Norway Day 24 ~ Driving the the Southern Coast!

We slept well, woke at 8am and after a leisurely morning, we decided to head to southern coast of Norway.

Clean clothes was our priority, so we ended up finding a lovely campground that let us stay for a couple hours to do our laundry. The weird thing – they had a washer for us to use, but the dryer was in the owners house, so when we asked about laundry, she told us that once the wash was done, to bring it to her and she would dry it. Ummm…okay… 😕

When Suzanne went to get the wash, it was still spinning and a different woman (who we are pretty sure worked there) said that she checked the laundry and didn’t like how wet it was after spinning, so she took the wet clothes, brought them into the house, re-spun them in her own washer, and then put them in the dryer. Suzanne offered to go with her thinking it strange to have some random woman drying our clothes, but the woman said no. Okay then….. About an hour later, the woman brought us our (almost fully) dried clothes….not folded. 😉

While all this was going on, we wandered the lovely campground by the river…..

 

…with a cool outdoor steam room….

 

…and just chilled and napped.

 

Back on the road......

.....we stopped at some point and had dinner - seemed like this day got away from us - what should have been a 4 1/2 hour drive to Tonsberg took us all day……

We parked around 7:30 in a quiet marina.....

View across the water……

Today’s route….

 

 

Norway Day 23 ~ Hiking Besseggen in Jotunhriman Nasjonalpark

We set our alarm for 5:30am so we could get to parking lot (just five minutes away) and have tea/coffee/breakfast there. It was, literally, freezing when we woke up: 0 Celsius ⛄ yet beautiful!

We caught the 6 45 bus to the ferry….. still cold!!

 

We caught the 7:45 ferry to the trailhead …. still cold! 

We started hiking at 8:30….it was expected to be very steep....

...and it started that way immediately....

There were nice views of lakes and glaciers....

Along the way there were signs like these...letting people know to turn back if they hadn't made it "this far" in a specific number of hours..... We were here after one hour of hiking, so all was good. 

It was super rocky underfoot the entire time.....

....with plenty of lovely views to enjoy....

Hello!😀

We were still way "ahead of time" in terms of the warning signs, so all good.

....still steep....

Just a cool pic....

We kept going......

...to an amazing view....

...and we thought, "Great, this is a nice hike." Then the MAJOR rock scrambles where we had to climb using hands and feet started. As soon as we would crest one giant pile of rocks on hands and feet.....

....there would be another one....

...then another one....

....they kept coming.......

...and the view never really changed.....

We finally reached the top at 2pm, and saw this...

...and thought, "Ah, this is the 'gentle descent' we read about. It will be nice to not be walking on jagged rocks for the last few miles."

But we were wrong....totally rock covered....ugh!😭

Hi Brad!

The "gentle descent" had chains we need to hold onto..... 😵

At this point, we saw this sign.....

TWO more kilometers! You've have got to be kidding! We were mentally done, but trudged on......it was 4pm by now.....

We finally were done at 5pm - nine miles and took us 8.5 hours. It was very tough and not as enjoyable as we would have liked - a lot of work for the benefit - and will forever be known as "The Hike from Hell." 😈😂

As we took out last step off the trail, the shuttle bus to the parking area was there with its door open and about to leave - we purchased tickets and hopped on. (Yesterday when we purchased our shuttle tickets, we only bought one way thinking we would enjoy the 2km walk to the parking area – hell no!)  We then drove back to the ferry area and had a good dinner at their café. 

We were desperate for showers, so we went to a campground to see if we could pay for use of their showers - nope - only for campers. So we ended up paying to stay the night there and we still had to pay for showers. We also needed to do laundry, but they didn’t have a working dryer – grrrr!!!!!!

Today's route.....

 

  

Norway Day 22 ~ The Sognefjellet Scenic Road, Part 2!

Among the glaciers, we slept until 7am – the air was cold, but we were plenty warm in our cocoon of base layer, sleeping bag liners, and the down comforters.

We hit the road about an hour later and stopped along way for breakfast. It was still super foggy…….

We drove to Skjoden, the end of The Sognefjellet Scenic Road, pulled over, and chatted about where to go next. We decided to hike Besseggen, another one of Norway’s iconic hikes, in Jotunheimen Nasjonalpark. When we looked at Google maps for directions, it was back the way we came, so we did a u-turn and drove back over The Sognefjellet Scenic Road! 😂

Yay us! As we drove back, the clouds dissipated, and we saw the views and glaciers that we couldn’t see just 24 hours ago. We spent the morning popping in-and-out of the camper, enjoying some short walks, and the views. 

Lots of photos!!

Some waterfalls......

Lots of glaciers.....

Up close glaciers photos too!

More glaciers!

More up close......

Lake & glaciers....

Hello! 😎

Can't have enough cool glacier pics!!

We stopped in Lom again for a coffee and pastry.....

 ...and continued to find a camping spot as close to the Besseggen hike as we could find.  As Brad drove, Suzanne booked the parking ticket (have to park the camper in the national park, but there is a no camping policy), shuttle tickets (have to take a short shuttle to the marina), and the ferry tickets (it’s a one-way hike, although it can be done as a long roundtrip if backpacking).

We checked out the area, then found a camping spot about five minutes away from the official parking area....

We made dinner in the rig and chilled the rest of the evening…..supposed to be sunny tomorrow…let's hope so!!

Today's route.....