Crowded parks, broken shoes and the sea organ

I’m back home, but I want to give you a summary of what happened the last days of the trip and also include a couple of things that I forgot earlier.

The final day of the trip we went for a “hike” around the Plitvice lakes. It is not so much of a hike, more of a walk around a nice area with a LOT of lakes and waterfalls. I call it a walk because it feels like you walk in a park – the whole area has “wooden” roads. There were also tons of people around and since the roads were quite narrow we ended up in lines everywhere - You had to stand in line to take a picture in some places. Of course the area was very beautiful (see pictures below), but it is still not really my cup of tea. I almost get a panic attack when I have so many people around me. I know one thing – as soon as I retire I will move out to the country side. I don’t like places with a lot of people.

One story that I forgot to tell you earlier is how to fix a broken hiking boot while hiking. One of the other hikers’ boots broke down the other day. The whole sole came off. When it happened I think many of us really wondered how we could solve the problem, since you can’t walk without a sole and definitely not barefoot. Our local guide solved the problem – silver tape. See picture below. I have to admit – now I will include silver tape to my equipment list. What would we have done without it??

One night of the trip we went into the”big city” of the area: Zadar. We spent our evening in the old parts of the city. It has been destroyed many times through the years (by earthquakes and wars), but they have still managed to keep some parts from its roman time. It was very interesting to see them. But what I liked a lot more was the “sea organ”. I honestly don’t know how to describe it –the organ made sounds when the waves went through it. You can read about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_organ If I would have been on my own in the city I would have sat there the whole evening listening to it. I loved the combination of my favorite things in life: music and nature.

Sunset in Zadar

The trip back to Sweden started early – 5 o’clock. It was an easy trip. We took the bus to Spit, checked in (on an airport that was too small for the amount of people that flew out of there), bought some tax free, waited in the lounge and flew home. It is seldom that everything is so easy, but I’m glad when it is.

Now all my clothes are washed, my hiking boots cleaned and my camel bag cleaned with chlorine and a tampon ( I know – strange, but it was the best way I could come up with to clean the tube to the camel bag). So now I’m all set for a new trip. At the moment I’m looking at trips to Patagonia, but nothing is sure. You will be informed through the normal channels.

Take care everyone!

Maybe I should start climbing?

Suddenly I like climbing. I have now been climbing 3 days in a row and I have noticed that it puts me in a really good mood. The first day of climbing I already wrote about in my last blog. So here comes the story of the other two.

But before I go that far, I need to tell you how yesterday (which was our day off hiking) morning started: I went jogging with our Swedish guide. I’m actually quite proud of myself that I went running while I’m on a hiking vacation and I did it at 7 o’clock in the morning. It takes a lot of commitment. It was a great run, around 7 km along the sea shore. After the run we went for a short swim. It felt extremely refreshing and it is my favorite way of starting a day.

After the breakfast our local guide picked us up and took us for a walk in some natural caves. I’m sure a lot of you have done a walk in a cave. So have I, which made me think I knew what to expect. Boy was I wrong. First of all we were equipped with overalls, so we wouldn’t get dirty (already there I should have been warned). Then we got helmets with carbide lamps, which meant that we actually had an open fire (like a Swedish Lucia) on our head. After a 10 min walk we reached the opening of the cave and I just gasped – “REALLY??? You want us to go down there??? See picture below. I mean the opening was so small and we had to go in with our feet first. You had no idea what to expect from the other side. We came out in a semi big room and had to crawl also into the next room. At this point I was really wondering what I have gotten myself into. But after that we entered the bigger rooms in the cave and we had a very nice walk. Until our guide stopped at another very small hole in the wall and stated that we should go through there. I started to laugh – surely he was joking. But NO! We got really detailed descriptions on where to put our hands and feet, how to release the right hand and put it over our head and how to slide through the hole. Strangely enough I managed quite easily to do that. But not all people in the group managed that. A somewhat overweight German guy got stuck and needed to wait until everyone else had gone through before he could give it another go. Luckily he managed the second time after the help from both the guides. I wonder if he went home and started a diet? That thought would have crossed my mind at that point. So as a summary the cave walk was one of the most exciting things on the whole trip.

