The Plitviče waterfall that drowned under its own lake

Here is the Plitviče  detail I love, and almost everyone misses it because they are busy counting waterfalls from the boardwalk. Everyone knows Plitviče  as sixteen turquoise lakes stacked down a wooded canyon. Hardly anyone realises the waterfalls are alive, and that they are still being built as you walk past.

The barriers that hold each lake back are not carved rock, they are tufa, a spongy stone that grows when moss, algae and bacteria coax dissolved lime out of the water and set it hard around themselves. The whole staircase creeps upward by about a centimetre a year, which means the falls are quietly getting taller all the time. And because each barrier grows at its own pace, they occasionally eat each other. Around 400 years ago Lake Kozjak was two lakes with a waterfall nearly 40 metres high between them, until the barrier below grew faster, raised the water and swallowed that waterfall completely. It is still there, a huge cascade standing silent underwater while the little electric boats putter across the top of it.

I painted the lakes in watercolour and ink, that impossible green water and the moss on the barriers, and the whole time I kept thinking about a 40 metre waterfall holding its breath somewhere under the surface, hidden in plain sight. There's a poster with a letter home and a postcard if you'd like one.

Shop the poster here:  Plitvice Lakes, Croatia · Travel Poster