Veliki Krs was a distinctive ridge, its spine rising up from the east. Last time I was here I failed to climb it as I was unable to establish where the route down on the other side was. A disappointment. Now that Waymarkedtrails.org has published a route all is clear. The path is not where the guidebook, "Rambling in Serbia" implied. So this morning I climbed up a narrow path which took an oblique route up the south side of the ridge, starting from the eastern end. I was fortunate that in addition to occasional red and white waymarks, frequent fragments of faded caution tape had been tied around the branches of low trees and bushes. Where I missed one on a small, stony area lacking bushes, I was soon struggling, faced with impenetrable bushes of lilac and, even worse, thorny hawthorn. Forced to retrace my steps I eventually spotted a faded strip of plastic in a place where there did not appear to be a path until you were really close. Just coming into pale purple bloom the lilac looked wrong growing on a Serbian mountainside rather than in an urban English garden. When I stepped on more rocky ground, the herbs between the stones released a fragment smell, reminding me of the scented packets of herbs sold for ladies pillows.
The E4 does not go to the summit of Veliki Krs and nor did I. On the crest of the ridge I sat and ate a late breakfast while admiring the views of mountains I had crossed and those yet to come. To the east there was extensive open cast mining and smelting for copper, around the town of Bor. Considerable care was needed to descend the steep north side of the ridge where in places the path headed straight down. If the earth had been wetter I would certainly have slipped, bruising my bottom on the many rocks. Tree roots acted as steps in places, or else tried to trip me. Eventually the gradient of the path became a little less, although not by much, and I was relieved to reach the valley bottom.
However I had two more ridges to cross. Neither as challenging as Veliki Krs but on the second ridge, the cliffs of the mountain of Stol rose dramatically to my right as I crossed at a wide pass.
For the remainder of my day I alternated between farmland and low trees as I made slow but steady progress. The sun and blue skies were very welcome, finally drying out my boots. However the heat made me worry about water supplies in the dry limestone landscape. I was drinking heavily without peeing so dehydration was a concern. My plan was to collect more water at the village of Sikole, but had nothing to confirm a drinking fountain or an open shop existed there. My route moved off limestone into an area of coarsely crystalline rock, its black crystals glinting in the sun where the rock was broken and used to reinforce the track. Evidently impermeable soon after there were a number of streams crossing the track. I collected two litres of stream water in my plastic bladder from one of these and added a couple of water purification tablets as I was unsure of its quality. As it transpired I found a shop at Sikole and bought three litres of mineral water which I used instead of the stream water which tasted of chorine from the added tablets. I sat outside the shop and enjoyed a Coke, crisps (feeling in need of salt) and chocolate, watching a succession of old, red tractors return home for the evening.
A few kilometres after the village, having completed 30 kilometres, with my knee and heels complaining I picked a spot for my tent among scrubland that no-one appears to care about judging by the fly tipping. I avoided the areas desecrated by dumped rubbish and found a good, flat spot among a cluster of trees, an improvement on recent pitches. There is a building in the distance, but it looks abandoned.
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