Today we had the longest hike of the week. Or in other words the challenge of the week. It was a 6 hours hike (with breaks more than 7 hours) where we gained and lost 700 m. Already before we started the hike half of the group decided not to join us - mostly because they hesitated for the climbing parts. It isn’t the highest mountain I have gone up to, but it still can be and was a challenge.

We walked up 400 m in a ravine. A ravine means that we had to climb up or jump between large cliffs and stones more or less the whole time. At times it was quite tough, so we had to use wires or the helping hand of our guide. I love this kind of hikes – it is just the right amount of excitement. After we reached the top of the ravine we continued through the forest another 300 m uphill in a good tempo. Exactly how I like it.

After a good lunch we started the hike back on nice forest trails and steep downhill with rolling stones. Yeah – even the downhill gave us a challenge. And again – I fully enjoyed it.

We ended the hike a the climbers place in the national park where we had coffee, beer or ice cream and just enjoyed the scenery. It was a really, really nice day in a beautiful environment.

So as a summary – maybe I should take up climbing?? It seems to put me in a good mood. That might also even cure my fear of heights. 

Look at the hole next to the backpack, behind the legs! That is where we went in!

My flame was out as we took this picture. But that was "normal". It went off quite often.

It was climbing both up and down. :-)

The views were fantastic the whole way.

Today was a better day... it only took some climbing and a snake

After rain comes the sun. Or at least after one day of pretty boring hike comes a fantastic day.

Today we were hiking in the Bojin mountains, up to Velika Rujno. My expectations before the hike was not very high, but I knew one thing – the nature would be beautiful. It was even better than expected. The grey oddly shaped cliffs against the blue sky or sea was breath taking. I found myself constantly oooing and aaaing at the view. It was absolutely amazing.

But then the whole hike turned out to be better than expected. Today the slowest hikers were walking in the back with our Swedish guide and the rest of us could keep a higher tempo in the front. Of course we had to wait for the others once in a while, but that is at least better than to walk slowly the whole way.

The hike itself was filled with climbing challenges, both uphill and downhill. It was several times when the guide needed to tell us both where to put our feet AND hands to have a safe climb up or down. That is like an amusement park for hikers – a lot of fun and very challenging.

We skipped our lunch packet from the hotel. Instead our Swedish guide arranged a fantastic picnic. See picture below. We ate local cheeses, sausages, ham, bread, cookies, pate, fruit..... and it all tasted extremely good. To all these local dishes we drank a local red wine. I think it is the first time I have drunken red wine, during a hike (I have of course been drinking after the hike earlier), but I don’t think it will be the last. It tasted great with the food and we only took a small glass. No one wants to be drunk while hiking, especially not since we were also semi-climbing. This was one of the best lunches I have ever had while hiking. FANTASTIC!

But the great things with the hike didn’t end there. We also saw the most dangerous snake in Europe – the horned viper, see picture below. It is funny with snakes – you both want to see them and not want to see them. I hate snakes and am scared of them, but still I’m fascinated about them. This one we could really see up close. But unfortunately I didn’t have the best lens to take a picture of it.

When we came back to the hotel we enjoyed the one thing I have never had the opportunity to enjoy after a hike before – a swim in the ocean. We have only around 100 m to the beach, so we quickly changed from our hiking clothes to our bathing clothes and went for a swim. It was a bit cold at first, but then it felt great.  Then it was just nice to sit in the sun and reflect on the day. Today was amazing.

Fantastic picnic

Oddly shaped rock against the blu sky and sea

Look close and you will see the snake on the branch

Only one problem....

Second day of hiking In Croatia is finished and I can’t complain about the nature. It is absolutely beautiful. It is a mixture of raw rocks and wonderful forests, with beautiful views in all directions.

Yesterday’s hike was in the Velika ravine. The sun was shining and we hiked up around 500 m to a hut, where we had lunch under trees in the shadows. It was a beautiful tour with great views, but it took place in a well-organized national park. That means that the trail (road?) up was quite wide and well taken care of. I call these kinds of trails for hiking highways. They need to have these highways since there are a lot of people visiting the parks. But it makes the hike a bit boring. I prefer the real trail hikes.

