Yes - it's a FJORD

Yesterday's drive slash controlled descent through the winter wonderland of snow haunted me as a missed opportunity for more pulling over the car to take photos of Norway. So, after some very cold hikes in the morning up the top of the Ørnevegen's switchbacks, we used the afternoon to backtrack up the mountain. This time with a bit more electricity in the battery. Which was good. I'm developing an appreciation for the heated steering wheel feature after I initially dismissed it back in Oslo as unnecessary.

One of the most important lessons I've learnt as Photography-Brad is that the absolute best time to take photos of a place is the first time you see it. Novelty fades really quickly in a new locations as your mind adjusts to the terrain and architecture and light and it's not until you get back to Adelaide and look at photos you took that you realise how different things really were and how you could have just pointed your camera anywhere and taken additional memorable photos. Another important lesson I've learnt is that just because an environment is novel doesn't mean it will translate well to a flat, digital photograph.

So we drove up the snow and fortunately the weather was similar to our previous drive, with plenty of atmospheric mist, but also just enough sunlight to diffuse the clouds and spread light in the different places. It was a tranquil place. Beautiful. The photos don't do it justice.

After the drive yesterday, it was nice just to take our time up in the snow - and then back into the cold car with the steering wheel warming my fingers through the gloves.

The Stryn river.

The drive from the Stryn Kiwi Mini Pris to the cabins at the Geirangerfjorden Feriesenter is only 77 kilometres. Far shorter than other drives I've done so far on this trip. But not many have been this memorable.

We finished loading up with food; Salad, bread, sausages, tuna, yoghurt, corn chips and salsa. We left town, passing the cafe we'd had our first real coffee at, and following the meandering Stryneelva river which is not much of a sight from the ground, but in the air the curves look pretty cool. (I saw a picture of it in the window of a house on Bruagrenda (Bridge Alley) on the walk to go get that coffee.) I tried to take a similar photo myself earlier in the morning, but couldn't find a track up the hill. I did take this one from as high as I got.

We kept driving through the valley towards some not so distant mountains. A little bridge moves the Rv15 from the north to the south of the river, right as the waters open up into the long and wide Oppstrynsvatnet, whose dark surface reflect dark skies and ripples in the wind. Clouds hang just above the tops of the snowy mountains.

There are lots of good rest areas on the side of the road to stop at and admire this, but all the ones with benches were taken. We stopped briefly at a glacier museum with a small garden out the back, but they wanted to charge us to eat there and we didn't want to look at the garden when the mountains were so spectacular and visible from everywhere on the road, so we kept driving.

The distant mountains became so close that we were suddenly driving on switchbacks and the urge to pull over for more photos hit me. Around the next bend was a rocky outlook over a dark valley with just a few streaks of light piercing the clouds. And of course it had a picnic table, which was empty and waiting for us.

Hjelledalen utsiktspunkt

After food, the road continued to climb with another switchback, followed by a long tunnel. It was obvious we were on an incline, but I did not expect to emerge into rocky snow land, submerged in the clouds, with smattering of houses because of course people live there.

It was at this point I started having concerns about the amount of charge in the car's battery. I had not topped up in Stryn because I was paying for a charger that night and the rate was the same no matter how drained the battery was. When I had started driving we'd had range of over 200km, so this wasn't totally motivated by thriftiness. But I hadn't expected the steepness.

We entered a second tunnel, with more incline, and came out even higher - right among the snowy peaks. It was a winter wonderland. Absolutely pure white and amazingly beautiful and unfortunately not a very good place to run out of car battery. It was hard to enjoy the scenery because the battery kept dropping lower and lower and the friendly message to "plug into a charger soon" distracted me from the frozen lakes and icy mountains.

Somehow, despite feeling like we were on the peak of the alps, the road kept rising and the battery kept dropping. We turned off all the systems and just drove and hoped.

Finally, at last, there was a sign warning of a decent length decline and the little blue charge line on the dash switched to the good side. As we descended, the battery went up, and up again, and finally after a long way down without stopping for any photos I felt comfortable enough to stop for a look-see. There was a little, flat spot with some huts beneath a mountain. What made this sight so particularly surreal other than its picturesque beauty was that it was evident that we were still quite high up a mountain.

There was also a bus stop there.

After that, the decent resumed along with the recharging and we left behind mountain fantasy land and hit more switchbacks and the descent into Geiranger. A cruise ship was in port at the time, and the winding roads were packed with tourists in big groups which gave me an excuse to drive quite slowly and enjoy the way the town had been built up the mountainside.

