“Mark, have you got the truck’s electronic immobiliser key in your pocket?”

“Yes, but I’m not going to swim.”

From our campsite, Eko Oaza, we’d walked down to a little beach on the shore of the Tara River. Mark had taken it upon himself to stride out to a rocky island in the middle.

“Mark, the dogs are following you and there are rapids down the side of the island.”

“It’ll be okay.”

“Mark, Kai is swimming after you.

“Mark!

“Sh**!”

In flip-flops, I did a comedy run along the rough stones and pebbles that lined the riverbank, hoping I wouldn’t slip and break my ankle. I needed to catch Kai, who had been swept down the rapids.

Continue reading “The Hound of the Baskervilles: Tara River Canyon, Montenegro”

“No trees have been felled in the park since the 19th century. Some trees in this forest are five hundred years old,” said Radovan.

He was a local, and one of the many who had come to look inside our truck, The Beast, the evening we arrived.

Biogradska Gora is the smallest of Montenegro’s four national parks, but is one of only three remaining large virgin rainforests in Europe. Part of the reason it remained untouched for so long was through royal connections.

When they drove the Turks from Kolašin in 1878, local people gifted the forest to Nikola I Petrović-Njegoš, Montenegro’s last king.

Then, in 1952, the area became a national park.

Its habitats are so important that, in 1977, it was inscribed by UNESCO on the World Network of Biosphere Reserves.

Nevertheless, in our beautiful tranquil park up next to the glacial Biogradsko Lake, we awoke to someone hammering on the side of the truck at 7 a.m.

Continue reading “Biogradska Gora National Park, Montenegro”