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  • Jen RitcheyNorwayПутешественник

    Reinebringen Hike

    17 сентября 2024 г., Норвегия ⋅ 🌬 11 °C

    Today we woke up to a rainbow out the front window! Really rainbows all day! It’s like every day we see at least one which is so fun! I’ve never seen so many before!

    Then it started raining while we were eating breakfast so we had a relaxed morning waiting for the rain to clear up. My radar said it would be by 10:30 so we planned to leave around then for our hike, which we did see the sun started to come out then so off we went. Our hike today was up Reinebringen mountain which is 500 meters of elevation gain in 1.1km!! That is so steep! The trail itself was really just stairs until the last little section - almost 2,000 of them! It started off not too bad, but the stairs quickly became very steep and I was stopping every 50-100 steps for a quick break for some water or to take off a layer. It was cold and hot at the same time as there would be a really cold breeze that would come though and it would sprinkle/misty rain for a few minutes, but it always quickly rolled through. You could see the rain blowing in sheets when it was there. So the view on the way up was fine, just the water and a bit of other mountain, but after we reached the ridge the view was AMAZING!! It looked out over the mountains that we saw of our car window! I loved it so so much! Definitely worth the hike up there!

    We got to the peak and it was so windy and freezing cold and a muddy mess we didn’t stay long, but there were more rainbows and we went back down to the the first point on the ridge and had lunch there enjoying the views. It was still freezing, but I had my layers on and it was okay. We had a nice, long, relaxing break and I enjoyed it so much!! Then it was back down - in the first photo with stairs after the top there is a bright squiggly line to the right of the road - that is the wet trail shining in the sun! Once we got down we walked down the road a bit to see the trail from below and it looks so crazy from there. Yesterday we had seen people hiking it and I thought I really don’t know if we will be able to do that because it looked so so steep and maybe out of my wheelhouse like the rocks and chains yesterday, but it was just stairs so it was all good. I marked the trail in purple about where it is in that photo which I don’t know if it looks that crazy in the photo, but in real life it does. Then walking back to the car we got another rainbow! All the rainbows!

    We got back to the car around 2 and had a bit of a rest with some tea, then around 3 the low clouds rolled in and you couldn’t see the mountains anymore and it started raining and had been ever since. We got lucky with our clear view!! What a great hike, but I am tired now! The last photo is from running errands after the rain started, but some of those mountains were peaking out. Tomorrow is a more relaxed day which will be good especially after the hike today!    Читать далее

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  • Jen RitcheyNorwayПутешественник

    Wanderings

    18 сентября 2024 г., Норвегия ⋅ 🌬 12 °C

    Today was a much more relaxed day than the past two. We got up and had a long morning as it was still raining so why not have a bit of a relaxed morning? It really was rainy and windy all night. The rain let up some so we headed off for the day. First stop was to drive back to the end of the road and see what the town Å was all about. It was still pretty rainy there, but it was a nice little walk around.

    Then we headed down just past Hamnøy and parked, then walked back across the bridges to just past Sakrisøy to see what we could see. The clouds/fog/rain kept moving in and out. Sometimes everything was white and you couldn’t see the mountains or anything at all! But then would start to clear up and rain off and on and was pretty windy all day. It wasn’t a long walk and we found some fun things - birds nesting on the small bridge, some rock Tripes (thanks Aunt Bunny for the plant identification app tip! I never would have know what they were without it and I’ve been using it a lot :) and lots of waves splashing over the rocks! It was pretty fun. I was so glad we did that big hike yesterday and all morning/early afternoon those mountains were in clouds!

    Then we headed on to where we were going to camp, at a trailhead for our hike tomorrow, but it was on the water and SUPER windy, rocking the van around, and supposed to get windier overnight. That was like last night and I didn’t get that much sleep as the wind kept waking me up and it felt like the car would blow over…So we went to spy on parking at a different trailhead on the other side of the mountain for the same hike that is up in the mountains a bit and it is so much better here. A slight wind, warmer, quiet. It’s on a farm with these big mountains all around so they help block the wind a bit (the last photo is here). Should be a better nights sleep! Hopefully tomorrow the clouds aren‘t low so we can see all the things on our hike!    Читать далее

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  • Jen RitcheyNorwayПутешественник

    Unexpected Beach Day

    19 сентября 2024 г., Норвегия ⋅ 🌬 12 °C

    Last night shortly after I posted my daily update about how calm and quiet the place we were camping was…suddenly there was CRAZY wind! Like wind I expected in Iceland but never had. Gusts that would be dangerous for us to drive in as they could literally blow us over if we were moving! Crazy strong winds! And the super strong gusts were so so loud!! Luckily our car was almost facing the direction of wind so it didn’t rock us around that much, only the strongest gusts, but it was crazy how loud it was. Our calm night was loud wind waking me up which was kind of scary at first as I was asleep and like what is that noise?!?! Then realized it was the wind. We have never had wind like that in a camper before!!

    So this morning we got up and it was raining pretty hard and still super super windy so we thought okay…not going to do our hike today as it was miserable weather. I had to go out in it for two seconds and was just like nope! Don’t want to do that! I don’t like to be uncomfortable and freezing cold wind blowing rain in my face so I can’t see and such is miserable! Plus you couldn’t see the mountains so there is no point in hiking up high to see nothing!

