Descent

Our two groups parted ways this morning. Wolfgang, Romy and the children need to start south tomorrow whereas we (Nina and I) are headed towards a town called Flam in the hope of being able to find a base for exploring the area. So we said our goodbyes and then the VW van was off leaving Nina and I to slowly get ourselves organized for the days travel.

We were not on the road for very long before the descent from the tops began. Many hairpins turns, and some exceedingly narrow sections of road later we finally emerged into the village of Fortun. Thereafter the road followed alongside a river to the town of Skjolden at the head of Lastrafjorden. Along this section of road we learned that the Norwegians have developed a high degree of cooperation when traveling these roads. Generally the roadway was only wide enough for one vehicle, but with frequent but irregularly spaced wider sections. So at every meeting with an oncoming vehicle one of the vehicles must find one of the wider sections and wait there for the other vehicle to pass. We deduced at the days end that being big and yellow allowed others to see us easily and encouraged them not to try and squeeze past.

We spent an hour or so walking around the down town area of Sogndal, one of the larger towns on the days travel. Another of the many picture postcard villages we have seen in recent days. Interestingly almost all the shops were closed. I guess Saturday trading is not a feature of Norwegian village life.

Post script - drying clothes

When we took the cloths off the improvised cloths line this morning it was difficult to tell if they were dry but cold or still wet. However a few hours in the warmth of the camper revealed that most were dry.