Most of the people visiting the park know what they are doing, but you also meet quite a lot of people hiking in city sandals without water. Every time I met these people I feel sorry for them. They usually have a look on their face saying “please take me out of here”. The key thing to enjoy hiking is to be prepared for the situation. Bad shoes and no water is not the way to enjoy a hike on a hot day on steep trails (even if they are more like roads than trails).

Today’s hike took place in the national park Velebit, but this tour was rawer. We used a narrow forest trail up to the rough rocks on top of the mountain. We were almost climbing uphill in some places and when we went downhill we really had to watch our step, since it was steep and slippery. We were lucky with the weather, since it was supposed to rain, but we had just cloudy skies and the perfect temperature for a hike. This was the kind of hike I like with beautiful scenery and greats trails. There was only one problem……

The group is older than me. I’m still not sure when it comes to number of years, but they have an older attitude to hiking. They like it slow. I’m not the person that likes powerwalking when hiking, but I like to get some pulse - at least in the uphill. But this group likes to take it easy and have a lot of rests. It is actually the slowest group I have ever hiked in.  Well – maybe the Cuba hiking group was worse, but there, at least, I could together with a couple of friends hike ahead of the group. Here I’m not allowed to hike faster than the guide in front and he is walking as slow as the group wants. I’m not sure how to handle this the rest of the week. I have a feeling it will drive me nuts.

I have to say that I didn’t know what to expect from the food and wine in Croatia, but I have been pleasantly surprised. The food taste great and the wine is quite OK considering I haven’t drank the expensive stuff (they don’t sell that per glass). The only thing that has been disappointing is the desserts. Not that I usually eat and like sweet things, but these were not even fun to taste. Well – you can’t win them all.

The group!

Rough cliffs and trees makes a beautiful combo

Even when it is cloudy it is beautiful.

The first day in Croatia

Finally I have arrived to Starigrad in Croatia and hotel Vicko where I’m staying. It is a cute little village and a nice hotel. Nothing fancy, but quite OK. I was lucky to get my own room. It is not that I mind sharing a room, but if I’m given the choice I prefer my own room.

I’m bit tired. It was a late night and a VERY early morning. Two friends of mine, who are borrowing my apartment while I’m away, arrived yesterday afternoon. And since my friend Jannica also knows the girls we all met for dinner at my place. It was a very nice evening that we ended already at 20.30, since I needed to do some final packing and go to bed. Unfortunately I had a lot more last minute things to do than I expected and ended up going to bed shortly before midnight. And then I had to wake up at 2.30.  Two and a half hours of sleep is not enough. L Luckily I can easily sleep on planes and buses, so I managed to get another 2 hours of sleep on the trip to Starigrad.

I have now met the group that I’m travelling with. It consists of 4 couples and one single man. Before you even think it – NO he is NOT my type. All are Swedish and my first impression is that I’m one of the youngest. I might be wrong here. I have a tendency to forget how old I actually am and look at people in my own age as old(er). J It is always a surprise to look in the mirror and realize my own age. Anyhow – they are experienced hikers and seem to be very nice. Tomorrow we will have our first hike and it sounds like it is a fairly easy one.

It is nice and warm here (around 25 degrees Celsius), but somehow we managed to bring the rain from Sweden with us. I’m hoping it will clear up soon. I have brought my rain gear so I will be fine during the hike, but again – I prefer to hike without the rain. I don’t need the sun, I just want to stay out of the rain.

Since I will have a break in the half marathon training program next week I wanted to do the most of the training this week. That meant that I needed to go for the 90 min run today here in Starigrad. So this afternoon I went out. It started out quite ok, even though I felt that I hadn’t had enough sleep. My whole body felt tired. Also the heat was quite tiring. On top of that it started to rain – A LOT. And it didn’t really cool down, so now I was tired - running in the hot and rainy weather. Let’s just say that it wasn’t my favorite run, even if I had a great view all the time. On top of that my headphones broke down and I was flushed with dirty water from a truck a guy was cleaning. I actually finished my run 10 min too early because I was so fed up with the situation.

