Kamačnik canyon
Location: Vrbovsko, Gorski kotarLength: 2,97 kmElevation gain: 172 mDifficulty: EasyDifficulty rating: K1, T1, VR1
We had no great expectations of the Kamačnik canyon. It was our first stop on a three-day expedition through Gorski kotar. We had seen photographs and gathered the basic information. It said this was a stream, not a particularly long one, and not much talked about by tourists (presumably for a reason). It was there more to fill a gap in the schedule than something we would have been willing to cross half of Croatia for. How badly we were mistaken!
We were completely unprepared for what awaited us there. To this day Kamačnik has remained one of the top 5 best locations we have ever visited!
A small canyon that took our breath away
With a measured depth of 118 m, Kamačnik ranks among the five deepest springs in Croatia, but like all the others it still has unexplored sumps, so its ultimate depth remains unknown and the subject of further research.
The trail starts where the stream flows into the Dobra River, beside the ruins of an old sawmill. There is a proper car park there, and a restaurant that was not open during our visit. There is an entrance fee, but at the time of our visit there was nobody at the entrance either. In fact, there was nobody in the whole canyon! We were completely alone (!?)!
The trail is well laid out and there is no chance of getting lost. Along the way we come across “musical installations” – a Pan gong, dormouse bells, a horn, a xylophone… About an hour and a half of easy walking is enough to reach the spring. On the way you pass beneath the Zagreb – Rijeka motorway, which in a way looks rather striking, especially to children, even though we came here to escape civilisation.
As we wrote in our article on the source of the Kupa, how you experience a place depends on several things – the season, the vegetation, the number of tourists, the weather… We visited Kamačnik in May, so the vegetation was lush, there were no tourists, and a mysterious haze above the water followed us along its entire course. Rapids, bridges, nature all around… The experience was unforgettable!
In any case, Kamačnik completely swept us off our feet and set the bar for other destinations very, very high.
Special
Although our focus is on Croatia, due to great interest in reviewing some international locations from our travels, we decided to launch the Special section. In it, we will not cover locations in the same detailed way we do with Croatian ones, but will instead provide a brief overview of multiple locations grouped into meaningful categories. The only criterion we still strictly follow is that they must be natural attractions.
