Norway. It’s been a long time coming and we’re more than 2 weeks into it. It’s pretty much what we were hoping for in terms of plenty to do, in beautiful surroundings. Nearly everywhere you look, there is something pretty to see. We’re waiting for the typical weather to hit but meanwhile, we’re packing in as much as we can under an incredible amount of sun! Nearly every day has been something really cool.
Backing up, the highlight since leaving Netherlands was a brief visit with Sandie & Karsten in northern Germany. We shared a dinner and breakfast in a campground and the time flew. And in the morning, we all did our exercise before breakfast, just like old times. Funny. We miss traveling together but for now, this was something.
We spent a day replacing the radiator on the truck because it had cracked from an old patch from a break in shipping. And we stopped by Marquart, a shocks shoppe based in Germany that we ordered shocks from previously and had shipped all the way to the USA. Now we were actually passing right by and could buy them in person. The truck went up on the lift briefly to fit the bushings and then Jon installed them himself. The truck feels so much better now and is well planted on the road now once again. And we’re not leaking antifreeze anymore. We think the shocks will last better because we’re mostly on pavement now as opposed to washboard.
We blasted through Denmark only really stopping for a couple of days to do some decent mountain bike trails and visit a botanical garden but as it is pancake flat, we felt like moving on. Not to mention, the Schengen clock is ticking. On the day we left, our washing machine broke- it needs a new drain pump and there was no real way to get a part shipped so we’re doing without, which is a real pisser. We feel sure the reason it broke was that we made forward progress with the new shocks and radiator so something had to be added back to the endless fix-it list.
A late night ferry took us towards the light from Hirtshalls to Kristiansand and as soon as we got off the boat, the air smelled different- like evergreens. The sun doesn’t set for long here, that’s for sure.
After some sleep, we started heading around the southern tip of Norway continuing north from there. We don’t have a plan on how far north we’ll go as we don’t feel like spending all of our time driving. And we want to avoid crowds where possible. We have 6 weeks left before we need to start heading back to France. It’s a real drag to have a time pressure due to visa issues but that’s the way it is. I’m not sure we’ll get to famous Lofoten but you never know. People say the roads are narrow in Ireland. Ha! What about Norway??!!! Tunnels are dark but at least you know the road will usually be wide enough for 2 vehicles to pass. These roads make it hard to cover any distance fast.
The light feels different here in Norway to me. It is has a crisp, yet golden hue. The scenes of red boat buildings on still waters is common and it’s great to be seeing little slivers of ocean and river meandering through all of the canyons. Plus you have the grassy roofs. Some people even have small trees growing on top of their houses. Norway can have all the hydropower they want because of all the mountains and they’ve got a good infrastructure of it which lends itself to access and parks that wouldn’t be there otherwise. You just have to accept that there are often power lines running through the lower parts of the mountain scenery. If you hike far enough you’ll get above them. I’ve never seen so many electric cars and charging stations are replacing gas stations. While they produce a lot of oil for export to countries that won’t move away from fossil fuels, their country remains cleaner.
We started out with a hike to Brufjellhalene which had a lot of ropes and ladders much like a via ferrata as part of the trail. Ending at rounded glacial cave like fomations by the sea that make cool pictures. Seeing the boats anchored in the harbor gave me little pangs of nostalgia but then there I was onshore also doing something I love so everything is a tradeoff. And I wouldn’t trade any of the time we had on Evergreen because it was such a wild way to explore. And of course there was the diving….. but now I don’t look longingly ashore like a dog so that is a benefit!
We moved to Eigeroy Lighthouse area, still on the south coast of Norway and found a great campspot where we could walk and kayak. The ocean was chucker block full of jellyfish both huge and small so no swimming. But the kayak was fun and its so great to get out on the water. The walk around the island was beautiful too and it had a rope.
Everywhere you go in Norway there are tunnels and ferries to get there. Some are really long, like today’s 11km tunnel but the longest one is 24km! And ferries are common too. And today we went through a tunnel that had a roundabout in it!
We moved to Lysefjord, so far a major highlight for us. It is a quiet fjord overall. We did some incredible hiking here including to the popular chock rock called Kjerag but we made it a larger 20km loop that we did right from the truck. Spectacular and steep, sometimes on a rough trail, we loved the quiet backside even more than the cool rock but still, it is quite a spectacle and makes for neat pics. As long as you don’t flub up, you are OK stepping onto it, that is, if you’re not afraid of heights! We were surprised to see 2 Norwegian guys pass pushing their mountain bikes and they’d already biked up from the bottom of the fjord!