One nice surprise – they have great food on the hotel. I just came back from the 3 course dinner where the only thing I didn’t like was the banana ice cream for dessert.

Now it is time to get some extra sleep so I can be fit for the hike tomorrow.

The start of the Croatia Hiking Trip

So here I am again, packing for another trip. It is funny – I never get tired of travelling. I always want more. I want to see more countries, experience more cultures, see more beautiful places, do more challenging things, learn more……

Of all the things I enjoy to do, there is one thing I enjoy more than everything else: hiking. Hiking combines exercise, meditation, sightseeing, social life, challenges…. Even if it rains (or snows as it did in our hike in Norway this summer) I enjoy hiking. Of course I prefer the sunny days, but the challenge increases with bad weather and sometime a challenge is good to have.

This trip goes to Croatia. For those of you that speak Swedish you can read about the trip here: http://www.primatravel.com/Vandring-i-Kroatien It is a luxury hiking trip, since I stay at hotel and will be served a 3 course dinner every night. :-)

I chose this trip because I was curious about Croatia and it was the hiking trip to Croatia that seemed to have the toughest hikes (even though it is luxury hiking). I have learned from previous trips that if the hikes are too easy I get annoyed.  Again - I need the challenge – in this case the physical one.

The big advantage with luxury hiking trips is that I don’t need to plan my packing so carefully. I can fill a suitcase with 23 kg. And THAT I have done. :-) I have a lot of things with me - some necessary, some good to have and some plain luxury. I will not bore you this time with yet another packing list - unless you ask for it. :-)

The plane leaves for Croatia Saturday morning at 06.30. Imagine that – I need to be at the airport 04.30. I hate these early flights. But on the other hand – it will give me enough time to do my 1,5 hours run, that I need to do according to my half marathon training plan, before dinner. Since I will not be able to follow the plan the rest of the week, I will take this only possibility to run. If you have missed the information  - I will run Stockholm Half Marathon the 15^th of September.

Ohhhh… I’m so looking forward to this trip. :-)

How to destroy a plan – A Project Manager’s confession :-)

J and I had made a plan before the trip to Norway, as some of you might have seen in an earlier blog. Of course we both agreed that it was just preliminary, but I don’t think anyone of us had understood how much we needed to change it. ;-)

The original plan looked like this:

Day 1 (24): Way Gothenburg – Oslo, Drive 3,23

Day 2 (25): Visit of Museum Island (Bygdóy: Wiking Ship Museum, Kon-Tiki_Museum);

Day 3 (26): Oslo – Nærøyfjord, Drive 4, 52, Kayaking

Day 4 (27): Kayaking, Nærøyfjord – Bergen, Drive 2,07

Day 5 (28): Bergen - Hardanger fjorden, Drive 2,48, Folgeganna Nationalpark Kayaking

Day 6 (29): Hardanger fjorden Hike to Trolltunga, 10 hour

Day 7 (30): Hardanger fjorden to Sognefjord, Drive 4,28, Hike Molden, Lustrafjorden 4h

Day 8 (01): Sognefjord, Hike Vettisfossen 5h , to Geiranger Fjord, Drive 4,0

Day 9 (02): Geiranger Fjord with Hike Storseterfossen

Day 10 (03): Geiranger Fjord Kayaking to Lighthouse, Drive 3,02

Day 11 (04): Lighthouse to Ålesund, Drive 3,31 Hike

Day 12 (05): Ålesund-Trollstigen-Trondheim, Drive 4,55-5,52

Day 13 (06): Drive Stockholm, Drive 10,49

The first thing that happened is that we had to start the trip one day later than planned due to the traffic jam in Germany that made J miss the ferry.

But then we started to follow the plan quite good. Yes, the drive to Oslo took a bit longer, since we first had to take care of some errands in Sweden, but it just meant that we arrived later than expected to Oslo. No harm in that.

We spent the next day in the museums according to plan. But then the plan started to be messed up. It took us far more than 4, 52 to drive to Nærøyfjord, so we arrived 15 min after the camping closed and had to set up the tent outside. This meant, of course, that we had to spend some hours the next day to pack, check-in and come to order on the camping site. But we also discovered that we really liked the area and the camping PLUS the weather was absolutely great. So we decided to stay an additional night in Nærøyfjord/Flåm. It was a lovely stay and we got to try the kayak.

