Advertisement
Published: June 26th 2017
Olden is a small town that lies about 65 miles at the very end of Norway's majestic Nordfjord.
Although today was an early start for us, by the time we awoke, the Grand Princess had already berthed alongside the quay in Olden. I am surprised that the draft so near the shore is deep enough to accommodate a cruise ship but I was reliably informed that the bed of the fjord drops away steeply, which makes sense when you think about it as the fjords can be as deep as the mountains are high so the depth is probably just a continuation of the mountain above.
We had booked on our one and only tour for this trip, an excursion to a glacier so we had to meet in the Princess theatre at 8:15am. There are 2 tours to the Briksdal glacier today. The second one starts at 1:30pm. The tour lasts about 4 hours. We decided to choose the early tour because once you arrive back at the ship, the rest of the day is yours to do as you please. However, if we were booked on the afternoon tour, the morning on the ship would just feel
like we're hanging around!!!
Tour guides can be hit or miss. Fortunately our tour guide was a hit as she was born just down the road. Mind you, just down the road in this part of the world could mean on the next but one mountain! She was very chatty and knowledgeable. She pointed out the farm where she was born, once run by her father and now maintained by her brother. He has four girls and none of them want to take over the reigns when he has gone. They're all moved out to the big city. I could almost detect a trace of sadness in her voice. The phrase that stuck in my mind was that the Briksdal Glacier on one of 8 most
seeing-worth glaciers in Norway!!! The coach took about 45 minutes to reach the visitors centre at Briksdal stopping just once to take some photos across Lake Lovattnet. We were so fortunate that the skies were so clear making for some breath-taking imagery.
From the visitors centre the path to the glacier is about 3km (1.8 miles). There are buggies known as troll carts that would take you most of the way
but as the brochure listed this trek as a '
refreshing mountain hike' we decided to head off straight away. There are 3 symbols next to all excursions. The first is a man walking on the flat. This is self-explanatory. The second symbol is a man with 1 foot on the flat and one foot on the bottom of a flight of stairs. This was our symbol and was labelled as
‘more strenuous activity with walking longer distances and some climbing of stairs.' The third symbol was the same as the second but the man is holding a stick. The legend states that this is ‘the most strenuous activity and participants must be physically fit.'
So, one of two things occurred to us at this point. Either they had gotten the labelling wrong or we weren't as fit as we thought!!
We'd been walking for about 15 minutes and thought we'd cracked it as the path flattened out leading to a bridge that crossed a waterfall. Roisin looked up.
‘Oh no!. Have you seen that!?! She exclaimed.
What is it with Norwegians and wiggly roads?? I thought Lombard Street in San Francisco was bad enough.
Ahead of us was a wiggly-wobbly path that snaked upwards and looked slightly on the steep side. Roisin made it to the first bend before she admitted defeat. I would have been happy to escort her back down from whence we came but it was no good. She insisted that I carried on. Rather than try to encourage and convince her to carry on, my will power was instructing my brain to convince Roisin that I should see her safely off the mountain. She wouldn't hear of it so as they say, an army marches on it's belly. This wasn't far off how I felt but I persevered and headed off in to the distance.
With my lungs feeling like they were on fire, I made it to ‘the flat bit'!! 50 metres further on, the trees cleared and then there it was. My first glimpse of a real glacier. Or the end of it!! This particular glacier stretches for 100km and is 35km wide at the widest point. This is only a fraction of its size but, although there was still some distance for me to cover, one could immediately sense its enormity.
I finally arrived at
the terminus for the troll carts where one can find a refreshment stand and bathrooms. I knew from the guide's instructions that I still had about 10 minutes of climbing so without a moment's thought continued my ascent.
I stopped near a huge rock formation to take a few photos. One particular ‘giant' must have been at least 50 foot in diameter,15 foot high and just as wide. As I was admiring the view, I was approached by a local guide who advised me that these monoliths were rocks that had fallen away from the mountain several years ago. The energy and force that this landslide caused must have been tremendous.
I arrived at the foot of the glacier that seemed to taper in to a lake. The size of this sheet and ice packed together over 1000s of millennia doesn't become apparent until you compare the human figures in the distance.
I made sure I took lots of photos to show Roisin. That wasn't necessary. As I turned to start the descent back down, a familiar figure appeared behind a group of Japanese tourists.
"Did you cadge a lift with these people?" I asked her.
“No, I walked up. I just took my time. This is something I've longed to see and I wasn't going to let a few steep paths stand in my way. It was well worth it but I bet I'll be crippled tomorrow”. “I bet you won't”. I replied
“Bet I will”, she retorted.
“you won't”, I said.
“Will too!”, came the reply
I left it at that because I was only too happy that she made the journey and we could share in it's marvel…. but I bet she won't!!!
We have uncovered the mystery of the stones! When a traveller arrives at a place of immense beauty or importance they lay a stone nearby. The next person to arrive at the same spot should place a stone on top of the previous one and so on. It's a tradition that is traced back to the Vikings when the tribes wanted to alert each other that the pillaging is crap but it's a nice view!!!
On the way down we passed many troll carts carrying Japanese tourists. Most of them were wearing these masks across their mouths and noses. A few of
us on the way down all looked at each other and were thinking the same. They are probably breathing the clearest air in the world right now but don't want to be seen taking any chances. I may be doing them an injustice of course because it could just be a convention of surgeons on a day out!!!
When we arrived back at the visitor centre we headed straight for our free coffee and cakes before getting on the coach for the trip back to the Grand Princess.
Looking at the cost of this trip and the experiences of other passengers who had booked on trips that were either more expensive and a longer duration, we both felt that this trip to the Briksdal glacier offered the best value for money.
We decided not to eat in the restaurant this evening as there was plenty of activity that we didn't want to miss out on.
The trivia at 8:30pm is ‘where in the world'. 3 clues are provided for each location. 5 points if you get the answer after the first clue, 3 points after the second clue and 1 point after the third. We won
our second bottle of champagne of the trip. Not only did we win but we blitzed the opposition with a score of 42 out of 55. The next best score was 29.
After the quiz, the entertainments people had arranged a hoe down. There seems to be a lot of stereotyping on this voyage because a few days ago they had organised a British pub lunch. Does this mean that everyone thinks that all Americans are cowboys and all the Brits are piss heads!!! (one of these statements MAY be true!!)
We didn't stay for the hoedown although Roisin dressed in her checked shirt and jeans could have been mistaken for Ellie Mae.
We had planned on watching a film on the big outside screen but it has started raining so Reds, with Bruce Willis and John Malchovich would have to wait. Instead we headed for the Princess Theatre to watch the act billed as comedy, vocal impressionist Gary T Thompson. He was starting to remind me of Brian Connelly. Funny in small doses! However, everyone else seems to think he's got what it takes. He does an impression of Gene Pitney singing a duet with Norman
Wisdom. If my memory serves me right, most impressionists stopped doing Norman Wisdom in the early 1980s!!! Perhaps that was the joke, he was being ironically retro??
Advertisement
Tot: 0.352s; Tpl: 0.017s; cc: 13; qc: 50; dbt: 0.0885s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.3mb
Dave B
non-member comment
What are the locals like? Fit and blonde? Women I meant!