    We hung out reading and relaxing until about 11:30 when I was getting a bit stir crazy and the rain and wind seemed to let up a bit…so I was like let’s go for a short walk! So we hiked up to the ridge closest to us…much of the pathway through the farm was wooden planks as it was just giant water puddles. On the narrow, windy roads here there are always places for cars to pass - they are marked with an „M“ sign, and I love that the wooden trail had them! It made me laugh, but was a good idea as we did need to use them to pass people going the other way. At the top was a little lake and you couldn’t really see anything…and we were just slightly wet! We headed back down and had lunch and then suddenly the crazy wind was back! We waited for it to die down a bit before heading off to do chores and on to camp.

    Along the way we stopped at Ramberg Beach because it was so pretty! The water was gorgeous!! Those are the first two beach photos. Then we headed on to camp, which was also at a beach and gorgeous! The rest of the photos are from there. It was pretty windy when we got here, but that let up so we wandered the beach a few times. It was super fun and the waves were pretty big this afternoon. I could sit in the car and watch people surfing, or jumping in before going to sit in the sauna.

    We had decided to camp at a campground tonight so we had electricity as we haven’t been driving much to recharge the living quarters battery (even though it said it was charged enough after a short drive…we also wanted to be able to blast the heat and dry things out and stay warm if it was cold and rainy all day and we were just inside) as this morning all of a sudden the lights didn’t work. We figured it was the battery so we need to plug in to the electricity to charge it up. Well…we got to camp and plugged in and the lights still weren’t working! The fridge was still on which was good, but no lights! We were trying to figure out why and find the fuse box to see if it was a fuse (which was like where is this thing?? The instruction manual for the car is awful and didn’t tell you where things are, just about the things so we were moving everything around looking everywhere). There was this weird freezing thing that I didn’t really understand what it was so I thought maybe that had gotten triggered and that made things go off or something so we tried turning that and nothing…and then everything suddenly just reset and we realized the power button hadn’t been on this morning so maybe we shut it off accidentally? No clue, but it is working now so yey!

    Well then we were trying to use the water and it wasn’t working…so we looked and we were almost out of water which made no sense as we just refilled yesterday! And that was the second time we have on this trip so we definitely didn’t use it in a day…so we went to fill up again and noticed it was leaking out…luckily I had found a thing from the place we rented about our camper and what to do if x happens and the first thing for leaking water is make sure the button is pushed on the freezing thing we messed with earlier so we pushed the button and hooray! No more leaking water! It was kind of an adventure, but we did end up cleaning as we had to move everything everywhere to get at things so why not clean when we put things back?

    This evening we made s’mores! I had brought Graham crackers back from the states and there is a store in Berlin that has really good vegan marshmallows so I brought them and some good dark chocolate and roasted them over our camp stove! Delicious!

    All in all it was not a bad day! We love exploring the beach!    Читать далее

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  • Jen RitcheyNorwayПутешественник

    Sand!

    19 сентября 2024 г., Норвегия ⋅ 🌬 11 °C

    I love sand! I don’t especially love how it gets in everything and our car will be sandy now forever, but I love sand. It’s super cool how it is made of little shell and rock pieces. This beach where we are camped at was so cool! The different color sand made such cool patterns! Plus there were some places it was bubbling up which was odd, and the wind was blowing bubbles across the surface! So much fun!Читать далее

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  • Jen RitcheyNorwayПутешественник

    Stornappstinden Hike

    19 сентября 2024 г., Норвегия ⋅ 🌬 10 °C

    Today we woke up to a gorgeous day! So we headed off since it wasn’t raining and the weather can turn in an instant! Our hike today was at first not too bad, but then there was a very steep section that was 444m in 1km! That is steeper than the Reinebringen stair hike we did! On the way up we had wonderful views of the fjord we just left, but when we got to that step section I did think so we really want to do this?? It is going to suck going down…but on we went. And my calves started hurting after a bit cause it was so steep. About halfway up the steep it started raining small ice balls so we had to put in all our rainwear to not get soaked as it was also super freezing winds as well! Raymond at one point was like do we still want to keep going?? But we were up far enough and I would need a break and a snack before going back down so I was like let’s just keep going.

    And the top was amazing! Luckily on the far side it wasn’t as windy, but it was still freezing cold! But you could see all the mountains (at times - rain/ice balls kept rolling through!) we didn’t stay that long on top, just enough for a break and a snack at it was so cold! My hands were hurting they were so cold even with my gloves! So we enjoyed the views a little but then headed back down and it started snowing! But not fun snow at first as it was just blowing in our faces, but the decent wasn’t as tough as I expected! Somehow it didn‘t seem as steep which was good. Then partway down the sun came out and it was so warm! We were lucky it was out when we stopped for lunch, and just as we finished the clouds and freezing wind came back so we headed on as it was so cold!

    Today was like suddenly it is COLD. I think it was 7C while we were hiking which is cold even without the crazy winds. I broke out my balaclava for the first time and I was so glad I had that going down with the wind in my face!

