Mountains, Valleys and Rivers - a fun day in the Olden Valley, the Briksdal Valley and Loen

What a day - there was so much enjoyment today, first at a Glacier at the top of the Olden Valley and then on the Skylift in Olden. More details about both later in the blog, but, as usual, let's get back to the start of the day.

Time to wake

 

I woke up at 4.30am this Friday morning, a little later than yesterday, but after a good six and a half hours sleep I felt really well.

For me today is pay day - or as Drew calls it "Charitable donation from the taxpayer day" as I receive my University pension. I start the morning doing some accounting - I've been doing the holiday accounts daily, but not looked at my regular household accounts since leaving Cardiff a week ago yesterday! A radically long time for me, as I'm someone who normally checks each day (sometimes more than once a day 'just in case'.

Most of the income went in paying credit cards - one of mine and one of Drew's, the latter of which had been used for lots of the pre-booking of things for this trip during June and only now needing to be paid in real/rather than in accounting terms. Nice of the banks to give me interest free money for 50+ days every period! The little that didn't go to this got transferred to my high-interest savings account. 

I then loaded the photos from Wednesday of our travelling to Olden. As noted in the last blog post we discovered yesterday afternoon that the PC and camera are now not talking to each other. As my sister hints on her comments to my Flickr message, the overdue replacement camera Drew has been promising himself since before Covid may become a necessity now. 

Drew woke at 6.30am and I made us both a cup of tea, from our t-bag stash.

Breakfast

By the time I'd finished with accounts etc, we were delayed for breakfast going down at 7.30am. It is fishy Friday, but I didn't eat any meat yesterday morning as the other items were so appealing,  so fishy Friday is easy this morning.

The were walnuts this morning, so I had yoghurt, dried fruit and the walnuts.

Drew started today with a salad for a change.

I repeated the plan of having the wonderful cinnamon oatmeal.

Drew had his sausage, potatoes and bacon

And I had more pickles, herrings and mackerel

 

After breakfast we went back to the room to 'freshen up' then we departed at 9.45am for the 50 meters walk to the bus stop for the Skyss 115 bus to the Brikdalen Glacier. 

Where we arrive at 10.45am - guess what, right on time, it seems this is common for buses here. 

We walk up the 3km to the foot of the glacier, with amazing views on the way up as you'll see in this video. If possible on your device it is worth watching at full screen.

The walk was steep at points and steps at others, but was worth the effort to get the views along the way as well as at the end. The shower from one of the ravines through which the melt water flows was amazing going up and more so going down!

The glacier itself is fast receding through global warming, but is still a spectacular site. Drew, ever patient and considerate, ended up waiting for a Chinese lady to move so he could take a photo of the Glacier from the lake below - sadly the Chinese lady hadn't noticed him, so the more he edged to get beyond her, the more she edged into his way. The patient pictures are here:

The young lady then climbed on to a rock in the midst of the lake and twice almost fell in, Drew was ready in case she got the soaking I think he thought she deserved after all her antics. But she managed to balance and avoided the soak.

My picture of Drew and his nemesis 

 

Walking back was a little quicker until we came to one of the faster parts of the melt water river. On the way up it was breezy and creating enough foam to encourage us to pull our Mac hoods up, but on the way back the sun had come out and was making rainbows in the foam, as you'll see in the pictures below. In addition the wind had changed direction, so it felt more like a shower than a spray from a cascading river. Hoods, umbrellas and hats were all deployed by people travelling both ways. Some, including Drew and I had to wipe our glasses, so much spray had collected, they had their own minor rainbows in the lenses until we wiped them. 

We arrived back down the mountain at 12.15pm with an hour and a half before the next bus. 

We decide to eat at the Brikdalen Kafeteria, which is a lovely place with great views and good fresh food. 

We started with a sandwich, a shrimp open sandwich in my case and a ham and cheese one in Drew's.

We order mains which were brought to us at the table. Drew had Cheeseburger and chips and I had Mountain Trout with new potatoes, broccoli and cauliflower. The dish was served with a melted cheese sauce which is often used in Britain in Cauliflower Cheese. As I think this dish is a waste of good cauli and good cheese, I was happy it was served on the side and could be ignored. 

The trout was spectacular, flavoursome and delightful, here it is flesh side up

We finished with a coffee each, an Americano for me and a Latte for Drew. 

We catch the return Skyss 115 bus and depart at 1.30pm, the driver has waited in the cafe during the intervening time! It being a non-cruise ship day the 52 seater bus has only 8 passengers. 

The first exit was at Yri where two backpackers got off. The rest, exited later than us. 

Here are some shots of the Olden Valley as we head back down

We travelled on the bus to Leon, i.e. we went past Olden and our hotel and continued in the opposite direction to this morning to the Loen Skylift. 

