Our last day

On our final day in Norway, we packed up our cabin and headed back to Bergen. Our hostess let us stay longer than the original check out time, because the next guests weren't coming until the following afternoon, so we had a chance to take an easy walk through the farm before getting into the car for three hours.

We had to stop for gas and were met some some friendly sheep, who especially liked Jim.



We stopped at this funny place for lunch:

and eventually made it back to the airport. Our flight was easy and, by some miracle, there was no customs line, our baggage came out immediately, and the train was waiting for us. There is something nice about being back in London again, but everyone should visit Norway.

The glaciers: an epic journey

The day before we left Ortnevik, we decided to go check out the largest glacier in Europe, located near the village of Fjaerland. Because of the fjords, you can't just drive anywhere and to make the trip worth our while, we had to be on the ferry out of Ortnevik by 6:30am. The day started out on a very mature note (cue Beavis and Butthead laughter):


The first ferry was peaceful and quite. We landed at Nordeide and then drove 45 minutes to Belstrade, where we caught another ferry to Fjaerland. This second ferry was filled to the brim with Americans, who were taking a bus tour of Scandinavia. We chatted with a couple from Detroit who, at first thought we were Norwegian (??????) and then said, "Oh, we thought you spoke English really well." Jim abandoned me after a few minutes of idle chat and I eventually wandered out to spend time on the deck with him. Here is Jim on the deck of the ferry from Belstrade to Fjaerland (on the Fjaerlandfjorden).


Finally we made it to Fjaerland, where we we were met by a bus, complete with a surly bus driver who said nothing but "be back at 11:45" and such. There was a marked difference in attitude in this tourist town. The locals weren't so charmed with out of town visitors (and I can totally understand why, based on our busload of tourists). We were shuttled to the VERY exciting Glacier Museum, where we were met with more less than enthusiastic Norwegians and we watched a titillating movie about the glaciers, which got our hopes up big time.


We also found some much needed coffee at the glacier museum:


And Jim made some new friends:



We were on the bus early, having been alloted WAY too much time to explore the glacier museum...and we headed up the mountain to see the glacier! We were so excited after the movie, thinking we were going to get to walk on it and see some incredible views....hmmm....


I think I actually said, "That's it?" Basically it was just a mountain with a big pile of snow that kind of looked blue on the top and then some dirtier looking ice down below, followed by a very blue lake. It was pretty, but it wasn't spectacular and the movie we had seen was so hyped that we expected a lot more. Plus, our busmates were REALLY started to grate on our nerves by this point.

We went up further and saw the glacier from a different angle. It was cold.


Then our bus headed BACK to the glacier museum, at which point we decided we had had enough of the whole bus situation and decided to walk the rest of the way into town. The town is also an antique book town, so there were lots of small book stores with old books in them. Sadly, our busmates were also in them. Jim took some beautiful pictures of the town.





And then we sat around for a while, freezing and waiting for the ferry to come back, which it finally did. I immediately went to sleep (hooray for earplugs!)and was refreshed for our trip back home, which was not straightforward. We didn't get back in time to catch the last ferry back to Ortnevik, so we had to drive two hours from Belstrade to Lavic, where we caught a bigger ferry to Oppendal. Then we drove another hour and a half back to Ortnevik by car. There were some goats and sheep in the roads and the tunnels and we saw a fox.


Fourteen and a half hours after we left the cabin, we finally returned. I'm not going to say it wasn't worth it, because we saw a lot of beautiful things...but it was a long day.

Day 3--a Coastal Walk

On our third day, we decided to head out in a different direction and walk along the fjord. The walk started out in a cow field and then made a sharp turn--straight up. The rocks were even slipperier than the day before and there were small waterfalls all along the trail. We also walked through some wooded areas with tall pines and eventually the trail just ended.

The beginning of our walk. It wasn't raining!



Some scenic shots from a little higher up:



We ate lunch on a rock overlooking the fjord:


Jim, headed down to sit next to the fjord at the end of the trail...and promptly dropped both water bottles into the fjord. With directions from above, he made a valiant rescue and no whales or sea eagles suffered!




Some more scenic views:




After our hike, we wanted to check out the rowboat. You can get a general feel for my opinion of the rowboat by looking at this picture. My exact thoughts on the matter of the rowboat were, "We should go get the life jackets. I want to row, too. How do you do this? Why are these oars so long and skinny? This is HARD. Why are we being pulled out into the middle of the fjord??!!! I WANT TO GO BACK!!!" Suffice to say, our rowboat experience was brief and filled with panic. JIm was a pretty good rowboater, but I couldn't relax enough to enjoy it (worried we would get turned over by a whale or stray into the ferry lane or get swept out to sea.)