    It was also like suddenly it was fall! A lot of the ground bushes turned bright red and there were lots of yellow and oranges to see. It was pretty nice. Raymond and I both loved the area we were hiking in. There were lots of sheep (and on the side of the mountain cliffs like mountain goats! It was like how did you all get up there??) and it was just really nice. If it hadn’t been so cold we would have spent more of our day just enjoying the area.    Читать далее

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  • Jen RitcheyNorwayПутешественник

    Beaches & Plants

    20 сентября 2024 г., Норвегия ⋅ 🌬 9 °C

    After our hike we went down to Myrland Beach, which is where I was going to camp, but the „parking“ was this tiny turnoff on a cliff. I was like yeah…that’s not going to work, and the beach wasn’t as nice as one we had passed in the way (Myrland is the first photo), so we headed back to Storsandnes Beach, the one we had passed before. It was so much fun! We are right at the top of the rocks where the giant waves are crashing! So fun watching the waves and the rainbows and the mountains and the wind blowing the water as it crashes! It keeps raining and getting a bit windy, then not so it is fun!

    I also added a couple photos of the berries from the hike this morning. All the Alpine Bearberries leaves were bright red, we’ve seen lots of Black Crowberries around, and lots of red Swedish Cornel berries today!

    Today is also the halfway point on our trip! I cannot believe we are only halfway! It feels like we should be heading towards home any day now! Which is nice that this has felt like such a long trip :)    Читать далее

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  • Jen RitcheyNorwayПутешественник

    Offersøykammen Hike

    21 сентября 2024 г., Норвегия ⋅ ⛅ 7 °C

    Today we got up to some cloudy skies, but still a bit of sun! We ate some breakfast in the rain, but I checked the radar and it looked like at our hike it wouldn‘t be raining so we headed on…and it was sunny and gorgeous! There were clouds so it would go behind them sometimes, but it was a perfect day for a hike! Still freezing cold, but not as windy and the sun really helps. So we headed up Offersøykammen which from afar looked like more than I wanted to do, it was a mountain with a gentle-ish looking slop on one side with super steep cliffs on the other. Once we started up it wasn’t too bad - much less steep than yesterday and I must have been going pretty slow as Raymond was in front (usually I hike in front, but the trails here are a mess and he is MUCH better at trail finding than I am so he has been going in front more often so I don’t take us who knows where!) and he kept stopping and asking if I was doing okay. Really I was trying to not get too hot and sweaty as I took off all the layers I could and I didn’t want to be sweaty when we took breaks as then I would freeze! And I did pretty good at that, much better than yesterday! When it is so cold I really need to be careful to not be wet in the freezing wind! So it wasn’t too bad, and didn’t actually take us that long to hike up. We were surprised when we got to the top as we thought we had a way to go yet!

    We had lunch at the top enjoying the amazing views! It was so gorgeous! We could see the much taller mountain we climbed yesterday and where we will be going tomorrow. So much fun!

    Then it was back down through all the beautiful fall colors! I have really been enjoying that the past 2 days! It makes it so much prettier walking! Then off for some chores and to camp, but I will put that in another post.    Читать далее

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  • Jen RitcheyNorwayПутешественник

    Vik Beach

    21 сентября 2024 г., Норвегия ⋅ ⛅ 8 °C

    After our chores in town (Raymond was like get us out of here!! Too many people!! By the time we were done in town), we headed on to find a place to camp tonight. We are going to be walking from one beach up a small mountain and down to another beach tomorrow so I wanted somewhere close-ish and we got a perfect spot! We are parked at Vik Beach which is beautiful! Just around the corner from the start of our hike tomorrow so we will just walk over in the morning. We wandered around and explore the beach and it was gorgeous! Still sunny and perfect! I really hope tomorrow is the same way!

    We went out at sunset as it looked like it was going to be perfect - the sun going down right on the horizon in the middle of the beach…only some clouds rolled in at the last minute and ruined it. Oh well, it was still fun relaxing in the bed all bundled up in all my layers!

    I also added a few location photos - one from the hike today showing where we hiked yesterday, one from yesterday from above showing where we hiked today (I didn’t have a good one of it from the ground), and one from Vik beach showing where we are going to hike tomorrow!    Читать далее

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  • Jen RitcheyNorwayПутешественник

    Mannen Hike

    21 сентября 2024 г., Норвегия ⋅ ☁️ 7 °C

    Last night I was so tired…I was wanting to go to bed at 9 (we go to bed at 10 so we don’t wake up too early), so I waited around and at 10 I was like finally! Bed! Let me just pop my head out to see if the northern lights happen to be out.. and they were! So then I was awake and I didn’t even put all my layers on just stood outside watching! So much fun!

    Then it rained a lot last night and apparently the seal on the one window in the back is not very good so the water was coming in and dripping onto the windowsill there and it was so loud! It kept walking us up…I thought it was outside until we talked about it this morning so we fixed that so hopefully it won’t wake us up again if it rains all night. But we ended up sleeping in till 7:45! Raymond was joking that’s so late! But really we usually have breakfast at 7:30 so for us on this trip it is! So we got a late start, but it was gorgeous out when we got going! Sunny, not very many clouds, no wind! I packed so many layers and didn’t need most of them as it was not as cold as the past two days! Oh well, better to have them and not need them then need them and not have them. We also packed hot tea which was so nice to have while taking a break.