Skyss Bus

A word about Bus ticket prices, Skyss, who provide local services in the Vestland region of Norway from South of Bergen up to Ålsund, have a discount scheme, the more you use the bus, the more the cost reduces. 

So we paid 98NKr (Norwegian Krona - £7.21) from the two of us from Nordfjord to Stryn on Wednesday (Using Google Maps for the driving, not the bus time and distance - 40 minutes - 46km).

We then paid 93.10NKr (£6.85) from Stryn to Olden (21 minutes - 17km), 89.18Nkr (£6.56) from Olden to the Glacier (34 minutes - 22km £6.31) this morning, 85.26NKr (£6.02) from the Glacier to Loen (41 minutes - 28km) and 81.34NKr (£5.80) from Loen back to the hotel (8 minutes - 6km). Note the values in NKr and £ sterling are for two people. So we started at £3.43 per person and ended at £2.40, this compares well with Stagecoach Tongwynlais to Cardiff - £2.80 per person for 19 minutes 8.7Km 

Loen Skylift

The bus arrives in Loen at 2.15pm as per the timetable. It is a ten minute walk to Leon Skylift. We purchase the tickets at the machine and are on the next 'car' by 2.30pm and arrive at the top at 2.35pm.

This is a great photo opportunities only slightly limited by Drew not liking edges, or as he says it's not the edge he doesn't like, it is the drop beyond. This video captures the images, most of whom I took - if you want to see them all in better defination - go here on Flickr and click forward.

We catch the return 'car' down at 3.05pm and arrive at the bottom at 3.10pm

We walk back to the bus stop and pop into the store (the brand name is Joker, which is less funny when you realise that a J makes the Y sound here) to buy snacks for tonight. As we've had a full meal for lunch it will be a picnic in the hotel tonight as we have been to all Olden's eating places that you can get to without a car - the best restaurant in the area seems to be the one at the top of the Skylift, but we don't plan to get stuck in Loen for the night. 

We catch the 4.00pm bus back to Muristrada and at 4.15pm we are back at the hotel. 

Drew spots a little boat going past the window at 6.15pm

It turns out it is one we took from the top of the Skylift in Loen earlier today:

Evening

I draft some blog content, wonder if we will be able to get the photos off the camara any time soon and go to bed at 9.30pm ready for our journey tomorrow. 

Today we have gone further, but done less on our feet than yesterday. We have a step count of 13,468 Steps, that's 10.1Km and 6.28 Miles. Still reasonable exercise to balance our food intake.

Dr. Olden in Olden

After a long days travel yesterday, finally Dr Andrew (Drew) Olden has arrived in the village of Olden, in Olden Valley, in Olden Fjord at the top of the Nordfjord. One of the key objectives of this whole trip, and one of its initial inspirations, has been achieved. But more about the day of Olden in Olden, first lets go back to the beginning of the day.

Breakfast

I woke up at 4.15am and completed the blog post about last Monday. I then loaded up our Tuesday photos to Flickr.

At 5.15am Drew awoke and I made us a cup of tea each - there is a kettle in the room, but we had to ask for cups at reception yesterday and are using our own stash of teas, the stash from previous hotels where we have not used all we had and had taken them 'just in case', well this is the just in case!

I did my ablutions in the slightly limited facilities - there is nowhere for the shower gel in the shower and I can't shower one handed, I need both to reach all the parts, so it was a bit of a poser, but I managed in the end. The hotel seems to have all the functional elements, but you sense that they might have been more in keeping with the 60s than the 2020s. 

Drew did his ablutions and we went down for breakfast. Even at 7.05am we were the first to arrive and they opened the doors for us.

Drew had a fight with the coffee machine and needed the chef's help to get any drink in his cup! I started by having yoghurt, but as there was less fruit and nuts to go with it than there has been elsewhere, I had some dried apricots and prunes. I'm sure they were great for my digestion.

When I went to look for the next course I spotted, among the other cooked items, rather than among the cereals, cooked oatmeal i.e. porridge, so I decided to try it as it had a strange colour and texture - also its consistency is such that you needed to slice it not scoop it up. But it turned out that the flavour was excellent, enhanced with a dusting of cinnamon, which explains the colour.  

My third course was herring three ways, all of them delicious. One in sour cream, one in tomatoes and the more common on pickled with red peppers (called sild i paprika in Norwegian)

For my fourth course I went for the cooked meats and cheeses, finally biting the bullet and tasting the famous Brunost, Norwegian Brown cheese. While it was not offensive, it is a challenge for me to cope with sweet cheese, the texture and taste seemed to contradict each other. I could compare it to a sweetened plain sliced cheese with a very processed texture, but it is so long since I've eaten that type of cheese I can’t be confident about the memory. Still the peppered ham, peppered mackerel, Jarlsberg and Norvigia were all good, so any ill effects from the Brunost wasn't noticed.

