Window on Niksic

The start of the trail is quite awkward to find: along the Niksic-Pluzine road, after the turn-off to Brezna you will see a signpost for Zaborje where there are turn-offs on both sides. On the right it is signposted to Miljkovac, while you should take the left turn which turns soon into a stony track. Perhaps it is best to leave the car here – I didn’t, and I had to get my suspension fixed… The track winds through the woods and there is a fork where you have to take the left road, and follow this for several kilometres until reaching an opening. From here there are no trail markers but bear south-west following the topography, initially through woodland, until you reach a rocky and grassy expanse from where you can see the top of Golija.

These two hikes were explorations of the River Grabovica which flows into the River Komarnica via the Skakavica Waterfall, which is visible from and very close to the road that leads to Komarnica, just before the parking for Nevidio Canyon. There are trail markers to the right side of the gulch leading from the waterfall, which take you upwards on a winding path. There are frequent views down onto the waterfall and the river that feeds it. With some difficulty you can get closer to the river at one part where the flow narrows and plunges downwards. If you have nerves of steel you can jump across the river here for a nice view. The canyon is not accessible upstream from here, at least it wasn’t in spring when the flow is strongest. We climbed up towards the main Savnik-Zabljak road, and walked about 200 metres along it until we found a turn-off which leads down back to the river along a stony track. The river is shallow enough to cross here (barefoot or with waterproof boots, although p

  Although I had hiked part of this trail before when I explored the mountains above Kotor, walking from Kotor to Krstac and then along an Austro-Hungarian road to Zalazi and then down to Sveti Stasije, I had not climbed up to a famous viewpoint called Pestingrad, which is very close to Krstac. Since the coastal mountains are snow-free most of the year, this was an ideal time to explore, rather than the middle of summer (when I last walked there) with temperatures into the thirties. The path was very easy to find and follow from the restaurant right next to the road, near to the entrance to Njegusi. We got a little lost at one point but refound the trail, and then when Pestingrad came into sight (there is a path down to the left, as you face Kotor, which leads to the hill of Pestingrad), however, we decided instead to climb the higher peak of Đerinski vrh and were able to take a shortcut down on the Krstac side. It was a fairly short hike, but with lots of scrambling up rocky slopes, m