At this point we were, in other words, 3 days after our original plan, but it was a delay that we enjoyed. Nærøyfjord/Flåm was one of our favorite places on the trip.

The drive to Bergen took of course much more than 2 hours (nearly 5 hours). This was not only because of the winding narrow roads, but also due to the fact that we hit a traffic jam caused by an accident (looked bad :-( ) and that we took it easy and stopped many times to take pictures and enjoy the scenery. We arrived in Bergen late in the evening and had to go for dinner even before we looked for a camping. But what a great evening it was and we made some new friends. :-)

In Bergen we decided to skip Hardanger fjorden and all the activities planned there. It was a hard decision since we both really wanted to go there. But we made a promise to ourselves to come back later and then spend longer time in Hardangerfjorden and do all the activities that we planned and some more.

We continued instead up north to Sognefjorden. Now we decided to change our hiking plans and to go for Norway’s highest situated hut, see more the blog Hiking in the snow storm Whatever I thought before the hike, I now think it was a great decision. It was a fantastic challenge that I’m proud that we managed.

But the hike also meant that we arrived to Geirangerfiorden one day later than expected and we had no time for kayaking. The funny thing is that when we came down to the fjord we noticed that it was NOT a nice place to kayak. There were too many tourist boats in the water. Instead we had a great relaxing day, that you can read about in the blog A Great Day and the Night in the Lighthouse

Since we liked the place for the lighthouse so much we decided to skip to go to Ålesund and instead look for the Puffin/Sea parrot. Both of us are more interested in nature than cities so it felt like a much better decision. The only bad thing with that was that we didn’t realize how much time we would spend driving. But considering the rest of it – it was still a great decision.

At this point we felt that we had enough of the driving in Norway and decided NOT to drive back to Stockholm in one day, but in two. That was a very wise decision and gave us a nice relaxing drive and yet another beautiful camping site, just by a lake, to spend the night.

So what is the conclusion? If you want to have vacation in Norway – focus on a few areas, stay there and enjoy all activities close by. Then just go with the flow, the weather and enjoy. Plans are sometimes made to be broken. I think we had a GREAT vacation and I’m looking forward to go back and see the parts we didn’t have the time to visit this time.

Thanks J for making the trip to Norway so memorable!

The view from the storm house

Company on the road on the way back to Sweden

A view from the car on the way home

The last night in Norway

Puffin/Sea parrot and the impossible task to drive in Norway

Since the evening and night in the lighthouse was such a lovely experience for us, we wanted to stay another night there. Unfortunately the lighthouse itself was already booked, but the owner of the lighthouse, Bettina, told us that we could stay the night in the storm house, next to the lighthouse. With the beautiful surrounding – how could say no?

Bettina also told us that there was a possibility to see Puffins/Sea parrots close by the lighthouse, only 53 km away according to the GPS. 53 km shouldn’t take us more than 2 hours to drive in Norway, right?! I mean in Sweden we would calculate 1 hour. So 2 hours’ drive there, 1 hour to watch the birds and 2 hours back would mean that we would be back in the storm house for dinner around 8 pm. Perfect – we thought.

So off we went. Of course we noticed that the road was narrow and winding. We also managed to just miss a ferry and had to wait more than 30 minutes for the next one. But still – we didn’t think that it would be 7 o’clock when we arrived to the national park with the Puffins/Sea Parrots. Never mind, we thought. We will take a different way back that should be much straighter, with more frequent traffic ferries and therefor faster.

The walk up to the bird watching place was extremely steep, but after our hike to the hut some days before – we thought it was quite easy. :-)

We arrived at the place for bird watching and found ourselves a good spot between all the amateur photographers with 800-1000 mm lenses. We didn’t sit there for more than 10 minutes when a puffin/sea parrot landed just in front of us with his (?) mouth full with fish. We couldn’t believe our luck. None of us had a really long lens on our cameras (mine is 300 mm), but the bird sat so close to us so we could take GOOD close up pictures with our cameras.

