The priority for our stop in Bovec was to relax and have some fun, we love this town. The Soča is life a line in the area, with its magical transparent water.

Hiking local trails along the Soča

The girls asked for a nice walk along the river, so after gathering breakfast and lunch goodies from the camp shop, we packed up and set off for a leisurely walk.

The walk took us across a few rope bridges on the Soča and Koritnica rivers, much to my dismay, with Cassie and Dan happily jumping on them to make them swing up and down. I decided that crossing once they got to the other side was a lot less stressful.

At one particular bridge we came across a group of kayakers that were climbing up from the river, to the bridge, and then jumping off the bridge into the river. The whoops of joy could be heard echoing up and down the river.

After a while Cassie wanted to have a swim in the river.

Luckily at this point our walk ended up at the bridge near the kayak school near Čezsoča and so we decided to have lunch down by the river here and have a dip, if we were brave enough to submerse ourselves in the freezing water.

I was the first to get in and get wet by simply bumbling along and falling in the water. Dan encouraged me to dive under and so I did, coming up with brain freeze! Dan was next and Cassie just ambled up and down the river playing with the rocks.

Dan was interested in kayaking the river, so we enquired at the kayak school about both him and Cassie going on a trip.

After a chat, we decided to head up into Bovec, do some shopping and enquire at a few more places. Dan eventually booked himself and Cassie in for a 1pm rafting tour the following day.

Also, Cassie had managed to sleep the whole night in her own tent. Dan had promised her an ice cream sundae and so we stopped at a lovely ice cream place she has had an ice cream at before, which must be one of the last few places to have ice cream at a euro a scoop. Cassie ordered a whopper of a banana split. With the specific rule that we were allowed to let her eat the whole thing without stopping her. This we agreed to. She never did manage to finish it. Luckily Dan was around to finish up.

Back to camp for a dinner at the camp restaurant and a few, much need beers.

White Water Rafting the Soča River in Bovec

As we said last night, we were today booked to go rafting. Cassie and I (Dan) needed to be in town for just before 1300 to get kitted up. This made for an easy start to the day, we planned to have several coffees and breakfast very slowly. After which we headed for the river again, to our secret beach. Shhh. We spent a few hours perfecting our little dam that formed a pool, we did not really swim in it though, just spent the whole time building it. I guess someone else will enjoy it after us!

As we planned on walking to town, we had a very early lunch and were munching just before 12. Just as we were finishing, ready to walk into town, our German neighbour popped over to offer us a lift. He is a German from Hamburg with a deep Irish accent … still can’t get my head round it. Needless to say, this meant Cassie and I were in town with 45 minutes to kill. We made light work of this thou. We each had an ice cream, then disappeared looking for a sticker for the car. With this done, it was time to go and get kitted up. It turned out it would be us and a Czech family in the raft, once we got all the kit sorted we all jumped into the van on a short drive to the Srpenica1 launch point. What followed was around 10km of fun, which encompassed around two hours of laughs and excitement. We eventually exited at Trnovo1

Between the start and finish, we spent a lot of time paddling, which was broken up in the calm sections by some swimming, a stop to drink the water. We also stopped to use the raft as a slide and also for a grown up jump. The kids where not allowed as it was over 7 meters.

The final section of the run was very calm, so Cassie and I bailed out and floated the final section.

Half an hour later Cassie and I were wandering home, well, to the camp through the woods. She had an Ice Tea and chocolate, I had a Radler Beer. Very cool.