Bezgovica - Cerk

Access to starting point:
A) First, we drive to Ribnica, and then we continue driving towards Kočevje. After Dolenja vas we continue right in the direction of Grčarice, Gotenica and Kočevska Reka. In Kočevska Reka we continue right in the direction of Borovca pri Kočevski Reki, mountain pass Strma Reber and Osilnice. In Borovec we once again continue right, and then past hamlet Ravne in a few kilometers we get to mountain pass Strma Reber, which is situated at an altitude of 993 m. After the mountain pass the road starts descending, and after 19 zigzags brings us to the settlement Zgornji Čačič, a few 100 m ahead also to the turn-off of the road to the village Bezgovica. We park in an appropriate place by the crossroad.
B) From Kočevje we drive towards the border crossing Petrina, and then at the end of the settlement Štalcerji we continue right towards Kočevska Reka. In Kočevska Reka we continue left in the direction of Borovec pri Kočevski Reki, mountain pass Strma Reber and Osilnice. In Borovec we continue right, and then past hamlet Ravne in a few kilometers we get to mountain pass Strma Reber, which is situated at an altitude of 993 m. After the mountain pass the road starts descending, and after 19 zigzags brings us to the settlement Zgornji Čačič, a few 100 m ahead also to the turn-off of the road to the village Bezgovica. We park in an appropriate place by the crossroad.
C) From Osilnica or Sel pri Osilnici we continue in the direction of settlements Žurge, Padovo pri Osilnici, Zgornji Čačič and mountain pass Strma Reber. Before we get to the 1st or 19th zigzag, the road which leads towards the settlement Bezgovica branches off to the left. We park in an appropriate place by the crossroad.

Path description:
From the starting point, we continue in the direction of village Bezgovica, which we quickly reach. When we reach the mentioned village, at the smaller crossroad we continue slightly right, and then with nice views of Sveta Gora and Gorski Kotar we get to the upper part of the village, where among houses we follow the blazes. Behind the last house, we notice hiking signposts, which point us uphill to the path which passes into the forest, through which we gradually start ascending more steeply. After a short ascent, the path from the 18th hairpin turn of the road to Strma Reber also joins from the right, and we continue straight on the steeper path, which higher in a diagonal ascent brings us to a steep small valley, through which we continue the ascent. Higher the blazes from the rough small valley lead left to the path which passes along the edge of the occasionally precipitous ridge. We continue the ascent on the occasionally somewhat more overgrown path, which withdraws from the precipices somewhat to the right, and occasionally some views open up on the surrounding hills. A few minutes higher we reach a wide cart track, which we follow to the left to the spot where it splits into two parts.
We continue on the slightly left cart track (the right cart track bypasses Bezgarska planina and leads towards the mountain pass Strma Reber), which quickly leads us out of the forest to the lower part of Bezgarska planina. When we reach the mountain pasture, we walk across the meadow in a minute or two to the larger hunting observatory.
From the hunting observatory, where there is a marked junction, we continue right in the direction of Cerk and Firstov rep (straight Taborska stena, Dragarji...), on the path which descends to a smaller garden in the middle of the mountain pasture. When the path passes into the forest, at the junction of cart tracks we continue straight (here from the right joins the cart track which a little before the mountain pasture branches off straight from the marked path and is about a minute shorter than the marked path). There follows a few minutes of ascent through the forest, and then we reach the main road Osilnica - Kočevska Reka, which we carefully cross.
On the other side of the road, we continue in the direction of Cerk and Firstov rep, and continue the path on the forest road. The path ahead leads us along the forest road, from which already after a few minutes a marked path branches off to the right.
We continue on the marked path (it is also possible to continue on the unmarked road, since the marked path after some time returns to the mentioned road, and the path along the road is also somewhat shorter), which passes into dense forest. Through the forest we first start to ascend moderately, carefully following the blazes, since otherwise the easy-to-follow path is relatively poorly beaten. When the path somewhat higher levels out, we bypass the indistinct peak Luknja (1079 m) on the left side, to which we can ascend in a few minutes on easier pathless terrain; otherwise we continue on the marked path, which as stated bypasses the peak on the left side. There follow some shorter ascents and descents, then a somewhat longer descent, which ends when we reach the macadam road.
When we reach the road we continue left (right Firstov rep and Loška stena), and then after a minute or two of further walking we arrive at the crossroad by the NOB monument, where from the left joins the road which we left earlier.
We continue right, past the memorial, and continue the path on the macadam road. Higher, at the smaller crossroad we continue left, and after a few minutes we arrive at the marked junction, where a marked path from the hunting cottage on Ravne also joins.
The signs for Cerk direct us right onto the cart track. We follow the well-marked but occasionally quite overgrown cart track all the way to the smaller clearing below the summit of Cerk. Here we continue slightly left, and then follow the somewhat steeper path all the way to the summit of Cerk.
Bezgovica - Bezgarska planina 1:00, Bezgarska planina - Cerk 1:55.

On the way: Bezgovica (565m), Bezgarska planina (895m)