I had to abandon my plans to ride the Vršič Pass in northern Slovenia due to an unscheduled apocalypse. Head-height fork lightning, pea-soup fog and rain drops the size of hazelnuts bouncing two feet off the ground aren't the safest conditions for riding a twisty mountain pass. So I turned south instead, chasing the sun over the border to Croatia, where I found it burning a pleasant 26°c not far short a Zagreb and barely a cloud in the sky.

But it wasn't all plain sailing. The 2.5 hour journey to Plitviče National Park turned out to be 5.5 hours thanks to a three mile queue at the border. Since Croatia is outside the Schengen Zone, its border with Slovenia is strictly protected at both sides.

Plitviče is essentially a collection of over a dozen aquamarine pools and waterfalls, which under any other circumstances would be absolutely stunning, but after the enormity of what I'd seen in the last ten days travelling through Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Italy, it seemed a bit... meh.

Really, you need to spend all day there to get most out of it, and it'd be a lot more fun hiring a rowing boat and going off-piste on the lake, but I didn't have time; I had to get back across the border to Mordor.

These photographs were taken with my Canon EOS 5D Mark IV and the extraordinary Canon EF 35mm f/1.4 II.

Equipment used

Camera

Canon EOS 5D Mark IV

Lens

Canon 35 mm f/1.4 L II USM

Motorcycle

Triumph Bonneville Scrambler 865

About the photographer

I'm Alex Nichol. I'm an amateur photographer from the North of England. For me, photography is a way to share what I love most about the world. That includes everything, from family and friends, to wild animals and breathtaking places... or maybe just how the sun twinkles on a weed in my back garden. It's all fair game.

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