    First up was to walk over and hike up Mannen, the mountain we could see across the beach from where we camped. It didn’t take long to get over there then a sometimes steep hike up to the ridge and along the ridge - that was all super muddy with a few sections of climbing up rocks…but it was hard to see the trails as there were so many so hard to tell which one to go up. The whole way up though was amazing views! And at the top? Just gorgeous!! It was a muddy mess on top, just a couple little rocks that we sat on for a break. There was another couple up there when we got there who were very nice, but they left soon after so we had it to ourselves. We took a break and the clouds started rolling in across the way so we got up there with perfect timing!

    Once we started heading down it did start sprinkling us a little bit…like do we really need to stop and put on rain gear or is this not going to make us that wet? We didn’t and it was fine, and really not that cold! It was very surprising! On the way down we passed so many people going up! So I was glad we were up earlier than most as it would be a real mess on top with that many people! There was also a rainbow most of the way down and we passed someone going up talking about how this is the most rainbows they have ever seen in their life and I was like I know!! That’s what I keep saying!

    Once we got down most of the way we stopped for lunch to enjoy the views. The whole way down you could much more easily see the path you should take so it wasn’t that bad. Plus the views of the green valley and lake you were heading towards were amazing! They don’t look so nice in the photos, but it was my favorite! Then it was on to the next stop in the next post    Читать далее

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  • Jen RitcheyNorwayПутешественник

    Uttakleiv to Hauklandstranda

    22 сентября 2024 г., Норвегия ⋅ ☁️ 8 °C

    After hiking Mannen we continued on to Uttakleiv Beach which was in a big valley with lots of rocks all over! So that was fun. On the way down from the Mannen trail junction we saw these signs with numbers and QR code (they started at 20 and went down to 16), so I scanned them and they had facts about things. The one where Raymond is sitting in the cave just said this is where a troll comes out when the music plays. It was kind of fun as you never knew what it would say!

    Then we spied on the beach and started the walk back to Hauklandstranda (the beach next to the one we camped at) out and around the edge of the water which was really nice.. and we got some more QR codes! But they started at 1 there and went up to 15 which didn’t make sense as if you continued on it would go 1-15, then jump to 20 down to 16? It was odd. But we learned some fun facts like the one place had a landslide and the children had to walk over it to meet the school bus on the other side. Or there was a guy who lived on the island, but after losing too many sheep to the sea he switched to goats who were better with the steep cliffs (which we have seen so many sheep on the steep cliffs here so I don’t know why his sheep couldn’t hack it!). So it was a weird, but fun walk back and Hauklandstranda was gorgeous! All these light colored rocks and light color water were beautiful! Plus all the mountains and everything. I think Uttakleiv is more popular, but I like Hauklandstranda way more!

    It was a very long day of hiking, but so sunny and gorgeous we were also not in a hurry to be anywhere. We only got back to the car around 5:30 which was almost time to start making dinner! We had talked about driving on after the hike, but since we got back so late we decided to just stay here another night. Tomorrow will be a more relaxed day which I think we need after these past 3 days of crazy hikes!    Читать далее

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  • Jen RitcheyNorwayПутешественник

    Relaxing Day Part 1

    23 сентября 2024 г., Норвегия ⋅ ☁️ 7 °C

    I got up this morning and we had breakfast and started to head off for the day and I thought I am so glad we do not have a mountain to climb today! Cause I was tired! Just exhausted and couldn’t have done it if we had to. Also I thought it was good our hike got rained out the other day or it would have been 4 crazy hiking days in a row which would have been too much! So it was nice we had a more relaxed day.

    Today was a rainy day, but no hard rain. Just light drizzle which is fine. We headed off to do our chores then on to Unstad which is a popular surf spot. We spied on the beach which was alright, but it was like Uttakleiv yesterday - wide open space, not all the mountains around and stuff so not my favorite. There was a cafe there that has vegan cinnamon rolls though so we had to try one and they were actually pretty good! By far the best we have had here (the others have been sorely lacking in cinnamon and sugar!).

    Then it was on to Eggum and the drive there was so beautiful! The fall colors are just so nice! Though some sheep came out of nowhere and started running towards us in the road while we were driving! We had lunch by an old German Radar tower and then walked through the nature reserve along the coast to a couple of lakes and some sculptures (and lots more sheeps!). It was pretty nice even if it was overcast and drizzling on us.    Читать далее

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  • Jen RitcheyNorwayПутешественник

    Relaxing Day Part 2

    23 сентября 2024 г., Норвегия ⋅ ☁️ 8 °C

    After our walk in the nature reserve we headed on to some viewpoints and a bird blind (though we saw no birds), but while we were driving we saw a bunch of grey herons on the rocks in the water! If you zoom in on the 5th photo you can see them! So that was fun. Then we headed on to Gimsøya island to find a place to park for the night. We got a wonderful spot where it is so incredibly quiet! Barely any traffic and I realized it was so quiet because we are not by the beach anymore! So no loud waves as background noise!

