A New Launch in Kobarid

Wednesday, August 4th

We contemplated heading to Lake Bled today but since the skies were mostly blue, Garth and I decided to try to fly first and then maybe we’d head off in the afternoon. So for the fourth day in a row, we met Wolfgang at 9:50 (and always within a minute of that time) and then we drove to the cafe by the landing zone (also part of the ritual) and then off to launch. This time it was to a different launch as supposedly there was a north launch so instead of the Stol, we went to a north facing launch called Srednji Vrh (don’t ask me to phonetically write that one out!). It took almost an hour as well to get up to this launch and it had a stunning view of the ridges we had previously flown. The problem was going to be that it was already close to noon and the sun was no longer heating up the ridge in front of us. So the options were to tuck around a nearby corner and hope to find something there (although Wolfgang had briefed us that you had better be a good pilot to attempt that) or b-line it for small knoll near town or the end of the ridge that the other launch was on.

Other pilots seemed more confident about the day than Garth and I were as they began to fly off. I watched 3-4 pilots try the option of going around the corner but that wasn’t working. Garth launched and I was about 10-15 minutes behind him. Wolfgang had mentioned that one thing to watch out for was as the day progressed, the other side of the mountain that we were on would start to be heated by the sun and thermals would flow up the other side and cause a downhill wind where we were and then you’d be riding back down in the van. Sure enough, as I and two other pilots were ready to launch, we started to see downhill cycles. Thankfully there were still a few coming up the front and we all launched. I headed straight for the end of the ridge where the other launch was and arrived about 2/3’s the way up. I found lift but had to fight a bit or rotor here and there to slowly climb up. I was pleased to see that Garth was just above the ridge, where I wanted to be. We flew around for a half hour or so there but it was tough going. Neither of us had a wing collapse but it was a constant battle to keep the wing above your head and with a strengthening easterly wind, we weren’t going to be going anywhere. We headed out to land and it was quite strong down in the landing zone but it still was a fun flight.

Garth walking up to launch:

The view from the new launch:

The hopefully fliers:

Garth's launch:


Flying towards Kobarid:

The campground from above...Betty is the white dot on the left of the main patch (yes, difficult to make out but you get the idea):

Holly met us at the cafe and we decided that we would head to Lake Bled in the morning if the conditions looked bad for flying, otherwise we’d definitely head there in the afternoon. It was only 1-2 hours away so we would still have all of Friday there and then we’d be off to the capital, Ljubljana on Saturday. That late afternoon Garth and I had three entertaining games of chess (with a stalemate and a win each) and Garth and Holly prepared a beautiful stir-fry. Gotta love these kind of days.

Garth lovin' Slovenia (they have a slogan here: "I feel SLOVEnia" which his t-shirt describes and the beer can is for the World Cup, saying "I feel South Africa"):

Holly enjoying her book and a glass of wine:

While Garth and I duelled it out on the chessboard:

Foggy Flying

Tuesday, Aug. 3rd

Today we awoke to overcast skies but Garth and I still decided to hop into the Parataxi with a full load of other hopeful paraglider pilots, all of whom were German or Austrian. It didn’t look promising when we arrived on launch as the windsocks were indicating that the wind was blowing down the hill which makes taking off impossible. Regardless, we had to pay Wolfgang our 15 Euro and hope things would change, and they did. The cycles (brief periods of stronger wind) started coming up the hill and a few people took off. It still didn’t look like a great flying day with completely overcast skies and increasingly darker clouds but even if it was a sledder (a flight where you get no lift and just go from top to bottom) that would be better than riding an hour down in the van.

More and more pilots began to quickly get ready as it looked like there would be a narrow window before a potential storm would arrive from the south. Just before Garth took off, some wispy clouds started to funnel up in front of launch and were rising quite fast. A number of wings took to the skies including Garth and they all raced down the ridge, hoping to have just enough glide to make it back to Kobarid, about 10 kilometers away. The visibility in front of launch disappeared for a few minutes and then after that I had a botched launch with a knot in my lines. Then it really socked in. I couldn’t even see the vans that were about 50 meters away. I was the only pilot left on the upper half of the launch. I waited about five minutes for that cloud to clear then did a forward launch to huck off the mountain. Turns out that I was the last pilot to launch (some opted to go down in the vans).