We finally reached the cabins, by that point with over 10% of the battery now available again. We checked in to another place to sleep with an amazing view of nature. After some downtime, and staring at the fjord, I cooked some sausages and we had enough energy in both our bodies and the car to do the waterfall hike.

View from the shores by the cabin. Hard to convey in a static image how enormous the landscape is.

Goats on the way to the waterfall. Later saw a dog that reminded me of Nash devouring goat poops.

Finally, after that, the cabin staff helped me get the charger working and I put myself to bed for the same purpose - to have enough energy for another day of getting up and down this spectacular landscape.

The most enduring impression I have of the Briksdal glacier is that of total immersion, like I was inside a snow globe of natural beauty, right in the centre. In this analogy, the dome was inverted and instead of snow it was sun that spilled around the tops of the mountains and highlighted the rocks and fronds and the splash of water.

There was of course still snow, up on the top of the rock as the glacier hung onto the grey rock that we had been walking towards since our meal of sausages, corn, vegetable sticks and hummus at the carpark.

From there we travelled a gravel path that followed a river of the clearest, bluest water. It wound past waterfalls, mossy stone, pottholes, and other geological nooks. We saw the signs - figuratively and literally - of the glacier's historical spread. The retreated ice was now high up the mountains, and trickling via another waterfall into a lake where the trail ended. The late spring sunlight made it all glow.

It was another beautiful place to see and take in after a simple dinner and a fjord-side drive.

The morning was a chilly one. Vanessa walked to Skei (Icelandic man taught me to pronounce it - shkeh. I picked her up from the Circle K. We returned to the lake for breakfast and another visit to the church.

Then we drove back to Skei to buy picnic supplies and drove under the blue sky following the Stardalselva waters that led us through the green valley towards a little lake with a nice view of the mountain Eggenipa. Technically it was too early for lunch, but we still ate after I finished my coffee

Then we drove on over some more mountains with a brief stop to climb up some rocks to look over the valley. Before we descended we reached the Skjørbakkane Utsiktspunkt. Another impressive vantage point at which to eat food, probe for any kind of short trail to stretch the legs, take some photos, and then drive onwards.

The rest of the way to Stryn was also nice. We drove through Olden and Loen and stopped briefly to check out the jacket sales. One advantage of visiting Scandinavia at the end of spring is the large discounts on the heavy duty winter-wear. Good timing for me who will have to return to Adelaide for actual winter in only a couple more weeks. The arctic circle may also be chilly...

We found Stryn, did a food shop at the local Coop which included two half litre craft beers named after Loen and Olden, and another ice-cream log cake. Then we checked into the Air BNB which was a beautiful, old apartment with two bedrooms, a full kitchen, and a balcony overlooking the fjord. Yes we did have to carry a suitcase up a few flights of stairs, but it was worth it.

We drove back, passed some cows chilling in splendour, then did some damage to the ice-cream log cake.

After a morning stroll in Bergen, and another big breakfast, we returned to the roads of Norway and the scenic fjords.

It was a long day of driving, not helped by the fact that my Google maps compass seemed to be using the wrong pole. It did get me to a Circle K north of Bergen pretty well. On the roundabout at the exit to the motorway an Ikea van had hit an electric car - it felt kind of Scandinavian. I also may have paid to use the same toll road four times in my attempt to reach a certain Flatøy trailhead, and eventually gave up and drove to Ytre Oppedal for the first ferry of the morning and a bit of a break to eat an apple and nuts (and some surprise granola pieces).

From Lavik we drove East towards Balestrand. Driving on the right hand side of the road meant a long stretch of crystal clear water reflecting the still cloudless, blue sky. We stopped for lunch at a random rest stop that appeared on the map, which turned out to be a beautiful beach with clean public toilets and a nice rock on which to enjoy some additional hotel breakfast sandwiches and fit in another little stroll.

The next ferry took us to Hella, across a waterfall bridge, and the picturesque scenery then continued all the way to Sogndalsfjøra which is where I intended to recharge the car.

Despite having another Circle K, this was not a good place to charge. Again, I felt personally slighted by Google Maps as I tried to locate the entrance to the chargers in the car park. It was also by far the least nature-y town on the road that day, by which I mean there were a decent amount of buildings in the lee of the mountains and the fjord. The walk along the water towards coffee was also so shadow-less that we only found two square metres of shade in which to eat a bolle before getting back on the road.