    The mountain all by is lonesome to the side of the photo by the lake is what we are going up hike up tomorrow (4th from last photo). The last three photos are where we are parked - one side is the mountain we will walk to the other side to hike up tomorrow, the second is the view over the water on the other side of the car, and the third is a bit of sunset we could see through the clouds. It is such a nice spot and there are so many birds! I was out spying them for a while till I got too cold and watched some Fieldfare eating berries from the tree and a very pretty Great Spotted Woodpecker flitting around. So that was a fun evening! And a nice relaxing day (or more relaxing than the last couple!)    Читать далее

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  • Jen RitcheyNorwayПутешественник

    Hoven Hike

    24 сентября 2024 г., Норвегия ⋅ ☁️ 7 °C

    Today we got up to a bit of sprinkling rain and when I looked it said rain all day. Then I looked again to check the radar during breakfast and it said rain this morning and evening, cloudy this afternoon. Then after breakfast it was just cloudy all day…and the radar kept getting to be less and less rain coming towards us so we headed out and it was a gorgeous day!! We got so lucky! While hiking we kept watching big rain clouds roll through right next to us, but they didn’t hit us which was awesome! If we were hiking in any of the other mountains it would have been a wet at points day, but instead we had lots of sun!

    We headed off from the car to the Hoven trailhead which was about a 2km road walk. We thought about parking at the trailhead, but it was $10/hour and you had to pay for 4 hours and that is more than camping somewhere with facilities and way more than parking downtown anywhere we have been…plus it wasn’t a long hike so we decided to just walk over. I was glad we did as we found some fun things! The best will be in the next post, a small gabbro beach, but we also saw lots of fun birds! There were a bunch of Willow Ptarmigan which make such a funny sound! You should look it up as I don’t have a video of it, but it was so silly! They were all over the place so we had fun watching them.

    Then it was off for our hike. This was a much easier one than the others, not as high either (only 368 meters). It started off a bit of a muddy mess, or a boggy mess as it was a lot standing water and mud, but not too bad. The hike itself was gorgeous! All the fall colors were beautiful! They do not show up as well in the photos, but it was so nice! Lots of red and yellow and oranges. And for the most part it wasn’t that steep with lots of viewpoints to stop and spy on.

    Of course the views from the top were amazing! So so nice! The last bit was freezing as the wind picked up so once we got up there I put on all my layers and was so happy we brought our hot tea with us to drink as we sat and enjoyed the views!

    Then we headed down and startled a bunch of super cute Snow Bunting! We saw all the fun birds today! On the way down we had lunch at a viewpoint along the way. Going down always seems to be easier which is surprising as it always seems like it will be way worse as we are going up than it is. Really a nice hike and so odd that Hoven is out by itself with no other mountains or anything really nearby. But then you can see forever!    Читать далее

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  • Jen RitcheyNorwayПутешественник

    Wandering back to the car & camp

    24 сентября 2024 г., Норвегия ⋅ ☁️ 8 °C

    After hiking up Hoven we decided to have a relaxing wander back to the car since it was such a nice day. I had planned on going and exploring a town this afternoon, but we didn’t feel like doing that as it would add a lot of walking and we were enjoying where we were. So we will probably go into town tomorrow instead.

    First we sat and enjoyed the views from the rocks right across from the trailhead. There is a golf course right there and we were sitting by one of the tees, but there were not that many people golfing so we didn’t see anyone there. Then we walked down to maybe my favorite beach of the trip even though it was tiny. On the way to the trail we had seen this QR code that said geology so we learned that the rocks on this beach were Gabbro and about the rocks which was so nice! Like I said the beach was tiny, but so pretty! We had a sit to enjoy the water and on our way back to the road we saw lots of sparrows on the beach! It was fun watching them flit around doing their thing. We spied on lots of other birds on the walk back to the car, and then just before we got there it started raining a bit and we got another rainbow! So many rainbows every day!

    Then it was off to where we are camped for the night - a trailhead for a hike we may or may not do tomorrow…we shall have to see what the trail conditions are like. It seems super steep and at least the top most bit might be more than I am capable of, but we shall see. The last three photos are where we are camped for the night. The second to last photo is what we might climb tomorrow which is on one side of the car, the water on the other. While we were sitting here doing things I was pointing something out to Raymond outside and a little Stoat ran by, then ran by the front of the car! He was so cute! So tiny, brown with a white belly and a black tipped tail! So much fun! We shall see what adventures we end up getting up to tomorrow!    Читать далее

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  • Jen RitcheyNorwayПутешественник

    More Aurora!

    24 сентября 2024 г., Норвегия ⋅ 🌬 8 °C

    Last night it was pretty clear so I kept checking to see if there were any lights outside. I have a couple apps to check too, most of them are just eh (one keeps sending me notifications before sunset that if it is clear outside we might be able to see them! And it is always like it is not even dark so there is no chance!), but I do have one that is crowd sourced and has all the technical data that they get from all the sources, and people also post pics and info when they see the lights. Plus you can set it to get notifications when someone posts within x kms of you which I did and someone posted one near-ish around 9:30 so I popped my head out to see and there they were!! I had just been wondering yesterday during the day if we were going to get any more good viewings like on the boat and then we did!!

