Day 08 - Ships In The Clouds

24 Aug

 

That's our hotel - our room was on the far end overlooking the lake.

Our day started with a half hour drive to Hellesylt to take the ferry to Geiranger. When we arrived at Hellesylt a large cruise liner was dominating the scenery. This along with many coaches to transfer the cruise liner’s passengers made for a rather crowded experience to start with.

Parked in the fjord

Feeling small with all the coaches.

We didn't have too long to wait to have the place almost to ourselves. It gave us an opportunity to have a chat with the local ferry coordinator. Clint got all the details about the two ferries that run out of here. We asked about what it was like in winter, how much snow etc. In the village, there is usually only about 30 to 40cm of snow.  Whereas in the mountains there can be 7 to 8 metres of snow. The fjord doesn't freeze over but the lakes do.

Village waterfall.  Ranges from trickle to torrent throughout the year depending on snow melt.

Pretty Hellesylt

The ferry travels the Geirangerfjorden showcasing the Seven Sisters Waterfall and various other natural features. Farm houses clinging to the almost sheer rock face have been abandoned mostly since the 1960’s. The sheer tenacity of the people who chose to live and farm there beggars belief.

Most were well rugged up, but really it was only 10C, a cool winter's day - in Qld.  Summer here.

Seven Sisters Waterfalls with an abandoned farm high up on the cliffs.

On arrival at Geiranger, we decide to head for a place at the end of a very twisty road. We didn't have a lot of information about what was there, but it would be worth the drive and perhaps the view. As it turns out we joined the procession of Renault Twizy cars, full sized coaches and all manner of vehicles in between. About 2/3 of the way up it looked like any view would be obscured by cloud. We briefly tossed up the idea of not proceeding any further, but decided to continue on, just in case.

Renault Twizy.  40kph max uphill.  Rentable in Geiranger for the tourists to take up to the Skywalk.

What a magnificent place. We were at 1,500 metres above sea level at Geiranger Skywalk. Happily, the clouds thinned to reveal the valley below. Wow!!! So glad we continued on. There still a bit of the white stuff around so we made a point of stopping to have a walk (slip) around on what was more the consistency of a slurpee rather than snow.

S90 among the clouds

Can you see the cruise ship?

We don't get to play in snow too often.

Standing on the Skywalk

Back down into the valley to weave our way up the Eagles Road and continue on our way.

Squeezy

Where we're going next

Our road takes through mountainous country, where the tops of the mountains are scooped out in appearance. We waited for our next ferry at Eidsdal and enjoyed a cup of coffee and a snack enjoying the scenery basking in the warmth of the sunshine.

Not long after the ferry crossing the scenery was screaming out to Clint that it was time for Minerva to be let out. Limited bandwidth is preventing us from posting any of the video. That will probably have to wait until we are back home.

But here's a screenshot.  You can just make out our car in the lower left.

This leg took us to Vestnes where we caught the final ferry for the day to Molde. We have a room with waterfront views to watch the ferries glide by. Molde is a fairly large town. As we were a little early by our regular standards we decided to go for a walk. We needed a couple of items which we thought should be readily available. Guess not! We walked the length of the shopping precinct and then some looking for the various outlets.

Time to put the feet up and enjoy the view.  The sun won’t set here until 9:09pm with a couple of hours of twilight after that.

Goodnight All - We'll be sitting here watching this fade.