Been going through some old photos and found some from a 3 day walk I did in Norway in 2004. We set off from Ålgård which is South of Stavanger and went out to a really remote part of South West Norway. Bits of the Norwegian TV drama – “ A State of Happiness” were filmed there (which is ace btw). There was me, 3 Norwegians (all cousins) and 2 dogs (a retriever called Mira and a border collie called Underdog.) We walked for about 8 hours each day in beautiful scenery and stayed in wooden cabins that are strategically placed across the Norwegian countryside for anybody to use (you just make sure that you leave it clean – imagine how that would work out in Britain).
Day two was hard. There were people already in the cabin that we got to at the end of day 1 who had bagged the bedrooms. We stayed in sleeping bags on the floor so hadn’t had a great sleep. It then rained all day long and our back packs were still quite heavy because we had beer and wine in them as well as food. (We didn’t need to take water, you just fill your bottle up from streams because the water is crystal clear) I felt utterly exhausted at times and whenever I lagged behind the two dogs would fall back and get behind me barking at me telling me to keep up. They wanted to keep us all together and literally rounded us up regularly. I can vividly remember the massive relief I felt when I saw the cabin half a mile away at the end of day 2. We almost ran there. It was empty and we had bedrooms with beds in. As we changed from our wet clothes, got the log burner lit and opened crisps and beer the relief turned to euphoria.
The last photo is half way through the final day. We found a little shed and stopped for a break. When the pic was taken I was just about to take my wet socks off and change them for the dirty ones I had worn on day one because we had recently had to wade through a river as there was no other way across. The lad in the middle is my mate Kjell who was my drinking mate when I did my Masters in Stirling. I caught up with him in Bergen two years ago on holiday when he drove up from Ålgård to see us with his family and we went for a walk. Our kids had a great time playing together. Our daughters are a similar age and despite not being able to speak each others’ languages very well they got on like a house on fire, asking each other daft questions on google translate and laughing their heads off. Anyway, after the three day walk I slept for 12 hours a night for the next 3 days. When you spend 3 days walking with a group of people it feels like a wrench when you have to part company. You’ve developed a great bond. Although I have done other walks like that in Norway, this was probably the best walk I have ever done in my life and I think about it often. The pics of the countryside don’t really do it justice, it was so beautiful.
