Friday 28 July 2017

Friday 28 July - Kinsarvik

Where's Bertie? He's in a walkers' car park 2.3km SE of Kinsarvik (exact location: 60.36351, 6.74423).

From where we were in Norheimsund yesterday afternoon, we could have driven south a while, jumped on a ferry, then driven through a succession of long tunnels to pop out at Odda. That would have been a journey of 57km.

What I decided we should do instead was to drive Turistveg Hardanger, which runs along the edges of a couple of fjords, but instead of catching two ferries to cut across the end of the fjord (£30, 32 minutes plus waiting time), we would drive around the end (total driving distance: 127km). What I didn't know, in making this decision (and I only didn't know because I hadn't taken the trouble to check the info in the tourist brochure for this area) was that the road around the end of the water involved two long tunnels separated by a suspension bridge, incurring a toll of £15. Added to the £4.50 toll earlier in the journey, not to mention the cost of fuel of the longer route, and it was looking like an expensive tourist route, and all for scenery no better than we have seen in lots of other places.


The highlight of the route around the end of the fjord was that it involved roundabouts inside of the tunnels. As SatNav doesn't work in tunnels, it was a good job the navigator was paying attention.

I had set the SatNav for a walkers' car park, with the thought of using it for elevenses and with the hope there would be a suitable little route for us to walk. However, as I had no useful information about the routes available, as we approached the turn I gave Mick the option of continuing a while further before stopping. That he nearly did, but I'm glad that he decided, at the last moment, to make the turn after all.

The car park was already fairly busy when we arrived and the vast majority of the number plates were foreign (mainly German, Dutch and Belgian). So much for my belief that I was taking us to some off-the-tourist-trail walking location! It seems that we were the only people not to know anything of this place.

The walk we took came in at around 8 miles and visited four very impressive waterfalls - far more so than the two we saw yesterday. Of course, the photos don't convey the size of them, nor the magnitude of the flow, but here are a few snaps anyway:

The first fall

No 2

No 3

Heading to No 4

No 4

Looking back down to the fjord

We could have moved on after we got back, but this car park seems perfectly suitable for spending the night and I don't know that the same is true about the place we want to be in the morning (weather permitting), so here we will stay.

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