A Lake Too Far

There is a lake in this kite aerial photo ...

A wondrous, impermanent Karstic lake that is now mostly full after early spring rains: Petelinjsko lake near Pivka, Slovenia. But alas, it was too far from where the wind was strong enough to lift the kite and the camera ... Here is a glimpse of it:

The lake is hiding in that little basin, sheltered - how unfortunate! - from the winds.

It was a little frustrating KAP expedition to Pivka valley in southwestern Slovenia. The limestone geology created many karstic seasonal lakes - 17 of them in just 15 km of the valley going from north to south. All this is quite unique, and the area is protected as a Pivka Seasonal Lakes Landscape Park.

We were chasing those lakes and the wind; first at Petelinje lake, then at Palčje lake, but at the lakes there was no wind, and where the wind was blowing, the lakes were too far away ... So we had to settle for aerial photos of the Pivka valley, its pastures and streams, and the hills above it - Thick peak, Lojnica with the church of St. Trinity, and Javorniki ridge behind and to the left.

Pivka valley is beautiful and peculiar - its rather high elevation with short summers and hard winters, thin karst soil and the flood-prone river Pivka renders most of 'normal' agriculture impossible, so the good people of Pivka turned to cattle (mainly sheep and horses that graze on the lush karst meadows), apiculture (it's a breathtaking sight when those meadows bloom, and the honey produced here is amazing!), and industry - especially lumber as the valley is surrounded by thick forests.

The village with the church is called Trnje, and the small hill on the right is an archaeological site - there was a Roman outpost guarding the road from Pivka to Cerknica lake and on to Bloke plateau, and the main Tarsatica - Aquilea road.

All in all, we did not get what we came for, but we did get a couple of nice kite aerial photos of this beautiful valley - and we will definitely come back again, with kites and cameras ready to capture its treasures.

All kite aerial photos shot with Nikon P330 on the Blue Rokkaku kite.