    At first it was just this wide stripe from the horizon up over our head and back behind the mountains behind us which was cool then some started to come by the edge of the mountains and they were dancing all over the place and even had some pink! Which is apparently pretty rare as they are usually green so that was fun. And then more came between them and at one point it was most of the sky was lights! The clouds started to come in and you could still see them in between which was cool and then eventually the clouds were too much so we went inside and got ready for bed, though I did pop my head out a few min later and the clouds had disappeared, but the lights were very faint and then gone so off to sleep! It was a good 30-45 min show! So much fun!!    Читать далее

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  • Jen RitcheyNorwayПутешественник

    Festvågtind Hike Part 1

    25 сентября 2024 г., Норвегия ⋅ ☁️ 8 °C

    Today we woke up to a rainbow right outside our window! And it was the only one we saw today because it was absolutely gorgeous and sunny all day! No rain even in the distance!

    So we got up and decided to try the Festvågtind hike, the one I said yesterday we may or may not do. The trail looked crazy from below and there were so many warning signs like it is totally okay to turn back! Partway up is a lake and it was like it is an admirable goal to try and make it to the lake and back! Don’t worry if you don’t make the summit it is still a good hike! And stuff like that which made it sound like we might not make it up. And honestly we almost got stopped right at the very beginning as the sign said stay to the right, don’t go to the left as that trail goes to the rock climbing area and you will have to turn around. So we tried staying right, and there was a sign pointing the way, but it was pointing at a bunch of giant boulders…with no indication of where to go! So we found some reviews that were like you have to climb over the boulders and well…they were very big and steep and lots of big cracks between them and we got to one point where I had to step over a wide gap which if it were flat would be fine, but the rock on the other side was steep facing me and wet so…I didn’t want to slip and fall! I thought we were going to have to turn around, but I found a different way that was easier and then I was like how much more of this do we have?? Cause if it is a lot I am not up for that…and Raymond want to look and was like oh you just need to come over to this one and then one more and then it is a trail trail. So hooray! We made it to the trail.

    So we started heading up and it wasn’t too bad, there was a split partway up and the sign said to keep right to go to the lake. Well a group of 4 ladies was coming up behind us and they were faster than us and they looked and said the right trail was longer and in water runoff so they decided to go left…which looked SUPER steep once we got up to the lake! We split and went on the other trail the same time they went left and we explored the lake and took a 15+ min break and were at the summit not that long after they were! So that left trail must have been harder!! I’m glad we stayed to the right!

    There were a few points on the way to the lake that were steep and muddy, but it wasn’t too bad. The lake was gorgeous and when we got there we took a break at a viewpoint for Hennigsvær, the town on the little islands below. On our break we were discussing if we should try for the top and part of me was like yes!!! We should definitely at least try, and part of me was like eh, this is nice let’s just go back and explore town. Well we ended up trying the summit and the first half really wasn’t bad, the second was pretty steep but not as steep as that other trail we did so we made it up no problem. If it were rainy and stormy maybe we wouldn’t have, but it was fine.

    And of course the views from the top were amazing!! The town below on the islands, the mountains to the right of that are the ones we hiked/drove through already and then there were lots of mountain peaks in a row on the one side that were so cool!! The photos of that are not very good as I loved it!! The behind the islands and you could see mainland Norway and lots of snowy peaks! It was so so nice! I was glad we were able to do it!

    The way down was slow, partly because it was so steep and partly because there were so many people coming up!    Читать далее

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  • Jen RitcheyNorwayПутешественник

    Festvågtind Hike Part 2

    25 сентября 2024 г., Норвегия ⋅ ☁️ 9 °C

    Once we got to the lake on the way down we had a nice, relaxing lunch in the sun. It was so warm! And the lake was so pretty with the mountains and fall colors! Then it was on to spy on a different Hennigsvær viewpoint and then back down to the car. The worst part of the hike down was probably the first half of the way after the lake! It was so steep and muddy and wet you had to be really slow to not slip! But we made it and it didn’t seem like that much crazier of a hike than the ones we have already done, but both our legs were so tired by the time we got down! Mine are still like you did so much today!! So it is good we don’t have much on the agenda for tomorrow!

    Now the last two photos with the arrows - the first is from yesterday on Hoven showing where we hiked today. I didn’t realize we could see it from there until we got to the top and saw little Hoven off by itself between some other peaks (the second arrow is Hoven we hiked yesterday from the peak today). All in all it was a great hike even if it was exhausting! And a perfect weather day!    Читать далее

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  • Jen RitcheyNorwayПутешественник

    After the hike

    25 сентября 2024 г., Норвегия ⋅ ⛅ 10 °C

    After our hike we had some chores to do, mainly get more water and get rid of some. I found a place to do both and so we drove over and the drive there was really nice, but the place we got water? That was so gorgeous!! I would have just stayed there for the night it was so nice! But we couldn’t so back to a little farther down the road than last night for the night (closer to the town which we will explore in the morning). We wandered a little and found some fish drying racks and then had a great sunset right outside the door! All in all a pretty great day!Читать далее

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  • Jen RitcheyNorwayПутешественник

    Even More Aurora!