 

Drew stuck with his mix of fried items.

finding that the mix of boiled potatoes and bacon, they offer here is just to his taste. As he put it 'anything Olden does is alright with me!' 😂

All the above was going on while the Mein Schiff 2 (My Ship 2) was sailing into the Fjord right beside us. Drew had predicted the arrival of this TUI vessel, targeted at their German clients. 

Drew has researched which vessels were in the Fjord during our stay. Though according to him, he and his name sake Fjord are one with each other, so he came to the knowledge by osmosis. 

Breakfast finished, we liberated some t-bags from the supply here, not to expend our own stash too quickly (we only have 44 left! - an archaeologist would have a fun time from them, as we have bags from February in London, March in Prague, April in Nerja as well as the ones we have been collecting in the first two Thon Hotels)! We went back to the room at 7.45am.

Wandering around Olden with Dr. Olden

[Co-pilot's note: To contextualise this, dear readers, it is probably best to imagine Moomin valley where I am Snufkin.] 

We left at 9am for our wander around Olden. We began by walking towards the village passing the Mein Schiff 2 again.

We came to the Co-op Market - one of the two supermarkets in the village. 

It had a large number of wooden sculptured Trolls plus a Viking all around it.

We went into the Co-op and noted the quantities of Olden Water

From the Co-op we passed Olden Outlet

Olden Bus Stop

and the Olden Brewery

There is also a place that calls itself the coldest and smallest beach in Norway. 

I note it has its own Google Maps site, so these photos will soon be added to it.

Next we come to iOlden - you've all heard of Asimov's I Robot, perhaps this is a version of that.

The village even warrants a sign outlining all it has to offer

After the excitement of two supermarkets and all the Olden signs, it is time for a coffee in the Yris Kafe.

We next went to the fascinating Olden Old Church, built in 1759 it is on the site of the original church in the district, which for centuries was a catholic church, the current church was built when the previous one burnt down.

From there we walked up the valley along the river

which had washed away the end of the walkway built across it, so it now leads into water.

This brought us to the Olden New Church, with some interesting art, and an advert on the Organ for the organist who will play for wedding and funerals!

Leaving the Olden New Church we strolled along and across the river, giving Drew chance to play (and lose) Pooh Sticks - the river was to fast for him.

We went back to the hotel at 1.30 pm after a fun gentle day of exploring the locale with such a familiar name. 

We have a panic on out return to the hotel as my PC says 'unrecognised item in the USB port' about the camara. A day full of photos with no way of recovering them!! Having a computer scientist with you on holiday is normally helpful in this situation, but sadly nothing would get the camara to connect. [Co-Pilot's note: I told him, dear readers, to try turning it on and turning it off again - and if that didn't work to wiggle the cable a bit!] 

So we spend the afternoon reading, emailing and catching-up with other things and not, as planned, editing and uploading photos [Editor's note: By the following Monday this is resolved, but with 1182 photos to download. I've waited for them to complete this post!] while drinking into our tea stash.

We leave the room at 6.30pm. with the postcards we had bought earlier ready to post in the postbox outside the Co-op. Here is our evidence of posting. 

We arrive at Yris Kafe at 7pm for dinner.

I begin with Buffalo wings med barbecuesaus (Buffalo wings in barbeque sauce) evidently Buffalo Wings - named for Buffalo, New York, not the animal - is a multilingual indicator and also a prompt for us of the buffalo-bisen joke. They were juicy and meaty wings with a sharp, tangy sauce.

Drew opted for a Vanlig Storfekjøttburger (regular beef burger) for his starter. It was simple but perfectly done. 

For mains I had a Rødspette med pommes frites og salat - Breaded Plaice with chips and salad. The plaice was covered in crisp breadcrumbs, but it was the flavour of the plaice that came through - a nice surprise once I'd used Google Translate to read the menu!

Drew had Pizza Pepperoni med pommes frites, Pizza Pepperoni (this also is multilingual) with what they call Pomme Frites here and we call chips. Yes, Drew has his first, and not his last, Pizza of the holiday. The Pizza was bigger than Drew expected, normally when people say a pizza is for two to three people he translates it as 'fine for Drew' but the measuring scale is different here.

We had Olden Water and Coke Zero to drink and finished the meal off with a Caffe Latter and Espresso.

Meal completed we returned to the hotel at 9pm. 

I was wondering why I'd felt somewhat tired this afternoon (apart from the camara crises) when I'd done so little. A quick check of Drew's Garmin connect indicated that we have walked 19,800 steps today, that's 14.9Km or for people my age - 9.26 miles. It rather puts my morning 5 miles at home into perspective!!