“Ser­bia’s Green Hiding Places”

Tour start

The tour starts in the after­noon of the first day in the west of the Homolje Moun­ta­ins, near Des­po­to­vac (you will be given a way­po­int to navi­gate to). From our mee­ting point, we will drive about 30 minu­tes to our first deep forest camp­site, where we will set up camp under tall, towe­ring beech trees, with ple­nty of fire­wood for our camp­fire and a plea­sant intro­duc­tory evening, well hid­den from pry­ing eyes.

After that, the route con­ti­nues along the rid­ges of the Homolje Moun­ta­ins in a nor­the­as­terly direc­tion. We cross a whole laby­rinth of long-for­got­ten, over­grown forest paths, reach seve­ral attrac­tive view­points and ride along river val­leys before sett­ling down for the night near the hig­hest of the stone arches in eas­tern Ser­bia. If wea­ther con­di­ti­ons allow, we can exch­ange this camp for a camp on a view­point that offers one of the most spec­ta­cu­lar sun­sets in Eas­tern Ser­bia.

Moving on…

In the next few days we will visit a beau­tiful water­fall, as well as the Vratna Val­ley, uni­que in the world for its three natu­ral stone arches on the same river! From there, we con­ti­nue our jour­ney south and reach the lake on Mount Stol. We drive through per­haps the most spec­ta­cu­lar 360-degree view in eas­tern Ser­bia, sur­roun­ded by impo­sing rocky rid­ges on all sides.

From there we con­ti­nue south and finally into the Kučaj Moun­ta­ins, the lar­gest piece of unin­ha­bi­ted wil­der­ness in Ser­bia. Of course, a camp in Kovej, the most impres­sive view­point above the magni­fi­cent Lazar Gorge, can­not be missed on this tour.

From Kovej we con­ti­nue south through Kučaj until we reach Vrm­dža Lake on the sou­thwest side of Rtanj Moun­tain, the hig­hest moun­tain in the area of the Nor­t­hern Ser­bian Car­pa­thi­ans (1565 m). After Vrm­dža Lake we will settle down in our secret forest hidea­way in the middle of one of the lar­gest con­ti­nuous forest areas in Ser­bia.

We will slowly close our cir­cle through the Ser­bian Car­pa­thi­ans, tack­ling the Kučaj Moun­ta­ins in a wes­terly to cen­tral direc­tion, visi­ting all the remai­ning attrac­tions, fit­ness per­mit­ting — the Grza Spring, the ruins of Petrus and the Crnica Gorge, the Prskalo Water­fall, until we set up camp for the last night in a fairy­tale forest in the geo­gra­phi­cal cen­ter of Kučaj. Our last half-day tour on Satur­day will take us from there to the Bel­ja­nica pla­teau, which is also the hig­hest point we will reach on the tour (1339 m). We expect to reach a paved road shortly after noon on Satur­day.

Many of the trails we will be tra­ve­ling on have long been aban­do­ned, as depo­pu­la­tion in eas­tern Ser­bia is pro­gres­sing at an alar­ming rate, as the noma­dic moun­tain life of the peo­ple in the rural areas is rudi­men­tary and these trails are unu­sed and for­got­ten.

Since these were mostly used by oxcarts and small, nar­row trac­tors, these roads were never wide and are not now. The­r­e­fore, we must expect daily cont­act with vege­ta­tion — if you are not used to this, please con­sider whe­ther or not this is accep­ta­ble to you. It’s a great adven­ture to drive these for­got­ten forest roads, but it will leave many scrat­ches in the vehic­le’s paint. If neces­sary, we recom­mend to pro­vide the vehicle with a pro­tec­tive film. We are not lia­ble for damage to paint­work that occurs on our tours! Repea­ters of our Bal­kan tours alre­ady know what we are tal­king about.

The wea­ther in Ser­bia in May is usually alre­ady plea­santly warm (some­ti­mes it can even be hot), but May is a sea­son when we should be pre­pared for fre­quent, heavy rain show­ers. While there are excep­ti­ons (such as the com­ple­tely dry May in 2022), sta­tis­ti­cally May is the wet­test month of the year. Tha­t’s why we recom­mend MT tires for this tour, because if the wea­ther should be rainy, we’ll need ple­nty of trac­tion on some sec­tions of the muddy forest trails. Our average daily distances will be about 80 km, which can be covered in a rela­xed man­ner on a long spring day, lea­ving more than 2 hours to set up camp before night­fall.

Accom­mo­da­tion

Our camp­si­tes are loca­ted deep in the wil­der­ness, some­ti­mes near moun­tain streams and rivers, far from any sign of civi­liza­tion. Fire­wood is abun­dant, so every evening we have the oppor­tu­nity to make a camp­fire, which can also be used for bar­be­cue. We will try to arrive at the camp­site by 5:00 pm each day at the latest, so that we have enough time to set up your little nomad para­dise and prepare for the night to enjoy the beau­tiful sur­roun­dings to the ful­lest. We usually leave the camp­site at 9:00 am, so we have enough time for a rela­xed break­fast and the sub­se­quent pack­ing up of the equip­ment.

The alti­tude of the camp­si­tes varies bet­ween 400 m and 900 m, which means that alt­hough it is still quite early in the sea­son, we should have plea­sant night tem­pe­ra­tures. But bring your warm slee­ping bags just in case you need them!

We can rep­le­nish our food sup­plies once or twice during the tour. Pre­fer­a­bly once, so we don’t have to drive through cities too often. The­r­e­fore, we recom­mend to equip your vehicle with a large capa­city / good qua­lity ref­ri­ge­ra­tor so that you can keep your food fresh for seve­ral days. On the occa­sion when we visit the super­mar­ket, we will also have the oppor­tu­nity to refuel. You should be able to cover at least 250 kilo­me­ters on one tank of gas. Every day, depen­ding on the route, we take a lunch break of about 45 minu­tes bet­ween 12:30 and 14:00.

We look for­ward to rin­ging in the Bal­kan cam­ping sea­son with you!

Weni­ger lesen…