Clouds billowing up at launch:

Just after launch:


As I hugged the ridge I not only got no lift but sank at 1.5-2 meters per second whereas Garth had radioed that he wasn’t sinking too much on his flight. He, along with all the other pilots made it back to Kobarid but when I was half way there, it was obvious that I didn’t have the height to do it. I doubled back and headed towards one of the alternate landing zones called Podbela. At first I didn’t think I’d make it there as I was now gliding upwind but it turned out to be fine and I had plenty of height to set up my approach. There was no wind in the landing zone and I slightly miscalculated my final and plowed a bit into the ground. I wasn’t hurt at all but slightly embarrassed as I haven’t done a landing like that for a long time...thankfully no one saw it.

My bad landing:


The threatening storm after I landed:

I radioed Garth, packed up and began the 5 kilometer walk back to Kobarid. I was actually offered a ride part way back but decided that the exercise wouldn’t hurt. A thunderstorm opened up over launch and it looked like the rain was chasing me so I marched at a good pace and reached Kobarid just as the skies opened up with torrential rain and even a few hail stones. I radioed Garth and he had gone to the Ford dealership where I dropped Betty off in the morning, hoping that they might solve the issue with her not starting when she was hot. He picked her up and then picked me up, which turned out to only be 200 meters away (although I didn’t know how close we were) and with the strength of the rain I would have been soaked.

With regards to Betty, finally it seems like someone’s figured it out. They ran her for a few hours and then reproduced the starting problem. They found out that it is in fact the fuel pump and it’s getting too hot. They poured water over it and were able to start it a couple of times. They explained to me that they couldn’t fix the fuel pump there and it would be expensive so for now, I’ll make sure to always have a bottle or two of water just in case.

I also had a problem with the fridge not working when plugged into a main electricity source. This had started way back in Switzerland but hadn’t really mattered as most of the campgrounds in the Balkans didn’t have electricity. I had unscrewed the electric panel and the fridge hoping that they would be able to isolate the issue with a multi-meter but they didn’t seem keen on working on it. Back at the campsite, Garth checked it out and lo and behold he found a loose connection and fixed it! He earned his keep in Betty that’s for sure!

The Soca river near camp:

That evening we had a fantastic chilli (one of the first I’ve ever made I believe) and Garth and I played some exciting Yahtzee , again with his paper made dice and a colander to roll them in. I believe he kicked my butt yet again that evening but the tables will turn eventually.

More Paragliding in Kobarid

Monday, August 2nd

Ground hog day...almost. I’ve experienced this before with paragliding trips where you wake up, go up to launch, fly, have a beer, nice dinner, a few drinks in the evening and then repeat...and it doesn’t get old! Well, this was along those lines. Similar weather to yesterday, Garth and I took Wolfgang’s parataxis to launch, had a great flight and then went for a beer. This time we were able to stay closer together and we both did the same valley crossing as I did the day before. It felt a little more rock and rolly than yesterday and I in fact had an asymmetric collapse going around one small rock spine (that means that 30-40% of my glider collapsed on one side) but apart from getting a bit of adrenaline flowing, it was all good. We headed back towards Kobarid and Garth opted to head back to launch before coming back land. I had lost a lot more height than he had in the last valley crossing and I was fighting to get above the ridge and in the end decided to land so that I could retrieve Betty from the campsite (a little over a kilometer away). Garth ended up flying over 3 hours and he was quite pleased with that (read big smile for a few hours!).

Garth taking off:

I do have an issue I need to figure out with my HD helmet cam. It is mounted in a waterproof case and when I gain some altitude, the moisture in the air inside the case condensates on the inside of the lense cover...which leads to blurry pics and videos. An obvious solution is to drill a hole in the case but some day I might want to use it in water (like canyoning). Another is to slightly open the case but I have to figure out a definite way that I don’t end up creating a dangerous $300 mini-bomb landing on some poor sod’s head below. So not many pics for today, as most of them didn’t turn out...

A foggy pic of Garth flying down the Stol:

We met up with Holly and headed to Tolmin where we couldn’t locate propane for Betty, but did purchase a small campstove so we could still make our own meal, which was spaghetti this night. Another great day in Slovenia!

