Today we took the bus through the tunnels over to the end of the next fjord which is too narrow for the big cruise ships. We were 2 of 4 people on the bus so not sure where everyone was. We got to the town of Gudvangen where the road ends (kind of, more later) and the boat begins. There is a Viking camp there with Viking actors everywhere. Behind the cash registers, in the shops, hanging around the Viking village replica. These guys were into it and for only 10kr ($2) they would let tourists take their picture. A bunch of them were doing a fierce dance of some kind and whooping it up for a TV camera crew when we got there. So they brought the boat in and loaded us and a busload of Japanese tourists. The Japanese were from Yokohama and spoke no English, but half of the PA system messages were in Japanese. The other couple we came with were from France and very pleasant. A single older Norwegian man who also spoke no English was on the boat, and the most we could get out of him was he lived on the western coast of Norway.The narrow fjord is pretty quiet and only the smaller boats can come through. We saw a lot more of this later in the day. We got back to Flam and decided to hike a very steep trail above the narrow fjord. So we drove the car through the 2 tunnels to get to Gudvangen (deja vu) and found the one lane road on the other side of the gravel pit that leads up the side of the fjord to the town with 20 inhabitants. What is suspicious is that the boat man told us they just put a new $35M tunnel on this one lane road (that leads to 20 people) because of all the avalanches . They are up to something.
So drove to the end and headed up the hill with Deb in the lead with the backpack. Deb is a much stronger hiker and I am just out of shape so she disappeared up the hill. I got about halfway up, took a break, then realized I would never catch her, so I wimped out and came back down, laid on the beach (stone beach) and soaked my feet and tasted fjord water ( tastes like over softened water). Deb meanwhile had waited higher than me for a bit, left a water bottle for me and hiked to the top. A Swedish couple had passed me going down and told Deb I was heading down. So she got to do her hike, and I get to hang my head in shame. Time for Miller to lay off the Twinkies and get some exercise. Sorry Deb.
I hiked the lower road while I waited for Deb and found a stream that had delicious clear water, much better than the fjord. I also got to see just how quiet his fjord was when the boats disappeared. I watched some kind of otter swimming around when nobody was watching. Also snuck in a little nap. Pretty quiet.
Anyway, it started to rain just as Deb came down. She hiked 1.75 km each way (3.5 total), but climbed 740 meters, so pretty damn steep. We drove back to Flam, but missed the turn and ended up in Aurlund at the other end of the fjord. We found a nice cafe there and had dinner. Another family was there who were Americans but living in Germany. We do not normally see many Americans but in this area we are seeing a lot.
Back to the ranch to rest up for driving tomorrow. Goodbye Flam.
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