At this point it truly felt like Norway was one of the sunniest places on Earth, and I was ready for the driving to end. We continued on, exiting a tunnel to reach the view of Fjaerlands Fjord which - in the higher altitude's cooler air - was spectacular and revived the spirits somewhat.

Leaving that panorama behind us, we drove further and were compelled to park again at another valley where a large rock slide in the past year or so had created another dynamic landscape of rock, snow, greenery, sky and sun.

Then, inevitably, more tunnelen, before the lakeside road towards Skei led further onward to our accommodation in Jølster. And then back again as we realised the footpath next to the road was actually the road we needed to reach the guest house.

Another amazing choice of accommodation, was this. A view out the window of the massive lake, the hillsides, the glacier in the distance. We were the only ones staying. We drove back to Skei to buy dinner from the Coop Extra and had another serve of Norwegian Taco Chicken. While cooking, I spoke briefly to the tradesman who was living there to maintain and improve the property. I asked him if he ever got sick of the scenery. He said no. He also told me how to pronounced Skei. He asked where we'd come from that morning, and after some thinking, I told him, "Bergen". It seemed so long ago at that point. I told him a bit more about our trip and plans and he commented that it sounded very arranged.

After dinner of course it was still not dark so we walked along the lake a little way to a church and Vanessa again put her feet in the waters.

In the evening, I unpacked the tripod for some sunset photos - a rare moment without glare - then climbed into bed.

It does seems pretty harsh (towards tourists with no affinity to the Constitution or to God) to close the supermarkets for an entire weekend. At least the hotel breakfast spread was epic.

After a morning walk up to the summit of Fløyen (very quiet), bellies were emptied and subsequently filled with the best of traditional Norwegian breakfasts: Fresh bread. Eggs, bacon, sausage, pretzel, omelette, salad, watermelon, melon, pain au Chocolat, granola, rice pudding. Lots of coffee.

Sunrise view.

My hotel and my carpark were both visible from the lookout.

For lunch, coincidentally, a lot of the same food enjoyed in the scenic surrounds of Nygårdsparken.

Nygårdsparken was one of the nicest parts of Bergen.

For dinner, we splurged on spicy and voluminous Indian food down in Bryggen.

After dinner I walked around one of the rainiest cities in the world under blue sky and a lingering, setting sun. All the flags from Constitution Day were gone, save for one faded flag on a street off Skottegaten. The flagpoles were still all there, reaching into the empty alleys and looking very pointless.

Lastly, a review of the typical Norwegian dress from the day before, still in the shop windows because they obviously weren't open today to change them over.

A collection of cameraphone photos from Summer 24-25.

A little strawberry left over from spring.

Blooming agapanthus on a morning stroll through North Adelaide.

Golden Hour at the beach.

Red hot chilies for a red hot summer day.

Up before the sun on another hot morning.

Nash doing her best Jaws impression with one of her takeaway sausage rolls during the Christmas bakery shut down.

Road trip wind turbines.

Family moments near mountains.

Victorian high country.

Not rain, sprinklers.

Up early for cheap fruit and vegetables.

Another day drifting closer to the sun.

Nash enjoys sunbaking.

Frangipani

Sand snail eggs reflecting the hot sun's fading light.

A joyous moment on a cafe visit before work and heat.

Alligator Gorge started with the worst coffee that I ever partially drank. Then a descent into the Gorge which was gorgeous in the early morning light and featured many tiny birds.

Dad and I looped anti-clockwise through the Gorge and then up onto the ridge. We followed the ridge road around until we got to the kingfisher track turn off, and we took a detour down that for a few kilometres past burnt scrub until we reached a little oasis camp ground with a mostly dry creek and some rocks in the shade to eat lunch on. I took probably the best photo of the day just sitting around eating my second sandwich while a large monitor lizard approached to drink from a puddle.

After lunch we reached the part called "The Narrows" which was also spectacular.

After 16 kilometres of trekking, we drove back to Wilmington to buy the double-strength iced coffee I'd been regretting not buying all morning at the servo. Unfortunately the servo was closed, but a standard FUIC from the vending machine down the street helped with the caffeine withdrawals a little bit.

After freshening up, we drove to Melrose for some beer and pizza at Jackas brewery, and the very attractive fire pit.

The night concluded with some milky way photography on the way back to the cabin, which this photo does not do justice.