    25 сентября 2024 г., Норвегия ⋅ 🌬 9 °C

    Man Hennigsvær was magical for the aurora for us!! Last night I was doing my evening things, had just wrote up the aurora post from the night before and was getting some evening tea and everything and my app started pinging that people nearby were posting aurora photos! I was like what?? It is not even fully dark yet! I can still see colors where the sun set! But we went outside and lights! At first not that much, but they quickly danced across the whole sky! They were so bright!! And so much fun! Lots of pinks too! The first pink bits started as a very small ball over by the sunset horizon then kept expanding and moving across the sky until it was filled with lights! It was so cool!! They were very active last night, more so than other nights. Always shifting and making cool new patterns. It was awesome! We were out for about an hour and a half just watching and I was like how am I supposed to do all my evening things when I have this to watch??? Then they settled down and I was able to get some things done quickly before bed. I don’t think we will see any tonight as it is very cloudy, but you never know! The clouds could clear up in an instant. One of the reasons for this trip was to try to see the aurora and were have gotten to see so much of it!Читать далее

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  • Jen RitcheyNorwayПутешественник

    Hennigsvær

    26 сентября 2024 г., Норвегия ⋅ 🌬 8 °C

    This morning we got up to a very windy day! With rain! And all the rainbows everywhere all day! Really I woke up to the van rocking from the wind and thought if this had been yesterday I am not sure we would have tried the hike. It was so windy all day it was like blowing me over at times and on a steep ridge that would not be good! So I was glad the weather was so nice yesterday!

    We got ready and walked over to Hennigsvær to spy and see what we could see. I didn’t expect us to be gone that long, maybe an hour because I didn’t expect there to be much to see. None of the other small towns had much.

    Well…we got there and there were these signs with a QR code again and a map with numbers and it was a really nice little history of the town with buildings/places marked that were of interest. Like the one place was a fisherman’s school as some brought their sons with them and they could only come if they didn’t miss their schooling. Or to teach the fisherman hygiene. There were also 3 German gun towers out by the telecom tower that I don’t know if I would have realized were even there if not for the map!

    It also told us the oldest rocks in Lofoten are there by the stadium - Gneiss with Gabbro that was tested to be 2,850 million years old! So cool!! The stadium (football field) is apparently famous and well photographed as it is „surrounded“ by mountains…but it is not really. Just the mountains in the distance that you can see from the entire town basically. It was fine, but nothing special. And it was not part of the history tour!

    We also went to a bakery and got a slice of banana bread and sandwiches for lunch - they were roasted cauliflower, pea spread, sundried tomato, ajvar, and seeds on sourdough bread. They were both so good! All in all it was a really cute town and we both enjoyed our time there. If it had been nicer out (it was so windy and kept raining off and on) we could have spent more time there. Really it is the first small town that actually had things in it not just old fishing houses that are now for tourists to stay in. So it was fun and it is the one town I would definitely recommend going to! As it was we spent three hours exploring! It would have been a bit longer but the weather turned awful and we to get to the car as quick as we could. I almost said let’s just skip this town as none of them have been that exciting, but I’m glad I didn’t!    Читать далее

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  • Jen RitcheyNorwayПутешественник

    Svolvær & Beyond

    26 сентября 2024 г., Норвегия ⋅ 🌬 8 °C

    After our morning in Hennigsvær we headed on to our next stop, Svolvær. This was a bigger town so I thought we would be a few hours there exploring…but we had one hour parking so we said we would see what we could see and then move the car if needed. Well…the downtown area that was not industrial was tiny and even with going to a couple grocery stores we left town before our hour was up! Which was fine as we had a long drive to do.

    On the drive to the next place we stopped at a couple rest stops or viewpoints that were pretty nice! One had a nice wooden walkway up to see the mountains! We also started seeing more and more mountains with fresh snow on top! We are kind of camped in this plateau area up in the mountain peaks so there are lots of snowy tops not very far from the road! It is also a lot colder!

    We are also on the path of the Battles of Narvik 1940 which I had never heard of! But it was fighting German Invasion as they were trying to take over the area and get the iron supplies that were shipped through here from Sweden. I always forget about Norway when I think of WWII, but we have seen lots of remnants for the German occupation.

    Our last stop was a waterfall that we quickly walked to see as we were racing the sunset! And we needed to get dinner so no photos of camp by the river, but maybe in the morning. We didn’t get as far as I wanted, but oh well! We had fun! Oh! We also saw some reindeer on our drive! One was big and white which I just looked up is incredibly rare! Such fun!    Читать далее

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  • Jen RitcheyNorwayПутешественник

    Ånderdalen National Park

    27 сентября 2024 г., Норвегия ⋅ ☁️ 2 °C

    Today we woke up to spooky fog outside! We had about a two hour drive to the trailhead plus some chores to do before then so we headed out as soon as we could. We headed off and were driving in the fog for a good bit and then suddenly it was clear!

