We set our alarm for 6am and were on the road by 6:30am to drive to our first hike of the trip – finally! First, we had to drive through Norway’s Ryfylke Tunnel – the world’s longest subsea road tunnel at 14.4kms long and 292 meters below sea level
Along with the many ferries in Norway, there are tons of tunnels - and most of them are named - even the super short ones. Norway has about 1,100 tunnels and about 100 ferries. Interestingly, many of the tunnels had exits in the middle and rotaries (multiple rotaries) within the tunnel.
We were surprised that when we arrived to the parking at 7am, there were already lots of people – bummer - we like as few people as possible when we hike. We ate breakfast and got dressed in hiking gear and were ready at 8am.
First there were some rock stairs.....
Even a lovely boardwalk!
Round-trip (10km) took us about four hours. Glad we went early – even though there were tons of people when we started, there were SO MANY MORE people going up while we were heading down. (Think of those Mount Everest summit pictures where everyone is standing in line.) There were literally busses (we counted six) in the parking lot, along with lots of other cars and campers.
We hung out in our camper a bit, changed our clothes, had a snack, and then found showers in a nearby town…at the Joker (food store)!
Since it had been a couple days since we discussed our route, we chatted and decided to head north again as the weather had pretty much cleared-up. Bodo is a mere 22 hours and 1,600 km away, so onward we go! 😛 We joked that it’s like we rented a camper in Florida, headed to Maine, turned south in NJ, drove to VA, went to GA for one hike, and turned north again just to turn south to return rig in FL. (Not the same distance-wise, but the overall idea.)
We had to wait quite a while for a very small ferry - then found gas and food. It was already 4pm - wondered where the last four hours went as we finished the hike by around noon. Guess it was finding showers, gas, and groceries....
We drove on.....
Brad *loved* it when we would be on a narrow road, come around a blind turn, and there were sheep on the road! Gotta love open range grazing!! 😂