Betty happy at Camp Lazar:

Garth's Birthday in Slovenia

Sunday, August 1st

Garth’s Birthday!!! We caught Wolfgang’s paragliding taxi van around 10am and headed up to the launch, which is close to an hour’s drive even though it’s only about 10 kilometers down the valley from Kobarid. The launch is a massive grassy meadow close to the highest point of the ridge; plenty of room for many paragliders to set up. After a short site briefing with Wolfgang, Garth struck up a conversation with Rolf, a vacationing German who had been in the region for over four weeks. We learned that one could head west about 10-20 kilometers to Italy (and then hopefully return) or head in the opposite direction towards a town called Tolmin. The area sure looked like a paraglider’s playground!

Driving up to launch:

At launch:


Garth and I launched and played around near launch with at least another 20 pilots. The cloud base was fairly low and in fact became a bit of an issue as many pilots, including us, were near the clouds and with this many people in close quarters, one did not all of a sudden want to be in the clouds with the possibility of running into someone else. I radioed to Garth that we should head east towards Kobarid, where we were camping and the official landing zone. Part way along the ridge I was enticed by the larger and more interesting ridge to the north so I let Garth know of my intention to cross the valley. Unfortunately my radio batteries were close to dead so that was the last transmission he heard from me (although I could hear him).

My launch:


I lost 3-400 meters of height crossing over the river valley but was able to gain height by hugging the ridge on the other side. I eventually got to the top of the ridge and had a fantastic view of the mountains to the north. I could also see a grass airstrip where sailplanes were being towed up into the skies and sure enough I would have a few close encounters (of the good kind) of them flying by as I thermalled. I headed 3-4 kilometers down this ridge and then went on another glide towards the town of Kobarid after hearing Garth mention that he was heading down to land. I thought that I would do the same but then common sense kicked in and said “Hey, you’ve got lots of height and the conditions are good, keep flying!”. So I headed further west and worked my way up from one small knoll to a ridge that connected back north up to a nice large rocky mountain. I waved at some hikers high on the mountain as I cruised along close to cloudbase, which was lower than the top of the mountain. I eventually crossed back to the high point of the first ridge that I had flown to and then finally headed down to land. Almost three hours later I was quite pleased with my first flight in Slovenia. Garth and Holly met me in the landing zone and we headed off for a beer in the conveniently located bar across the street for the LZ.

Flying along the ridge:

Near the rock faces:

Waving at hikers:


Beautiful Kobarid:


In flight interview:



High above town:

The campsite's at the bottom of the pic...see if you can spot Betty (good luck!):

We walked to a pizzeria for Garth’s birthday dinner and then headed back to camp. Holly had bought some tiramisu (a fave of Garth’s) for his birthday cake and we enjoyed that before heading to bed. Happy Birthday Garth!

Garth's birthday dinner:

How can Garth complain!


Happy Birthday Garth!

Spelunking in Slovenia

Saturday, July 31st

We got on the road fairly early and after a brief stint on a toll highway and passing by Rijeka and then a silly toll booth that only cost one Euro (and the line up coming the other way must have been 2-3 kilometers long...all for just a Euro!), we hit the border. We were happy that we were heading in the other direction.

Back into the European Union! We all enjoyed the beautiful Slovenian countryside as we cruised towards our destination of Kobarid.

Just before taking a turn to get on a highway, we noticed some signs for a cave nearby. Slovenia is famous for its caves and we decided to check out why after Holly read that this one you got to ride on a train for a couple of kilometers in it! The Postojna Caves ("post-oy-knee-ya") run over 20 kilometers in length with large chambers filled with stalagmites and stalagtites. We got on a small but length train and traveled the couple of kilometers into the cave, in awe of the size of it. After disembarking from the train, everyone assembled at one of 6 different areas with signs for which language you would like to hear the next part of the tour. The guide eventually showed up and explained that the caves had been discovered in 1818 and the first tourists were in there the following year! Now, between the trains and the super nice walkway, they were funneling the visitors through at a Disney-like pace (at 20 Euros a head too). We were told that photography was forbidden but as we walked for about a kilometer through various caverns people snapped away. The only reason that they could be disallowing photography had to be to cash grab more money with postcards and auto-photography that they did as you entered the caves and rode on the train (just like a rollercoaster ride). I took a few surreptitious photos (thinking of you Dad!) but it was tough for many of them to turn out. We spent about an hour and a half in the caves and it was by far the biggest and most impressive I've ever spelunked.

