Sometimes an adventurer needs to take risks in order to encounter experiences that can then be shared with one’s legion of readers. Yesterday we travelled to the furthest reaches of Slovenia – to Slovenia’s ultima Thule. The outward journey alone took nearly two hours and because of the route chosen there was to be no turning back once the travel had commenced – no matter how difficult the day. Some residents of Ipswich – with their sophisticated, big city, airs and graces unkindly say that to get to Rosewood you go west 15 miles…. and back 100 years. Slovenia however is a little like that.

The Kranskje region is on the border with Austria. The first railway there only happened 30 years ago. It is still the home of alpine dairy herders who head to the mountain pastures in summer, turn all their milk into a type of emmenthaler cheese, and descend with their herds (and cheese) with the onset of cold weather. Meanwhile their womenfolk make the Kranskje sausages that are traditionally eaten in Australia by drunken men rummaging through the fridge to sate the beer munchies. (Here Krankje isn’t deep fried – rather it is always brought to the boil, then allowed to sit in the hot water for 20 minutes before serving – have they got some things to learn about Kranskje sausages in Slovenia, even if only how to spell it correcly!)

The day was spent driving around this region, thousand year old villages with two-hundred year old villagers. Hay racks dotting the countryside and beautiful lakes to punctuate our route. Lunch was simple – fruit, bread, cheese and another local delicacy – bear meat sausage (‘twould be a shame to let a good bear go to waste). Beside us was an old lady pulling the bugs off her potato crop by hand – they’ve never bothered with chemical sprays, and now their ‘organic’ produce fetches a premium at health food shops.

The afternoon was more wandering, more mouth-agape sight-seeing before stopping for a tea, poppy seed apple cake and a krem shnit (a local cream custard dessert – even if it does sound more like something that comes out of your nose). Then home to beautiful Ljubljana.

Afterall, someone has to take these risks or there’d be no blog.

The things I am prepared to do for my readers!

Yours etc

Farley