We sat there for another 20 minutes and watched the birds fly by. It was beautiful and amazing, but no other bird came so close. So we decided to leave and drive back. On the way back to the car another bird landed just next to us and we could -  again - take some nice close up pictures. It was truly magical.

When we came down to the car again it was nearly 8.30 pm. We realized that it would be late before we would be back, but we hoped it would not take another 4 hours.

The drive back started really good. It was a new built road with new wide tunnels. But then we came down to the ferry. We were now driving the E39, a MAIN road, and thought it would mean that the ferries would have regular traffic also during the night. But NO! We missed the ferry with 4 minutes and had to wait another ONE!!! hour for the next. The only thing we could do was to have dinner. And the only place we could eat dinner at was a junk food place. *sigh* But what else can you do than to accept the facts. Of course we also had miscalculated the quality of the rest of the road, so we arrived back at the storm house at 1 am. In other words – it was not a perfect day, but the view of the Puffin/Sea parrot made up for it. We were still happy!

A Great Day and the Night in the Lighthouse

It was a great vacation in Norway, but one day was just a little bit better than the rest….

We started the day by having breakfast in the sun looking at the beautiful waterfall just next to the camping. J made his famous müsli filled with fresh fruit. My favorite breakfast!

We spent the rest of the morning at Geiranger fiorden, chilling; having a beer in the sun and relaxing next to the water, looking at all the boats.

Then we bought a nice picnic lunch, with salmon, shrimps and fresh bread and ate it next to a frozen lake. It is a bit special to sit outside in the sun and eat - looking at snow and ice. That can’t be denied.

In the afternoon we drove to the lighthouse which we had booked for one night. As always the drive in Norway was an experience of its own. We had beautiful views the whole way.

The lighthouse is called Kråkenes and is almost the most western point of Norway. You can read more about it here: http://www.krakenesfyr.no/. We stayed in the bridal suite, which is the whole third floor of the lighthouse. We had a living room, a diner room, a small kitchenette, bathroom and a bedroom with a round bed. :-)

It was a fantastic place with a sea view from each window in the lighthouse. Outside the diner room and the bathroom you could see the actual light of the light house. So cool! It started to shine at sun set (and what a beautiful sunset it was) around 11.30 pm, about the same time as we started to eat our dinner (yes - that is late for a dinner, but with all the light it feels totally natural). About the same time our dinner guest arrived – Mr Seagull. He was just sitting there posing in the light from the lighthouse.

The dinner was equally amazing, consisting of fresh shrimps, lamb fillet and chocolate brownie as dessert. Of course all served with good wine. We ended up eating dinner until 02.00 am. It was a fantastic way of spending the night. The view kept changing with the light and we just sat there and enjoyed the scenery.

So if you combine great weather, fantastic food and amazing views – you end up with GREAT day and Night.

Driving in Norway

After a couple of weeks of travelling in Norway we finally got the hang of it. First - it is a very nice experience. The drives between the different points are not only a drive – they are pure sightseeing.

The view from the car window is constantly changing. We can see (and you can see below):

·         Water of different kinds – plenty of waterfalls (sometimes we see 5-6 waterfalls at one place), rivers, fiords and lakes. One more amazing and the other. Some of them even with ice (at the higher altitudes). We have passed several rivers that are good for games like rafting and others that fit for just normal kayaking. But all very, very beautiful.

·         Mountains, mountains and mountains. Some with green trees or grass, some pure rocks and some with snow. Great places for both skiing and hiking.

·         Tunnels, tunnels and tunnels (they must be one of the best nations in the world to build tunnels) – maybe not so interesting to see, but it is part of the charm. They can be quite exciting since some of them are pitch black.

·         Beautiful green fields and forests.

·         Plenty of really, really cutes houses.

BUT…….

Driving 50 km in Norway can take anything between 1-4 hours. Not only are all the roads curvy and narrow, so it is hard to double if you end up behind slow moving vehicles. It is also hard to keep a “Swedish” average speed of 80-90 km/hour; you drive more an average of 50 km/hour. But it doesn’t stop there. Norwegians know how to build tunnels, that is for sure, but not bridges. So for many of the MAIN roads you have to use ferries. All is well if you drive in the middle of the day, since they ran quite frequently, but already around 6 pm they start to run evening traffic, which means one ferry every 30 min or hour. So if you miss one ferry you might end up waiting for whole hour. We made that mistake a few times and ended up spending most of the evening on the road instead of enjoying ourselves on some nice place.