The entrance to the caves:

All aboard!

Inside the caves:

My quick pic of the auto-pic (so I didn't have to buy it):

Arriving in near a town called Tolmin, Holly noticed a paraglider in the sky and so we stopped at the obvious landing zone. Garth chatted to a guy running a “Parataxi”. Wolfgang turned out to be the guy to know. For the next 5 days he picked us up at our campsite to take us to launch.

We tried in vain to find camping gas in Tolmin and then headed about 10 kms down the valley to Kobarid and found Camp Lazar, a place recommended to us by Fedja, a fellow paragliding pilot from the lower mainland in Canada. We arrived, set up camp and then had a dinner at the campsite restaurant. Tomorrow is Garth’s birthday so we hope to go flying and celebrate the occasion.

Arriving at the Kobarid campsite by the river Soca ("socha"):

My first Slovenian beer review:

Garth's beer review:

A Split Personality

Friday, July 30th

We drove into Split with the intention of spending the day walking around and seeing some of the sights. We followed signs to the old town and were amazed by the number of cars about. Parking was super scarce and it took about 15-20 minutes to finally locate a spot which really was a stroke of luck. Holly and I went into the basement remnants of the Diocletian Palace, a massive Roman building built back in fourth century. It was easy to see from the natural harbour and surrounding mountains why the Romans had decided to build a city here. We then checked out a Christian church and paid the equivalent of a couple of Canadian dollars to climb the stairs of its clock tower. Nice view of Split from there and well worth the price admission although the narrow stairs did cause the odd human traffic jam. We walked around a bit more of the old city before meeting up with Garth for some lunch, and then it was time to split Split.

Arriving in Split, with next to no parking:

In the basement of the Diocletian Palace:

Diocletian himself:

There was this strange little podium setup in one wing of the basement, I couldn't help but stand on it to pose for this picture but then some kind of alarm went off and a guy came to check on it but didn't mind...but the alarm kept going long after we left:

Outside the church:

The belltower stairs:

The view from the tower:

A beautiful square:


Holly rubbing the toe of a statue of Grgur Ninski, it's supposed to give you good luck:

Posing with Grgur:


Getting out of town proved to be easier than first thought and we were soon on the highway heading north. Rain started to pour down a few hours into the travel and we actually climbed a bit into the mountains so it was slightly foggy too. We thought that we wouldn’t see the sun again but sure enough, as we neared the coast the sky opened up (in a good way). Just leaving the toll highway I noticed that Betty’s brakes seemed soft again...damn, our fix in Kotor didn’t do the trick. I nursed the vehicle down a 3-400 meter hill using the engine for most of the braking. There was a convoy of 10-15 cars behind us but too bad so sad. We stopped briefly to put some more brake fluid in the campervan and that did help some 5-10 minutes later. We paid a toll to get over to the island of Ortuk Krk just south of the city of Rijeka. We found a campsite on the shore and decided to head into a nearby town for dinner before setting up camp. After an okay dinner, the wind was howling at the campsite and it was questionable whether “Tammy the Tent” (Garth and Holly’s abode) would survive the gusts. We tried positioning Betty to give them a windbreak but it became pretty obvious that a cheap tent wasn’t going to cut it in this weather. I offered to them that we could all sleep in Betty (a first by the way) and they reluctantly agreed. It turned out to work fairly well and we all had decent sleeps. Betty has shown a new side...

Working on Betty's brakes:

Mad with Makarska

Thursday, July 29th

Back on the road, our first destination was a town called Makarska. This was another potential paragliding spot on the coast. We tried to locate the landing zone down on the beach but knowing how precious coastal real estate is in this area, we didn’t expect to find a large, open area for a guy flying in on some strings and a bed sheet would be easy. We decided to try driving up to launch, only armed with some GPS coordinates and a multi-country scale map. Ascending about 400 meters above the sea, we arrived at the gate for the Biokovo nature park. We spoke with the older park ranger and with his limited knowledge of English he happily pulled out a book that paraglider pilots were to sign. It was obvious that this wasn’t a frequent task he had to perform and Garth thought that he saw that the last paraglider pilot hadn’t flown since April. We had read a sign that stated that one must call a specific dude before flying but since we had to sign in already, it had been a long time since the last person had flown, we had no cell phones and it was a 15 minute drive back into town, we decided that we’d just go for it.

