Skocjanske Caves, Slovenia

Sat 28th June

Slovenia's number one tourist attraction is the Postojna Caves, just south of Ljubljana. We had arranged to stop through on our way to Croatia until I read the rest of the description in Lonely Planet. There are loads of stalagmites and huge caverns, but there are also hordes of tourists stampeding through the caves and a human fish (what the ??) riding a train that follows you through the caverns on your visit. It sounded cheesy and downright creepy so we opted for the far less touristy but much harder to reach Skocjanske Caves a few miles up the road.

The description of the Skocjanske caves was enough to make my palms start sweating. “With relatively few stalactites, the attraction here is the sheer depth of the underground chasm which you cross by a dizzying little footbridge.” I begged Bevan to keep on driving but he was already hooked. Tickets in hand, we set off on what would be my “mountain summit” of the trip so far.

The cave is now a UNESCO World Heritage site so only a few tour groups are allowed each day, the paths are well paved, and they're conscious of light damage. Making the visit more eerie and real than other cave tours I've done in the past, our guide actually switched on the lights as we entered each cavern, then switched them off again behind us. Getting accidentally separated from the group would mean being stranded in absolute blackness until the next tour group came through an hour later.

Trail through Skojanske Caves. Photos aren't allowed inside, so this was borrowed from their website.

The first hour of walking to and through the cave entrance is pretty tame and even boring at times, so the grand finale is really the only reason why you'd visit Skocjanske. But it's well worth the effort. Thunder from the river resonated through the entrance to the final cavern and when our guide switched on the final set of lights, the entire tour group gasped in awe. The path was lit by a series of small yellow lanterns that switched back and forth into a tiny trail of luminescent ants as it crawled down the cliff side in front of us. In the black distance we could see the dimly lit path continue on the other side of the chasm, clinging to the rock face with what appeared to be nothing supporting it for hundreds of metres further back into the darkness. Clouds of mist from the river pounding below hung in mid-air as if this dark subterranean world had its own clouds.

Looking at the trail across the other side of the chasm

I gulped in fear, knowing that somewhere between here and the other side was the very narrow footbridge. I felt like I had stepped into an Indiana Jones movie and half heartedly hoped a group of savage cannibals would turn up just to motivate me onwards.

How they managed to carve the path into the side of the cliff is beyond me, but I was incredibly grateful they had also taken the time to include a metal handrail. Throughout the cavern were the remnants of past cave explorers who had carved narrow steps along the steep walls at terrifying heights with dangling rope foot bridges over thousand foot crevasses. These men must have had serious balls.

After several switchbacks, we were standing eye-level with the path on the opposing side. The cave hole where we had entered now looked no bigger than a large doorway, even though it was big enough to drive 5 caravans through at the same time. I turned to my left and there stood the infamous bridge... a thread of pearled dots precariously hanging over a 45 metre chasm of misty darkness. Damnit – why do they always have to make the handrails on these things transparent??

The terrifying foot bridge

Surprisingly, the lack of light actually made the whole experience much easier than I had anticipated. Walking over the bridge certainly made you dizzy, but it was nowhere near as scary as staring at it from a distance, knowing you'd soon have to walk over it. The hike along the other side took ages as we all stopped every few steps to peer back over the cliff side into the chasm, and I heaved a huge sigh of relief as daylight at the other end finally became visible. Thinking the fear was over, we walked into the bright sunlight only to find ourselves once again perched precariously on a sheer drop off to a waterfall below. Above us the town of Skocjanske teetered on the edge of the surrounding gorge and the guide steered us towards a rickety old funicular which eventually carried us back to the top. It may not have been the same as Bevan's mountain summit in Austria, but I was still patting myself on the back for not collapsing into a panic attack after 180 minutes of vertigo torture.

View Skocjanske Photo Album