So we have decided that for our next trip to Norway we will choose 2-4 places we want to visit and then stay in that surround for some days. Then we will enjoy our trip even more.

Hiking in the snow storm

One morning J had the idea that we should hike to Norway’s highest situated hut, at 2038 m. This is a GREAT idea in most situations. But at that moment I didn’t feel that it was the world’s best idea. The reasons for this being:

·         We would start the hike in the late afternoon (4.30) and not like I prefer – start in the morning. Normally it would not even be possible, due to the lack of light, to start so late. But that is of no concern so far up in Norway since it is light almost around the clock. But still – it is a bit late to start a hike. The hike was expected to take 4 hours in “normal” conditions.  

·         It is 1200 altitude meters hike, which is in most cases regarded to be a VERY tough hike. To start a TOUGH hike in the late afternoon is NOT my favorite thing to do.

·         We were informed that it was a lot of snow on the top which would make it hard to walk – you sink through the snow to your thighs.

·         We were not fully prepared. We hadn’t bought any snacks and/or light food to bring along to the hut.

·         The weather didn’t look the best.

·         We weren’t sure that the hut was open. It was supposed to be, but when we called the phone number, the phone was turned off. There was a risk that we had to hike directly back down.

But J can be pretty convincing and seldom takes NO for an answer. I know this after 17 years as friends. So off we went.

It started out quite OK, but after only 1,5 hours hike we realized that is was not going to be an easy hike - It was sometime very hard to find the track, since it was hidden in the snow.

J on the way up, before the bad weather

View on the way up

Then it became misty and started to rain. As a hiker that is what you are prepared for, but when you already have things working against you it is not so easy to take. To not see where you are, not see where you are going and hike in wet rain clothes all adds up to a rather tough hike.

But it didn’t end there - after a while it started to be really windy and as soon as you stopped walking you started to freeze, since all the clothes at this time were soaking wet from rain and sweat. It was time for more clothes, which makes it even harder to move.

You would think that all this would be enough, but NO. The next thing was SNOW. The combination of snowy tracks, mist and “snowstorm” didn’t improve my already quite bad mood. I mean, who enjoys not see where you are or where you are going, freeze like he.., sink through deep snow and have no idea if you were close to the hut or not. The hike was supposed to take 4 hours, but after 4 hours I realized that we were not even close. My altitude meter stated that we should have at least 400 altitude meters left (which is a big difference compared to the distance 400 m). At this point I started to scream several times “Where the h… is the fu…. hut???” and “I hate this”. So it is safe to say that I was in a bad mood.

Then suddenly, after 5 hours if hiking (9.30 in the evening) the hut appeared. It was just a few meters ahead of us. When we finally reached the door I fell into to the hallway stating “that was the worst thing I ever done”. Of course it is not totally true, but in that moment it felt like it.

As you understand by now – the hut was open. And it was serving food. Lucky for us – according to my pulse meter I had burned 2800 kcal on my way up, so my body screamed for energy. I started with a bag of chips (your body craves salt when you have been sweating a lot) and then we continued with Lapskojs (a traditional dish in Scandinavia). It is NOT my favorite, but by now anything would be good to eat.

After the late dinner and some drinks., they told us that we were NOT supposed to sleep in the hut were we were eating. We needed to walk another 200 m in the snowstorm to get to the dormitory hut. I was not too happy with that information, but you just have to face the fact and get out in the snowstorm again. *sigh* Of course the toilets were not in neither of the huts, but in a hut in between. So the toilet visit required yet ANOTHER tour in the snowstorm. You couldn’t see one hut from the other, since it was so misty and snowy. But you adapt and accept the situation and do what you have to do. And as soon as we crawled to bed we feel asleep like babies.

I looked happy in the morning in the hut.

View from dormitory hut, the toilet is the small one to the left and the "eating hut" the big one on the top.

