Thursday 27 July 2017

Thursday 27 July - To Hardangerfjorden

Where's Bertie? He's at a picnic area alongside route 7, between Øystese and Ålvik (exact location: 60.39633, 6.31174).

We didn't leap up and leave Bergen before our ticket expired at 0849 this morning. Instead, I flung some clothes over my PJs and went and bought another 3 hours of parking (10NOK per hour and, for reasons I didn't understand, half an hour free). The plan was that we would wait for the rain to ease and go for a run before leaving.

The morning wore on and it obviously hadn't seen the forecast, because the rain didn't ease. Declarations were made all around that "I'm not going out in that!". Away we packed and off we went.

An 'interesting' route was taken to get out of Bergen, but it did achieve avoiding all toll roads, and in clouds of spray we headed east.

Our first stop was for lunch at a picnic area by a waterfall (is there any location in Norway that isn't by a waterfall?!):

If it had been a nice sunny day I would have been tempted to take a dip in that pool

Our next stop was also at a waterfall. One of the most popular in Norway, so the signs told us, but I'm sure many claim that status. The particular attraction of this one is that you can walk behind the 50m drop, via an engineered walkway.

Looking at it from the bottom

Looking out from behind the water

Me, standing behind the water

Contrary to the forecast, which told me that it was now dry and that we were experiencing sunny intervals, it was still raining, so we weren't inclined to explore any of the rest of the area. Instead we tootled the 3km down the road to a supermarket where, amongst other things, I was able to buy a red pepper (admittedly a very small one) for the seemingly inconceivably small price of 53p. I think I'll be dancing in the aisles once back in the UK when I can buy three medium sized peppers for 89p!

We didn't go very much further. Since lunchtime we had been on another Turistveg and, soon after the supermarket, we got onto a section that looked like it should be very attractive. The problem was that, in the rain and murk, we had barely any view. Better to stop at the first opportunity, we thought, and hope for better in the morning. So that is what we did. As picnic areas go, this isn't the best for overnight, being right next to the road, but I'd rather have some traffic noise and get to enjoy the route tomorrow than push on for a quiet spot tonight.

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