The beautiful Dalmatian coast:

Rolling in Betty:

All the things you shouldn't do in the park:


The road climbed on switchbacks through the forest before emerging above to the rocky terrain. The view was breathtaking and we weren’t even a third of the way up to launch height. Betty plodded her way up the mountain and we briefly stopped at a honey seller as Holly is a honey lover, her father having been a part time beekeeper. As we reached the top of the ridge, but still being a ways from the launch and even further from the peak that one could drive to (by the way, this is the highest mountain road in Croatia!), we stopped at an information hut just to make sure that we hadn’t gone too far. Inside the visually and thermally cool rock building, an older mountain guide was initially helping some Germans before we were able to talk to him. Turns out that we should have just kept going. He was a nice enough fellow but a bit of a talker. He explained that we really did need to call the guy that was on the sign since they had had some accidents here and the mountain rescuers really appreciate if you have fully checked in before flying so we needed to return to town to call him (more than 35 minutes of driving back down). He then proceeded to show us a few mountain pics on his cell phone and both Garth and I contemplated why he didn’t offer to call the site guy for us...but there must have been a reason. We begrudgingly thanked him for his help and then decided to continue on to the peak, past the paragliding launch. The road became quite narrow and it was a fun cat and mouse kind of game with cars who were descending as we were headed up. Sometimes it was obvious who should concede and back up to the next best slight pullout but other times it felt like a Mexican standoff. The craziest one was when we ran into a 12-16 person van descending. I pulled to the left, into a slight pullout but then the drive frantically waved for me to come towards him and off to the right. He was quite an impatient fellow. He passed me by and a few of the passengers in the van smiled and waved at me as they passed by. Two more vans of a similar size followed suit but at least their drivers were a little more laid back. We continued to the top which entailed some more switchbacks and quite a final climb. There was a massive multipurpose antenna on top and a small parking lot where a park ranger guided me into parking Betty at a downhill angle...it’s almost like he knew her starting problem.

High up:

The view from 1.7 kilometers above sea level, when you can see the sea, is phenomenal. Numerous islands were in view as well as the countryside behind us. We checked out a small church around the other side of the antenna and then had a bit of lunch in the vehicle while admiring the view. The descent was much quicker than the ascent but there were still parts that required one to go slow. We headed into town to try and locate a payphone to call this paragliding dude but it proved to be more difficult than you’d expect. We did find one at the bus station but it only accepted cards, and not any card that Garth and I had. Garth did have success at the post office and the guy, Matko, told him to walk out to the waterfront and he yelled at him from across a small bay. We walked over there but then couldn’t locate him. Garth returned to the post office to call again as I waited by his house but we never ended up getting in touch with him. It was 5pm now and we had tried our best to play by the rules but screw it, at least one of us should go and fly. Garth insisted it should be me so we left Holly to hang out in town while we began the slow drive up to launch. It didn’t last long as we noticed that there was now a soccer game happening in the landing zone I planned to use. It seemed the gods were against us flying today. We returned to town and after a bit of searching, located Holly and began to drive north along the coast towards Split.

The view from the top:

Enjoying the view from the top:

Make Rocket Go Now:

View from the harbor in Makarska:

A panorama from town:


We found a lovely little campsite, really just a large, flat gravel parking pad with a seaside view and covered over with grapevines. The old lady, Maria, who owned the place with her husband was super friendly although she didn’t speak any English. Once again my very minimal German knowledge came in handy. After a sit down and a drink, we headed off in search of a restaurant as we still hadn’t been able to locate camping gas for Betty...hopefully we will soon as it would be nice to cook some of our own meals. We had a lovely dinner on the beach at a restaurant called Mario’s and returned to camp, only to find out that the peaceful campsite we had left turned out to only be 100 yards from an outdoor nightclub with thumping bass blasting....oh well, you can’t win them all.

Betty camping on the Croatian coast: