Zabijak and the Tara canyon

Zabijak is higher than ben Nevis, and still surrounded by towering peaks in every direction. In the north of Montenegro and a comfortable 6 hours on old buses from kotor where we stayed at the beginning of the week, the town lies on the very edge of the durmitor national park.

After an 8 hour hike yesterday around the national park and on the magnificent babotov kuk (2,500m) we set out today in search of the Tara canyon; 2nd largest in the world only to the grand canyon, thinking it best to take a taxi there and walk back (due mainly to lessons learnt from the previous day of walking).

The taxi driver stopped on the side of the road, told us to get out and pointed toward a footpath. We begun to walk, having been told it was 40 minutes from the 'town' we would be dropped in. With nothing but the endless forests of durmitor around, we made haste along the footpath, wondering if this would another goose chase, similar to that we were on the previous day in such of the peak of the almighty babotov.

Not 20 minutes after setting off we came to a clearing. The views were spectacular, but we continued along our path, until the word spectacular was truly given definition.

With a panorama unlike any that either of us had ever been able to comprehend until this instance, and the glorious power of nature on full view, we both stood speechless, attempting fruitlessly to capture what we were witnessing on numerous digital cameras.

Equally fruitless would be human destruction of such a place. Many beautiful places have been industrialised or in some way manipulated by human endeavour? And this trip has shown some fine examples, the bay of kotor or lake Zug for instance.

This jaw dropping landscape strikes you as mother nature herself using her ice, rock and many shades of blue and green to show to gigantic fingers to man and it's conquest to destroy every beautiful thing on her planet.