One thing is, some of the sheep in Norway are the friendliest we’ve ever encountered. They are actually nicer to us than the people. One group of sheep joined us for happy hour and she loved to have her face rubbed.
Then we drove down the switchbacks to the base of the fjord – Lysebotn and stayed in a pretty campground where we could swim in the river, kayak into the fjord and take great hikes. On a lovely morning the day after we stepped out onto the chock rock, we would then look up to that rock from the water in the pack raft. Crazy! You could see the little ants stepping on and off the rock for pics just like we’d done the day before. Paddling up to waterfalls was neat too. This was our first experience with a true fjord. I took a swim in the fjord too and it felt a bit like swimming in an aquarium.
Jon and I also took a passenger ferry to Florli to hike. Because there is an old hydroelectric plant there, a tiny village sprang up to support it and they had a staircase all the way up the side of the fjord to service the water pipe. It goes 4,444 steps to the top where other trails fan out to climb even higher. Now it’s a park and the only way to arrive to it is by ferry and you can walk up the steps. So we did this and then spent the rest of the day walking around up top and then back down through pretty woods and out to striking viewpoints. It was a great day.
It was hard to leave Lysebord but the ongoing weather!! We had to get over to the other side of the fjord to hike to Preikestolen, an almost perfectly flat rock plateau that sits 604 meters above the fjord. Between the drive and the ferry to get there, we didn’t start the hike until late afternoon but that’s OK because we have all the daylight. We did a speedy but long hike up there with lots of company but seeing that view and rock formation is unique and worth the effort.
We spent a day resting by the shore and doing laundry and then when we left there to head to Odda to get ready to hike Trolltunga (the Trolls Tongue), the exhaust brake on the truck started sticking. This means all the air from the secondary air system (not the main brakes) purges out constantly and well, there is no exhaust brake either. So we sort of lost the rest of the day trying to figure that out which in the end, Jon just had to order a new valve and have it sent to a friend that we’ll meet up with in a week or so. In the meantime, every time we turn the truck off all the air purges and people look at us funny and, of course we can’t use the exhaust brake. We did make it to the small city of Odda though! You can park right downtown across from the bike path and the grocery store where we could buy lots of red Argentine shrimp. They are harvested in Argentina, sent to China for processing, then sent to Norway.
I’ve been dying to use the pack rafts more. It’s actually hard to figure out the logistics of where you can put the rafts in and out and if you can float a river but we are having success. In Odda, we could walk the rafts right from the truck to Sandvin Lake on a bike path and kayak there with a view of a glacier and 2 big waterfalls. The water was a beautiful glacier melt blue. There was a road on one side of the lake so we hugged the opposite side.
Then the next day we took a very early bus to do the 27 km hike to Trolltunga. It is another impressive rock slab left by the glaciers that projects out into the void. It starts out with a bus ride to the trailhead and then the hike begins. It was busy. The actual formation is really impressive but everyone has got to get their poses in which makes reaching the summit a little less exciting. So we took our pics from a distance in between posers and walked further which left us alone in the beautiful landscape. The scalloped edges of the lake reminded me of the metal edges in the game Operation. It was of course another spectacular weather day which has gotten addictive. Even with the crowds at the troll’s tongue, it is indeed a spectacular formation and cool to see.
We moved to Folgefonna National Park which has Norway’s third largest icefield. I read that in some places the ice is 400 meters thick. Jon and I walked the kayaks up to Mosevatnet Lake from our campspot to paddle up to the glacier and had a great time. It feels so funny to be able to get right up to it and then we could float back down with the current.
And yesterday, we spent the day on another crazy beautiful hike up to another glacier edge. Much of the trail followed the river with bog cotton flowers and rock flour beaches and then the deep blue of a newly exposed part of the glacier foot. There were a couple of emerald lakes too, where I took a swim. I’m very pleased with the number of times I’ve been able to slip in and the water isn’t too cold. We came back and met up with Ivan for dinner over our idea of “loaded nachos”. Norway style- which is you make it with what you can. Nachos aren’t a big thing here.
Yesterday, we headed down off the glacier park and moved to Voringsfossen waterfall. You can hike down to the bottom, then hike over top of it on elaborate aluminum boardwalks.
Well those are the highlights anyway. We’re doing what we most want to do right now- just all things outside! Because Norway is a bit of an outdoor paradise, we feel like soaking it up. And the great thing is we’re all on the same page about it. We hope to keep finding interesting natural features and knockout hikes, bike rides and kayaking opportunities. It’s all we need for now.