    We got to the parking for our hike in Ånderdalen National Park around 11 and it was a long hike to a lake so I thought we will do as much as we can, but not sure if we will make it to the lake by the time we need to turn around so we can get to camp by dinnertime/before sunset. But the trail was easy and we made it to the lake and back to the car right when I wanted to be back! Hooray!

    So it was a pretty nice day. It was cloudy off and on with a sprinkle of rain here and there, but perfect for hiking. A bit cold, but we managed to wear the right layers and stayed warm, but not too warm. The first part of the trail was a wide gravel path with info signs and such, then it turned into pretty much walking through bogs to the lake. A lot of it was wooden pathways, but there was still a lot of mud and wet areas to try and get around with a bit of a hill here and there (and LOTS of slippery tree roots!). It was still gorgeous fall colors and halfway to the lake there was a sign saying you are halfway and the trail after this is not as defined and more demanding. If you doubt your physical fitness at all do not continue!! Which I was like alright let’s see what this trail has in store for us! Well there was a small stream to rock hop across then a good hill to climb with lots of rocks and then it was just more of the what we already did! More wooden planks to walk on, more mud, just more of everything. There was so much mud I was looking at my rain pants I was wearing when I got back and somehow I got mud up to my knees while walking. Not sure how I did that…my ankles and stuff makes sense as it brushes against my opposite shoes when walking, especially in the narrow boards, but my knees? It is a mystery! But I was glad I was wearing my rain pants as they are easy to clean off.

    The lake was pretty nice when we got there. Really it was lots of small lakes in this wide open valley. After a nice break we headed on back to the car and stopped by a viewpoint on the way which was so nice! There was even a wind shelter to sit in that was open on the view side so we had a break there and stayed dry.

    This park was really nice. The infrastructure was great. There were lots of pit toilets to use and at the lake there was a small cabin you could use to warm up or whatever. There were lots of places to have a fire with wooden benches around the fire pits and plenty of firewood. I could see if I lived here I would wander the woods often! We also saw lots of birds, bunch of Willow Tits on the way to the lake and a bunch of Red Crossbills on the way back flew all around us and came pretty close as we stood and watched them. It was just a really nice place to spend the day without a crazy demanding hike up a mountain. It was a long day even if the hiking was easy but we had a lot of fun.

    The last couple photos are on the drive to camp (the last one is where we are camped). It is gorgeous here in a different way than prior area. Lots of snow covered mountains nearby so excited to see what we see tomorrow! And it is much colder as we are up in the mountains - it is freezing right now (0C/32F) and we need all the heat! The heater in the car is not as good as the one we had in Iceland…that one kept the car a pleasant temp the entire time. This one you have to set it for a higher temp than you want to get it to turn on before it is freezing cold…like we would set it for 18C as that is nice but not hot, but if you set it at that when it turns off it won’t turn on again until my nose and hand and feet are like icicles! It hasn’t been that cold yet so we haven’t used it that much, and we have kept it low overnight, but last night I did need my warm layer on plus my blankets so we might have to set it to a higher temp tonight since it is colder. We shall see! I think we were lucky it was not colder longer (I’m writing this after the heat turned off and I can feel all the cold! Time to turn the temp up so it will turn on again!)    Читать далее

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  • Jen RitcheyNorwayПутешественник

    Fungus

    27 сентября 2024 г., Норвегия ⋅ ⛅ 5 °C

    I love spying on fungus when we are out walking and Ånderdalen National Park had so much! When we started our walk I was stopping every two feet as there were new mushrooms to spy on! Raymond was joking we were not going to make it very far today…But we did! Here are most of the fun ones we saw today!Читать далее

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  • Jen RitcheyNorwayПутешественник

    Plants/Lichen

    27 сентября 2024 г., Норвегия ⋅ ⛅ 5 °C

    The plants are such fun colors right now I thought I would post a few I took photos of today. I didn‘t realize they were mostly the bright reds until I made up this post!

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  • Jen RitcheyNorwayПутешественник

    Gryllefjord

    28 сентября 2024 г., Норвегия ⋅ ☁️ 0 °C

    Today is good to be lots of posts as we went too many places!

    Today we woke up to frost on everything! It was below freezing and we have this little step we can push a button to bring it out on the side of the car to help step up into the side door (or take our muddy shoes off on so we don’t track it inside). Well we leave it out and then put it back in before we head out (if you don’t the car makes a loud continuous buzzing noise when you start it until you put it back in). Well we tried to put it back in this morning and nothing happened! It was frozen! We had to wiggle it a bit until we got it to go back in! Crazy! So we put it in for the night so we don’t have to worry about it in the morning.

    We headed off and started off driving to Gryllefjord. I hadn’t originally been planning on going there (if we were a few days earlier we would have caught a ferry to there from Lofoten, but it stopped running before we got there so we drove out and around). There didn’t seem to be much there, but we needed some groceries and there are not many grocery stores up here where we are so we headed on over to spy on that. Well the town was actually really fun to wander through! Amazing views and lots of fun art and stuff. We walked to the end of the road and found a pier where we could see all kinds of sea urchins and jellyfish and fishes! Plus found lots of broken urchin shells and I didn’t realize they could be so colorful! It was absolutely freezing out, but we had fun on our wander through town!    Читать далее

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