Fjordland and the search for more adjectives
Trip Start
Apr 14, 2010
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14
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Trip End
Apr 16, 2011
Flåm, Sogn og Fjordane, Norway
Friday, June 4, 2010
I (Gordon) had been disappointed to find out that the long downhill bike ride which can replace part of the train ride was not possible yet and was insisting to anyone that would listen that we would be able to get off the train and do it anyway. I had to eat my words when the train started rising up and we found ourselves, despite it being June, surrounded by 3 or 4 meters of snow in all directions including on the bike path..... would have been tough going on a bike.
After an obscenely picturesque train ride (Lonely Bandit’s words not mine) we arrived in Bergen and had time for an explore of the city which included a tour of the Leprosy Museum- certainly one of the queerer topics for a museum we have encountered.
The next day we set off early on a ferry out through the preposterously beautiful Fjordlands (my word this time) and up the Sognefjord to the delightful outpost of Flam, treated on the way up to one of the few beautiful days the climate in this part of Norway serves up (something silly like 89 rain free days a year).
From Flam we were able to get a train up the mountain and do the last leg of the aforementioned downhill bike ride (Gordon’s toys could go back in the pram) down the bouncy and bone jarring roads back to the village. Cue sore handbreak muscles & bums for all the next day.
We then hired a car and headed on a day long drive up through even more ludicrously stunning scenery (thesauraus’s word this time) to the Jotunheim National Park. Here we stayed in a beautiful mountain lodge that had a stupendous view of an impressive peak that Nick had scaled on an expedition 41 years ago (much to the delight and amusement of the owning family-the same now as it was then!).
We spent the next day scaling a nearby and seemingly more accessible peak, which turned out to be a bit more challenging than we thought due to the lack of a clear path, the fast-flowing river that required fording in both directions (the level having rose alarmingly whilst we were up the mountain) and the small-looking snowdrifts (in which you would suddenly disappear to the waist with no warning) blocking the path to the summit. However, the outrageously expansive (last silly scenery description we promise) 360o views at the top we definitely worth it.
