Norge

Norway.. what an awesome country. Its the bees knees. We had 10 days there and even flying into Oslo airport we were really struck by how many trees there were and how clean the countryside looked.

Dagfinn met us at the airport and took us back to his house about 1 hours drive north of Oslo. Dagfinn is a fishing enthusiast and along with his husky Tipi and friend Terje who lives 2 doors down he organised to take us fishing for a couple of days. We drove up into a low range of hills on the second day with Dagfinns car stacked high with 2 canadian canoes, 4 people, a dog and enough food to survive a nuclear holocaust. The weather was magnificent. It was around 22c day after day.

We got to the lake ( Avalsjøen) where we were going to fish, tumbled out, dragged the canoes out to the waters edge, piled in, coaxed Tipi into Dagfinns canoe and set off. The lake was full of snow melt and quite shallow - but so clear you could see all the submerged grasses that had been on dry land a couple of weeks earlier. We found a primo spot on the other side of the lake to camp, sorted out the fishing gear - I learnt how to tie a line to the spinner thingy (i really couln't tell you how to do it now) and we jumped back in the canoes and went fishing and caught... NOTHING! Awe well you can't have everything can you!

It didn't matter though because Dagfinn had bought Reindeer meat and brown cheese (a Norwegian specialty) and cooked up a meal that seemed to me a bit like beef stroganoff but nicer because the Reindeer meat had a really nice flavour. He also had this conserve that you eat with the meal that was a bit like cranberry sauce but made from wild berries. Yummy.



Then we fished a bit more, watched some freaky frogs, ate some more, made a bonfire, marshmallows, beer, took lots of photos and went to sleep at about 1am - it got darkish at about 11.30. The next day we cruised around the lake fishing and caught ...... NOTHING! AGAIN!

Although this probably wasn't helped by the fact that we spent most of the afternoon kipping!

Even the dog had a sleep!

The last day of our trip to the lake Avalsjøen we decided to go up river to the next lake. We were on a big complex of lakes and rivers that stretched out to 93km?. So we left all our gear at the campsite and headed upstream. It was hard work. Dagfinn and I were in his canoe which was really lightweight and prone to being pushed around by the turbulence in the river. Everytime we got to a small rapid we would be paddling like crazy only to be turned around and shoved back downstream. We took to grabbing branches on the side of the river to pull ourselves upstream. Jamie seemed to think it was very funny! After a couple of km of this we admitted defeat, found a nice spot on the side of the river and sat down to fish (well the guys did, I had a bit of a kip) smoke cigars, drink beer and drink Terjes potent norwegian brew, the name of which I've forgotten except that Terje advised us it gives you a shocking hangover.

Just up from where we were sitting there was a nice little grade 2 rapid that Jamie and Dagfinn decided needed testing. So they portaged Dagfinns canoe upstream while Terje and I got the cameras ready. They came flying down, too fast for us to get photos, hit the big rock in the middle of the rapid, flipped and were out o' there!! Dagfinn attacked the rock with his knee and had to get 3 stitches in it and they both came out of the river shivering, looking like drowned albino rats.

But after a bit of encouragement from Terje and I ( it looked easy from where I was sitting!) they had another go and this time they changed tactic and sat in the bottom of the canoe and just cruised through the rapid. After all the excitement and the discovery of Dagfinn's holey knee we packed up, went back downstream, collected our gear and drove back to Dagfinns place.

End of Norwegian adventures Part One. Next week will write Part Two.