Week in Review: Week 4

This week was quite busy with our drive towards Norway. After leaving Copenhagen, we spent just one night in Sweden before heading to southern Norway. We are now in a small town near Sandnes, on the southwest side of Norway. We can almost see the North Sea from our Airbnb, and are near some of the best hiking spots in southern Norway (close to the Lysefjord).

Although it was a busy week, we spent most of the week driving, so we didn’t have too many activities and sights planned. Over the next few days we plan to explore the fjords and take in a few hikes, so it will be interesting to see what stands out in next week’s review. This past week has left the two of us with many shared highlights.

Highlight of the week

Sharleen and Darrell: Hiking Preikestolen (Pulpit Rock). We started looking into things to do in Norway in March 2018, and were so excited to do some of the amazing hikes in this country. Preikestolen was our first hike in Norway, and it’s easy to see why so many people make the trip to Rogaland county to hike it.

When we pulled into the parking lot it was surprisingly not as busy as we anticipated. Just over 200,000 people hike this trail each season (between April and October) and we had heard that during the peak summer months, sometimes over 6,000 people hike it each day! We were happy to be here in May, on a Wednesday, and so far it looked very promising. Hiking with a ton of people is never fun!

The landscape for this hike is just beautiful. There are rocks and boulders mixed with grasses and trees, and a sprinkling of wildflowers throughout that adds some colour to the blue, green, and gray of the trail. The pictures don’t do justice to how lovely the mountainous terrain is, or how far you can see down the fjord from various viewpoints. It was really breathtaking.

Once we made it to the top of the main trail, the views were like nothing we had seen before! We aren’t the most avid hikers, so to end up on the top of a mountain with long views up and down the fjord, is something we are not accustomed too.

Our timing worked out wonderfully. We were told the best time to go would be to arrive at the base to start the climb around 2pm, which is contrary to every blog post we had read. They all said that you should start super early in the morning to get to the top in the early morning to catch the remaining moments of the sunrise. We decided that it was a trade off between seeing the sunrise or getting to the top and having less people there, and we chose the latter.  We had passed large groups of people making their way down the trail as we climbed up. This left us with what seemed to be the entire summit to ourselves. There might have been 20 to 30 people when we first got to the top, but by the time we left there was maybe 6.

It was a great hike, even better than we had anticipated, and so having it as our highlight for this week was a no brainer.  We will for sure be go into more details about this hike in a future blog post.

Least favourite part of the week

Sharleen and Darrell: We didn’t have anything that really stood out as our least favourite part of this week, but more of something that annoys us. It is a bit annoying how long it takes to drive to and from places in this part of Norway. It’s quite funny, we will put a destination in our GPS, and it will have a total route distance of around 45 km, but it will take 1.5 hours to get there. The speed limits, mixed with hairpin turns and narrow roads, make it difficult to get anywhere in less than 2 hours. On top of that, most of the routes we are taking this week and next require some sort of ferry, which not only takes time but gets a little pricey as well. But overall, the scenery is so beautiful, that although getting around is slower, it’s kind of nice to take it slow and enjoy the landscape as we drive from one point to another.

 

Favourite city/town/village visited

Sharleen and Darrell: The island of Flekkerøy. We were staying in a town just west of Kristiansand for a couple of nights and decided to explore the island of Flekkerøy. It’s a small island connected to the main land by a 2.3km subsea tunnel - this was our second subsea tunnel in Norway and we always find it so exciting to go through them! Tunnels, especially those constructed under water, are not at all common in Canada, so each time we drive through one it seems exciting.

The coastline of the island was quite picturesque. Everywhere you look, all you see is a mix of deep blue sky and water, with luscious green grass and trees, and adorable red Norwegian houses. We spent a few hours parking our car and then walking along pathways, taking in the views, which are exactly what you would picture Norway to look like. The island is mainly residential, so there are not too many open beach areas, or paths/roads that take you along the coast, but we were able park the car in different spots, walk around, and enjoyed it nonetheless.   

Favourite meal

Sharleen: Hiking meal.  This meal is my favorite, not because of the food necessarily, although it was quite tasty, but because of the views we had during our late lunch. We had packed an easy hiking meal of cut vegetables, trail mix, salami, cheese, and wine juice boxes (amazing!) and enjoyed it overlooking Pulpit Rock and the Lysefjord. It was such a simple lunch, but the enjoyment was definitely enhanced because of our climb to the top and the views from above Pulpit Rock.

Darrell: Taco salad. As we have mentioned before, prices in Scandinavia are quite high, so we have been making more meals at home and eating out less. When we do eat out, it’s mainly for pizza, or a quick sandwich/burger, which are never really anything special and usually costs us $60+ CDN!! Our go-to dinner this week has been taco salad, and it never disappoints! The produce here in Norway has been really good – great quality, fresh, and reasonably priced. As it has also been quite hot out everyday, it’s nice to have something refreshing for dinner. Surprisingly, grocery stores in Scandinavia have a well stocked Mexican food section (at least well stocked by our Canadian standards) so we have the basics needed to make a tasty taco salad, or wraps when we have left overs.

So far our time in Norway has been great. We are looking forward to all of the adventures this next week will bring as we continue to hike, drive, and boat our way around the west side of this country!