After the frightening rowboat experience, we took a walk through the village where we met some very aroused cows. There were two cows, in particular, who were getting the whole herd into a frenzy with their antics. She was a large heifer with a huge udder and she was butting all the other female cows out of the way and sniffing her conquest's butt. He was a young looking bull who kept trying to mount her head. Other, younger bulls were mounting whatever they could. There was definitely a sense of community. And then they all stopped and stared at us, so we moved on to give them their privacy. (Later we learned from our hostess that when cows are ready to mate, they let the bull mount whatever, without protest. Also a good way to see if a cow is ready is to stand in front of her and stick out your butt. If she sniffs it, she's ready.)


There is also a pretty church, in the town center:


And, of course, the requisite cats (or kittens in this case), who came out of their barn and followed us all the way back to our cabin and cried outside of the window until Jim had the brilliant idea that I load them up in our rental car and drive them back to their barn. If only we had a rental car in Cornwall! We could have taken Oreo back immediately and saved ourselves several sleepless nights!!

In search of a waterfall

Our hosts provided us with lots of information about local hikes. We were lucky that our cabin was practically backed up to some of the most scenic hikes in Norway. On our first day, we decided to brave the rain and hike up to a waterfall.

This is what we saw when we stepped out of our cabin.


And this is the waterfall we were trying to reach:


The river eventually turned into a peaceful lake:




And then back into a roaring river, which we had to cross on a wooden bridge:



To get to the waterfall, we had to "scramble" up the side of the mountain. It was tricky because the rocks were slippery and also covered in moss, which hid holes. We also had to follow the trail markers, which were piles of smaller rocks and easy to miss.


After two hours, we made it to the waterfall! If we had kept going another hour, we would have eventually reached another lake, but we were worried about getting back down the slippery rocks, so we opted to save the lake for another visit.



A view of the Fjord from the rock next to the waterfall:


I fell down five times on the way down. In this picture, I had just slid down about four large rocks after loosing my footing.

Through the Mountains to Ortnevik

After an eventful car rental and visit to the Norwegian grocery store where we had a slight disagreement, but managed to smooth things over, we headed out to Ortnevik. There is only one road to Ortnevik, so the trip was pretty easy. We did have the choice, though, of going over the mountain to get there or going around the mountain along the fjord. We chose over the mountain.

It started raining as soon as we landed in Bergen and it pretty much didn't stop the whole time we were there. Thanks to our experiences in England, we were prepared with waterproof everything.


It was kind of cold up on the mountains. The higher we got,the fewer trees there were and the more cutting the wind was.



Fortunately, most people had the good sense not to drive over the mountain in the rain, so we didn't see many people on the road. The road, as you can see from this picture, was incredibly narrow (and scenic)



In the mountains, behind Jim, we could hear a tinkling sound. Finally we noticed the little specks of sheep grazing, their bells tinkling like windchimes. It was such a peaceful sound, and something that we heard throughout our trip because all the cows, goats and sheep were wearing bells.


There are trolls and there are also tunnels in NOrway. THis particular tunnel was a little scary because it had no lighting at all (most did). It was very cool to think that we were driving right through the middle of the mountains.


After a few hours, we made it to our cabin! It was made of stone, with a grass roof. The farm we stayed on was sustainable and we could recycle everything that we used, practically. The electricity was generated by the river that flowed nearby and the water came from a well.

Jim agreed to pose for some pictures in the cabin.

Here is Jim coming in the front door:


In the bedroom.

In the kitchen:


Relaxing with a book on the couch:


Taking in the countryside (hah ahh ahha hah hah hah...I can't believe that hotels actually take pictures like this for promotional purposes!):


And, enjoying a delicious home cooked meal (there weren't any restaurants in Ortnevik, so we cooked in our little cabin and packed picnic lunches for our hikes.


There was also no internet and a TV, but no reception, so we spent most of our downtime playing board games, reading, and watching me kick Jim's butt at Spit multiple times:


They say I do really cool victory dance:


Down the hill a little was a large cabin and next door was another small cabin, where the parents of the farmer seemed to live (or at least they were there a lot).

Kristi, the mom, also runs the coop store in the village part time. The village only has fifty families living in it and did not have a road until 1982. At that point they also got telephones and a ferry line. Prior to that, they took all of their cows across the Fjords on boats. We were really in a remote place and everyone was incredibly nice to us.