June 2020
We were really excited to go to Kočevje, as we didn’t have the chance to visit it before, and the survival training idea was na extra push to wake up that moring.
We live 45 minutes away from Kočevje by car. The road was very beautiful as it passes trough some nice forests, there was no traffic, so the way was just perfect.
We parked in front of the Bearlog hostel, where our guide Miha and Nadja from the Kočevje tourist association were waiting for us with a nice welcome breakfast, homemade yogurt, apple juice and local “narezek”.
Afterwards Miha drove us up to the first spot – the way there (10-15 min by car) was like opening an encyclopedia of animal behaviour and culture about it – over there we had a chance to visit the ‘animal facebook of the forest’, as Miha calls it, a tree which many animals visited and left some proof for us, some bear and deer hair.
We had a nice walk, about 45min long, to Loška stena, beautiful hills where the high points allowed us to have a stunning view of the Kolpa river valley. During this walk we tried to see some mountains gods which we could listen to, but they didn’t show up.
Miha then showed us some herbs and plants which we later used during the survival training. He also prepared “malica” for us, which we enjoyed at the “end of the world” point, the highest point of our route. We sat on a rock on the top of a hill and tasted some of his home made products, cheese, salami, salad, apples, herbal tea and 3 different kinds of schnaps, a perfect amount of energy to face what followed afterwards.
We drove to the second point, where we embarked on our first tracking school, which showed us deer signals. Every step we took deeper into the forest showed us more and more clues of the animals we were surrounded by. We had a chance to see a lot of deer tracks and also bear and wild boar tracks. Unfortunately we weren’t able to see any of them, since the forest in this time of the year is too dense and allows us to see only few meters in front of us.
When we arrived to our survival training spot, we were first worried about the most important thing, food. There we learned a lot about plants which taste really good and can be eaten, too. The menu included a forest risotto and salad, and a couple of grasshoppers and spiders as our appetizers.
The next thing we learned about was how to make a fire in 3 different ways, by using appropriate tools, in order to prepare our lunch, which was just delicious. One important tip: next time bring salt!
Afterwards we had a trainning course in using a knife and an axe. We finished with hand fishing, which was exciting and fun at the same time.
Our day ended at the hunting lodge Pr’ Slavcu in Koče with a great dinner.
We are really satisfied with the experience, which we will repeat for sure. Kočevje survival weekend sounds amazing after this first contact. Next time, we will see a bear for sure!!
Manca & Fernando (Spain)
Manca and Fernando from Spain
Photos: Manca & Fernando
