Friday September 16th Vadheim

September 17, 2016

Friday September 16th Vadheim

It was quite cold in the valley this morning. Gerhart and Conny headed off first and we said goodbye and hoped maybe to catch up in Bergen. The sun was out when we arrived at Gaupne, picked up some supplies and loaded my blog and did emails. We are finding that in many places where we are wild camping, our wifi is not very strong so need to catch up when we get into a town.

We really hadn’t decided what route we would take today but with such nice weather we wanted to continue enjoying the scenery of the Western Fjords and mountains. After the short ferry crossing from Hella we had a choice of the road around the edge of the fjord or up into the moutains..the mountains won and we took the scenic route 13 north and then west. It was another climb like the Trollistgen, carving our way up the hill through a series of many hairpin bends with golden trees and amazing scenery. Thankfully the road was quiet and we didn’t meet any cars and arrived at the viewing area at the top to look down on where we had come from. Breathtaking.

The drive across the alpine plateau and down the other side was equally beautiful, once again lots of waterfalls, and mountain ponds. We had thought we would stop a little earlier today as feeling a bit weary after a few long driving days and some later nights, but couldn’t find anywhere suitable to stop. Continued on and the road got busier and very narrow, not an easy drive at all for Ian. We joined E39 and the Friday afternoon traffic was really busy but at least the roads now had a centre line marked. Took a breather at Forde, Ian went for a walk into a hardware store to stretch his legs and I searched online for a suitable place to stay but couldn’t find anything. This is the hardest part of the day when you are travel weary and trying to find a suitable night campsite.

So we decided to continue south on the E39 and finally I spotted a parking area off the main road in the little town of Vadheim by the head of an arm of the Sogne Fjord, but we had cars behind and had to continue on until we could turn around. As we continued up the hill I looked back at the parking area and spotted Gerhart and Conny’s van! There was nowhere to turn and we continued on through a 3.5km tunnel before being able to return. It was such a fluke that we once again caught up, G & C had taken a completely different route and had arrived about 10 minutes earlier. They had been stopped for 1 ½ hours at roadworks so Conny had prepared a wonderful chicken and vegetable dish which we ended up sharing. Another very happy evening, but we were all tired so bed by 10.