. The gorge opened up in front of us with the small path lights glimmering in the distance. The original explorers had to use mountaineering skills, traversing the vertical cliffs 70m above the Reka roaring below. And all of that in virtual darkness. You can still see their precarious pathways and bridges in many parts of the cave. We were lucky that a lot of rain had fallen in the last two weeks (not on us!) and the river was quite high, making it even more impressive than usual. However, much more rain fell in 1965 and, due to a blockage further downstream in the cave, the water rose over 100m in a morning, flooding the gorge, nearly to the roof. Even this flood was small compared with that it the late 1800's when the water rose 160m.
As we approached the car park after the tour it started to rain, so we decided not to have a second walk as we had originally planned. When we got to the motorhome we found our fellow Hobby owners parked alongside. They had been to the Postojna caves in the morning, they were going on the 15:30 tour of Skocjan.
We decided that we couldn't face visiting Postojna after Skocjan so, rather than returning to the campsite, we decided to press on to the coast and the Autocamp Strunjan. This turned out to be almost entirely permanent homes with a very few places for motorhomes. We squeezed in alonside a German motorhome that arrived at the same time as us.
Photos: Velika and Mala dolinas; looking out of the original entrance to the Skocjan caves.