13/06/08 - Another day another glacier.

We awoke to another beautiful day and Kerryn reckoned that last
night's riverside camp spot with our view of snow capped mountains was
1st equal with the 8th's, when we camped next to Nærøyfjorden.

We are still not enjoying the hot temperatures of a few days ago but
we all bravely dressed in t-shirts and after breakfast we drove the
300m to the start of today's walk through the Austerdals Valley. What
a pleasant walk it was. No scrambling over rocks or 1000m climbs, just
a gentle ramble sometimes over snow and streams.
The glacier itself was a "monster" according to Daniel, with two arms
coming down from the mountain and a massive 'river' of ice down into
the valley. Its evolutionary power was evident by the mountains of
gravel and boulders ground out of the surrounding hills. We'd not got
a glimpse of this monster until we were almost on top of it and we
quickly put on our longjohns and windbreakers to combat the sudden
chill that filled the air.
After a lunch of leftovers; pasta, potato salad and hotdogs
hmm...yummy, we set off for home for we had chores to do this
afternoon. Namely gas and grocery shopping in the big smoke of
Sogndal.

Driving on from Sogndal to Fjæland that Friday the 13th luck struck;
we got stung with our most expensive road toll yet, 175 kroner or
about £17.50! Road tolls and ferry charges are just what you have to
accept when touring Norway but most of the routes are so lovely that
these charges could almost be filed under tourist not van expenses
because aside from food and gas we aren't paying for much else.
At Fjæland we checked out the glacier museum as a possible excursion
for tomorrow and the Norwegian Book Town which has more than 250,000
second hand books in several different languages. Marea added an
overpriced copy of The Lovely Bones (in English) to Pat's library.
By now the good weather had deserted us and we have parked up beside
the very beautiful Fjælandsfjorden. Its raining outside but cosy
inside, and we munched on biscuits whilst watching episodes of Flight
of the Conchords on the laptop.