Waterfalls Road Trip Part 2: Una National Park, Bosnia

Our roadtrip in (North) Western Bosnia and Herzegovina continued on from Jajce toward the town of Bihac. The main attraction and purpose for this whole adventure: the waterfalls in Una National Park and the river Una. Bihac is almost on the Croatia border and Una National Park is not far from the more famous Plitvice National Park in Croatia. But since we aren't allowed into Croatia yet due to visa limits, we continue to explore cool sights on the Bosnia side of the border.

We drove from Jajce to the little village of Martin Brod. Just before dropping into the village, there's a view point overlooking the deep canyon that is formed by the river and it's a very long way down. There really isn't much to the little village at all - not even a bakery or cafe for a snack.

Lots of rocks falling on to the roads here and there

Monastery in Martin Brod

Monastery in Martin Brod

Caves near waterfall at Martin Brod

Ice inside the small cave

Great Una Falls

Great Una Falls

There was a little shack with a man taking payment for the National Park, and this entrance cost our family 6 BAM for each adult (approx $3 USD each) and the kids were free. We parked our car and walked about 100m to the viewpoint, which had a nice little wooden bridge and platform over the Great Una Falls.

About 50m beyond where we parked was another little footbridge overlooking the Small MartinBrod Falls.

We drove along the Una River and shortly came to the small town of Ostrovica. There wasn't much to this little town, either, but we could see a fortress on the hill above town. We drove up the steep narrow road to get close to the top, although this particular fortress is pretty run down and there isn't much to explore except a nice view back to the river and town.

Ava on R's shoulders coming down from the fortress back to the car

Sheep on the road

Be careful! The children explode right out of school and on to the roads here!

We arrived at our rental apartment in Bihac and, after some confusion with our non-English speaking host, we were allowed in. There hadn't been much availability in Bihac, being the off season, and so we ended up with this 3 bedroom 'penthouse' apartment beside the river just out of town. The host lives downstairs and, true to Bosnian hospitality, he made us cake and brought us coffee and really tried to communicate recommendations and many things we couldn't understand. He was friendly, but it was odd to feel like he might come in and visit at any moment while we were here.

We stayed in Bihac for three nights. On a normal vacation, just 1 night would be fine as the city isn't the highlight at all - it's really the proximity to the National Park (and possibly the Croatian border) that is the attraction. In the winter, the river holds a lot of fog well into the morning, but after the fog blows off it's attractive.

Our second day took us back to the park to see la creme de la cream of waterfalls: Strbacki Buk. On our side of the river, Bosnia has Una National Park. On the other side of the river is Croatia. Each bank of the river has a road. From Bihac, google maps encouraged us to take the Croatian road to get to the falls, but we aren't allowed into Croatia. So we went into another entrance to the park and stayed on the Bosnia side the whole time, and it was fine. The road isn't paved all the way and is narrow with some potholes, but it was totally acccessible without any issues for our basic rental car. 

We did see another entrance to the National Park on the East side closer to Bihac that was still really snowy and would have been harder to drive. But the entrance we used, near the turnoff at Orasac, was not snowy at all and clearly well used.

After paying our entrance fee (24 BAM or approx $12 USD total for the family), we arrived at the parking lot. In the summer there must be crowds and vendors and people having a great time swimming and picnicking. There's even a solar-charged bike tools station with a solar charging station for bike users. We didn't see a soul until we were leaving, when another car pulled in and a couple more were coming up the road. 

The falls were stunning. The boardwalk is pretty cool: it's built so you can walk around to many different viewpoints and enjoy different sections of the river as you walk along. In the morning, the Bosnia side where we were was warm and sunny, but the Croatia side was dark and clearly colder as it was really snowy/icy on that bank. 

This is the turn near Orasac, but the fee gate isn't for quite a while after this.

The azure colour of the water is awesome

The only ones in the parking lot

The facilities that must sell food in the summer

Happy Valentine's Day!

These stairs were COVERED in ice and I'm holding on carefully to go down to the water level

A beautiful snack spot on the upper viewing platform

No suntanning, no tables, no professional photography, no chickens?

We enjoyed the falls and river for a bit. We opted not to hike 3km (to a lake?) on a hiking path, but that must be a fun hike in warmer weather. We had a great snack at a wooden upper viewing platform. And then we drove back to Bihac. 

(*We could have totally fit this waterfall in more efficiently by going to it the day before on the way to Bihac from Martin Brod, but we had extra time in this area and wanted to soak it in, so we split this into an extra day's adventure.)

Jason did a run up to a small fortification (fort Sokolac) above our apartment in the afternoon before work.

On our last day, we drove about 30 min to the Ostrozac Castle. Despite being a bit tired of castles and stone fortifications, this one was fun. We got to walk along the walls and explore around corners and go up and down stairs into different parts. The statues and art sculptures in the grassy plaza help to make throwing snowballs at each other fun, too!

On the way back to Bihac, we stopped to check out the Kostelski Buk (waterfalls) and its little island park. We weren't sure if this was natural or man-made. We counted 9 tiers of cascades that seemed too perfect to be natural, but they are. That's actually how the calcium erodes and forms ledges. There were geese and ducks enjoying the water and the kids found sticks and swings to play with while we explored.

After this, we drove back to Travnik in central Bosnia, which is about 3.5 hours of driving East from Bihac. Our rental car was to and from Sarajevo (we couldn't figure out a way to rent a car anywhere West of Sarajevo for this road trip). Travnik is a place we can catch a bus to Split, Croatia - our next main destination. So Jason dropped us off at our rental apartment in Travnik and then drove back to Sarajevo (another 90 min of driving), returned the car, and then caught a bus back to Travnik in time to work in the evening.... it was a big and complicated day, but it all worked out.

Just a few days in Travnik and then our time in Bosnia will be over, our visa dates of being outside the Schengen Zone will be fulfilled, and we can enter into Croatia again.