Tuesday, 22 June 2010

It was an early start – we had to have our cars packed by 5am for the journey westward. After a couple of hour’s drive, when we were slowing down for some traffic lights that were holding back the traffic of one side of the road due to roadworks, Lauri put his hazard lights on to indicate that something was wrong. As we came to a stop, we found out that his car had completely died and there was nothing we could do to revive it. We decided to tow it along to the next bigger village to see if it could be fixed.

A while later we came to a place called Vang. Ironically, the word means a prisoner in Estonian. We asked the local mechanic to look at the car, but he was too busy at that time. We also found out that the car mechanics’ hourly wage in Norway is about 1000 NOK or 2000 EEK ($180 USD) per hour! We asked if we could leave the car there for him to look at when he has time and not to exceed 5000 NOK for the repairs.

Even though our cars were really full, we divided the people from Lauri’s car between the four remaining vehicles. In addition, we packed their things into our cars as well. Let’s just say that the remainder of the drive was a really cosy one! :)

Once we got to the parking lot where we left our cars, we had lunch drinking water from the clear water of the river. This was the first time for me to drink water straight from the river. I have drunk water from various springs before, but I had never before seen a river so clear and clean.

We grabbed our backpacks and set off up the hill. According to Joel, the hike was supposed to take about 2 hours. Well, I have been on hikes before in England and Australia and the USA and the hikes never take as long as the guidebooks say. They usually allow extra time for the really slow people. However, this time, after we had already been going for an hour, I suspected that the timings given were for really fit Norwegians without 16 kg backpacks on their backs. We actually saw lots of people walk and run past us. For me, this sort of terrain would have been really difficult to run, so they had to be really fit.

Veronika came with us until the big waterfall leaving baby Emily to enjoy the views down below with my mother. As Vero did not have a backpack of her own, she helped carry other peoples’ ones up the mountainside. After several hours’ walk, we finally got to the top. We saw the waterfall – it was really impressive. We took photos and filled our water bottles from the same river. Joel pointed out the mountains across the valley, which were quite a bit higher, and said that we would be going up that way and would see the waterfall from across the valley too.

After sitting down to have a little talk and our own quiet time, we set off down the mountainside again. As Veronika had been away from Emily for quite a few hours already, she sprinted down the mountainside ahead of all of us to feed her. We said our good-byes and Joel went down trying to keep up with her. When coming up the mountainside had been difficult because of low stamina, then going down was just plain hard on the leg muscles. After a while my legs just started shaking and it was difficult to walk. But down we got to the place where we were going to attempt to cross the valley and according to Joel’s map there was supposed to be a bridge. While we waited for the rest of the group, we learned to rest our feet by placing them on a higher ground than we were sitting on to help drain excess blood from them.

We found the bridge – that was so cool! One of the girls barely dared to cross it; she left her backpack on the other side and I sprinted back across the bridge and brought her backpack. So, I got to cross it three times. :) Loved it!!!!

The rest of the afternoon was painfully slow struggle up the mountainside. I ended up being in the group of about 5 girls at the end of the line and as the others got ahead of us, we were falling further and further behind. Fortunately, we did not have to be on our own. Sven, Lauri and Imre stayed with us. At one point I had a brainwave – to use Lauri’s rope to help us get past the more difficult parts. Imre went ahead and tied the rope to a secure place, Lauri held on to the other end and we climbed up the difficult parts. It worked like clockwork. At the end, Joel came to see where we were and took two backpacks on himself and got us to where we were supposed to have lunch!!! It was quite late already. We used our gas cookers for the first time in our “families”. Soup had never tasted so good! I was really hungry at that point. Joel scouted ahead to find us a place to spend the night and even though it was getting quite dusky, we set off to the place that he had found.

It was only another 20 minutes’ walk away. The ground was quite wet, but we could also find dry patches. Joel said that as tent floors are made of waterproof material, we could sleep on the marshy bit and enjoy the comfort of a water bed. I followed his lead and tested out my new tent. It only cost 220 kroons (about 18 dollars), it was lightweight and if it kept reasonably dry, it was worth the cost.

We set up camp and took our cooking gear to the designated kitchen area. Everybody also brought some wood to make a bonfire. As it was the 22nd of June, it was a little too early for St John’s Night’s traditional bonfire, but we had sausages with us for everybody and did not want to carry them with us for another hot day and find them spoilt by the next evening. So, we made a bonfire and had sausages. I had also bought a packet of marshmallows on the boat and I shared it with everybody. It was a great success. It never really got dark, it started to get light again when I went to sleep at 1 am. I just love the long summer days we have up in the north!!! :)