#2: [16-Aug-03]

#1: [14-Aug-03]

07-Jun-2005 -- My approach to this confluence was from the south, from the city of “Smederevo”. After crossing the river “Danube” I went towards the CP via “Kovin”, “Deliblato”, “Mramorak” and “Dolovo”. From “Dolovo” north huge sunflower and corn fields are divides by a narrow tarred road. Suddenly the landscape changed dramatically. As I crossed the abandoned rail line the tarred road changed into a sandy track trough hills like sand dunes covered with high grass, wild flowers, hazel & thorn bushes and all kinds of heather vegetation.

4.8 km from the CP I encountered a closed gate with some Cyrillic inscriptions. It seemed to be an ordinary protection against animals since it was not locked. So I entered the gate and in distance of 2.6 km I approached an intersection with another gate to the west. First I followed the most used track to the east (road Banat.-Karlovac to Susara) and turned back after ~ 2 km. Then I went to the North West trough a gate for approx. 3 km, turned back and tried to hike towards the CP. But the vegetation was so dense a thorny that I gave up this idea after a few hundred meters. According to the tracking I was very close to the village of “Devojački-Bunar”.

Finally I decided to go back to the gate and hike to north on a track along the fence. Soon I realized that the condition of this path was for driving. It seemed to be a service path for the fence but the fence itself did not look very well maintained. I was very lucky to save a least 6 km of walking since very dark clouds were moving towards the CP-area.

About 1 km from the CP the sand became very deep and I had to park the car. Even walking was difficult due to the deep, fine sand, but still much better than the thorny thickness. At a distance of 300 m I left the track and enter the bush. Actually this was not a good idea, but in spite of the oncoming rain to forced my way through the thorny bushes. Fortunately I wore heavy boots and long trousers while my arms were scratched completely.

While struggling through this European jungle I crossed an abandoned cattle watering place, found a plastic chair, noticed an abandoned telephone line and met a lot of thistles.

On a small clearing I was able to read the Zeros. The taken photos are showing bush in all cardinal points. But just a few meters to the north the dense bushes opens and show a lovely landscape with wild flowers. To get back to the fence it was much easier to use open grass areas to the NW. Walking twice the distance with less effort. Tracking is available by request.

In the twilight I walked back to the car and it starting raining as soon as I reached the car. By luck it was a perfect timing.