The hike down the next day felt like a piece of cake after the hike up. The weather was not perfect in any way, but at least it was not snowing and we had only mist around the top of the mountain.  It took us less than 4 hours down, even though we stopped and talked to a lot of the people going up the next day.  So in comparison it was a very, very easy hike.

On my way down

 

 

View on the way down

But still – it felt like we have had a real adventure, that we had challenged ourselves. So the food and the beer that we got when we came back to the starting point tasted extremely good and in the middle of it all - I felt quite proud that we, the office rats, had managed a "winter" hike to Norway’s highest situated hut.

The first days of the trip

We have finally started the trip. We managed to find each other in Gothenburg, do the final shopping, put J’s money into my bank account (do you know that all bank offices in Sweden don’t carry money -  we had to drive around for 45 min to find one bank?! ) and go to Oslo on our first day. It was raining the bigger part of the drive, but when we got closer to Oslo the weather changed and the sun started to shine. See below. It was a good start of the vacation.

We arrived safely around 6.30 in the evening to our camping place and I got to see the “car tent” for the first time. It was a pleasant surprise. It was very easy to mount, takes only 5 min to get it up, and you are far away from all the humidity and bugs on the ground sleeping on the car’s roof. See below the pictures of the tent. J’ had of course brought a bottle of sparkling wine to cheer the start of the trip.

We started the day in Oslo by re-arranging the car. J’s had rain in Germany when he packed the car and also when he had to spend one extra night at a camping site (when he missed the ferry). So he had no chance of putting everything in order. Then I arrived with an additional 3 bags, so it became even more chaotic. But it was just nice to spend the morning in the sun re-arranging the car. We found an order we are hoping we can keep.

The afternoon we spent in Museums. We checked out the Wiking ships, Kon-Tiki and RA II and finally the Norwegian Maritime museum. It wasn’t my first choice of museums (I would have rather visited the Munch museum), but we didn’t have the time for everything and these museums were all close by each other. And J was happy that he could see all the things he wanted.

When we started our drive to Flåm and Näröyfjord we were expecting a long boring drive on the E16, but my GPS kept nagging about that we should take the 7 and 50. We decided to listen to her, since she has been right about a lot of other things and we are both glad we did. What an amazing drive. We had a view the whole time: lakes, rivers, high mountains – some even with snow. It was absolutely amazing. We took it easy stopped and several times to look at the view. Unfortunately we arrived too late to the camping site (we arrived 23.15) and ended up spending the night next to a small road. But it was just nice. We had fresh water from a stream nearby and everything else we needed we had in the car. The advantage with camping in Scandinavia – you will find a place to camp everywhere you are.

The next morning we took it easy and left the place around lunch time. We went back to the camping we had planned to stay at the previous night and decided the place was so nice that we would like to stay there 2 additional nights (see below), which now means that we are 3 days after our original plan. J Funny, first we started one day later due to the traffic jam in Germany, and then we took it a little bit too easy out of Oslo, so we arrived one day later to the camping site than planned and finally we enjoyed the place so much so ended up staying 2 extra nights. But isn’t this what vacations is all about? That you can change your plans as you go along? We of course have to cut something else out of the original plan and that is up for discussion later.

When I met J in Oslo he told me that the original foldable kayak that he had bought was destroyed (it was a used one), so he had bought a brand new one. It was the display kayak from the store and unluckily they had NOT included the manual how to mount it. So yesterday we spent the evening mounting the kayak. I’m happy that we are both able to look at things and figure out how they work, so we managed to put it together without the manual in 1,5 hour. We made some minor mistakes on the first trial, but then we redid it, it all worked out just nicely. So today we tried it out. It was a fantastic tour on the fiord, the sun was shining with no clouds at all and the water was calm. I would have loved to show you pictures of this, but my underwater camera (which I use in the kayak, since it can take water) seems to have a quarrel with my computer. She refuses to talk to her. So you just have to take my word for that it was a fantastic trip. Now I’m waiting for the dinner J’s is preparing, drinking a beer and blogging.

The first night in the tent.

The weather changed when we came closer to Oslo

Näröyfiord where we paddled