And how could you go without spending the day soaking away in the thermal baths.
That’s all the sightseeing I did while in Budapest… impressed!?!
I was!
We had a meet and greet in the hostel reception for those lucky enough to be joining the tour for the next few days down to split.
Two of which were my room mates, and we’d already been thrown together to escape the crazy ones with us…. Mr nightmare who spent most of the night screaming and slashing about the previous night, I’d heard him and rolled over and went back to sleep.. But he scared the shit out of the guy in the bunk above him!
And not to be outdone was the crazy chick, who just wanted to talk and talk and talk! (sound familiar… I think I met my match!)
Went out to the pub next to the hostel, as Kim was given free drink vouchers which you can't waste, can you now, and our one drink, turned into many, as we met up with some Scottish blokes, who were there for some fun… many shots of pálinka were consumed, the local Hungarian spirit (a distilled brandy), that comes in a variety of flavours. I‘d be surprised if there was a flavour we missed…
a word of warning… they all taste horrible, except the raspberry one.. Plum was absolutely dry retching! It still brings tears to my eyes just thinking about it.
Called it a night and managed to be the people sleeping tourists hate, as we headed in to bed late, waking everyone up..
How were we to know that nightmare man had relocated himself to the floor in front of the door, and we just happened to step on him… seriously!
Again with our early start in the morning we had the pleasure of waking everyone up again. I blame it on the un-oiled door of my locker, that ear pinching squeaking that would rival fingernails on the blackboard..
I think a sigh of relief was heard as we made our way out the door.
Today was a long driving day, from Budapest to just outside the national park.
Stopped at Lake Balaton,
which was beautiful, though the season had just finished and only one or two places were open, but looks like a happening place in the heart of summer.
Next stop was at the open air war memorial just across the border. 
Here they have a collection of planes, shot down, tanks, and other war like memorabilia, scattered across a park.
Think kids in a playground a we climbed all over them.
I had to laugh at the Scottish guy on tour, he’s one of the haggis drivers, and he was more than a little excited when he realised you could climb all over the tanks… it took a fair amount of coaxing to get him down when it was time to leave.
Before heading to our campground for the night.
We each got assigned to cute little bungalows, and told the toilets were in the white building we could see behind the trees…
And dinner was behind that.
Do you think we could find the toilets…!!!
If you guessed no… you’d be correct…
A bit of wandering and we finally found them…
Headed over to dinner, and not one to take notice of which way we came on the way to dinner, had us get entirely lost on the way back to our huts.
Came across this French family in the midst of nowhere, who we asked for directions… they pointed into the darkness and said that way….
Then as we went to head that way, said you cant go there, it’s a meadow…
Our response… we’re Aussie’s sure we can!
Armed with the light from our mobiles we set off, only to find ourselves on the opposite side of a large fence… mmm
Ended up beyond the entrance who knows how, and got some weird looks as we walked in through the gates.
Next morning we drove past the meadow… and realised it had some very large holes in it… we were lucky we didn’t lose anyone down the hole.
Next stop was at the Plitvice National Park, which was were I wanted to go.
Remember last year when I went travelling with Re and we came across pictures of this beautiful water wonderland that was the national park? she then managed to change all her travel plans and actually visit it.
I was always jealous!
And vowed to get there too.. It was one of the reasons I chose this tour.
We got dropped off about 830am and headed down into the valley, and definitely wasn’t disappointed at all. Got some gorgeous views from above, a taste of what was to come.
It’s a gorgeous park full of raised wooden bridges that wind their way through the forest following the cascades . We had a perfect day for it, sunny and clear, and it was definitely a perfect place to spend a few hours.
Hiked all the way up to the top before catching the train back to the bus… (there idea of a train was this bus… strange.)
Took us about 3.5 hrs to get to the top of the park.
Boarded the bus and set off towards split, just 2hrs away.
After a few amusing renditions of YMCA, as we went through toll booths we arrived into split early afternoon.
Had a bit of an orientation before we had one final group dinner and everyone went their own separate ways, some to go sailing, others to continue on to Switzerland, and other to just go home.
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