Stongfjord hill climbing!

With the weather looking to stay dry we headed off a walk up the Northern ridge of Stongfjord. Like most of the fjords you have to pick your path well, with such steep sides and avalanches possible its best to leave the serious mountaineering to those in the know! Instead we followed the road round until we found a hiking route with wooden markers leading to one of the peaks.

First BBQ in Norway, for our freshly caught Cup of Soups!!

The Fjord is so vast its very difficult to take in scale, and as we worked our way up the side of the fjord looking down on houses and boats it was quite a sight! We had gone a little down the fjord on our dinghy last night and we must have looked tiny! The one side of the fjord which gets hit by the suns heat most is mostly snow free, while the other side has still got a significant covering.

Plenty of water still around

We made it to the one point about 500m above the sea and stopped for a while to have a BBQ by a small lake. Even at this height we could spot two cabins, that must have been an interesting build, no roads there for building materials! Like almost every house, cabin or shed in Norway they were built of wood, no matter how big everything is built from wood, we've seen very few buildings built from anything other.
The walk had taken us past (and through!) waterfalls still running from the remainder of the snow melt, we found a patch of snow to stand by, not quite a glacier but hey!

Wooden Church

We spotted wild strawberry leaves, it will soon be berry season, when you can find wild Strawberries, Blueberries and the all elusive and highly prized cloudberry, from what we hear Cloudberries are as good as gold in Norway, and you don't want to end up fighting over the same spot! Whilst we are sure Bear Grylls could find plenty to feast on we hope to stick to the more traditional fishing and berry picking! Although we might need advice on both of these!

View over the fjord

Its funny how life goes, we hadn't planned to be here at all had it not been for the engine issues, we are glad we are though, its a very pretty part of Norway, and it would have been a real shame to skip by it. Mind you, I'm sure you could say that about anywhere in Norway.

Its still really before the main sailing season, especially for foreign boats and this means marinas and routes are very quiet, which is nice too, as the weeks go on the coast will get much busier particularly the Southern parts Oslo, and Bergen. Who knows where we will be by then!