A First Taste of Norway
I guess most people think of the fjords when they consider this country. Why wouldn’t they? For people like you and me it might be Lofoten. Funny how the latter is part of the lexicon of landscape photography, while for the rest of the population it’s mostly unknown. Unless you’re Norwegian it is anyway. Ali and I are going on our first ever (and depending upon how it goes only ever) cruise next Spring. Destination Norwegian Fjords. We’ve been watching quite a few YouTube videos of course, to see what to expect while we’re there. It seemed pretty clear that for many of those among them who visited the northern archipelago, Lofoten was a place they’d never heard of until their cruises took them there. Many of them were gushing with praise for the islands after the time they spent there.
Similarly, I’d never heard of Norway’s first and original national park, the Rondane, until some time last year. I can’t even remember how the area first came to my attention, but once it did, the deed was done. Steve and I had been discussing the possibility of a Scandinavian road trip for some months, and while Lofoten was a bit too far from his home on the west coast of Sweden, perhaps this was an opportunity to explore a less familiar but equally dramatic area of the country next door. With no real idea as to exactly how fortuitous the timing would turn out to be, we agreed upon the third week of September. At first we flirted with the idea of a two centre trip to Norway, with a few days in the mountainous region between Bergen and Oslo, but it quickly became clear that we’d spend too much time in the car and too little of it behind the cameras. Either base would give us more than enough to photograph in the few days we had. So the Rondane it would be then. I booked my flights and began to do some research in the usual places. Pins were sunk into maps, mountain roads and trails examined as closely as possible, the handful of available YouTube videos watched and watched again, and messages were exchanged with increasing levels of anticipation as September came ever closer.
And one Tuesday morning, a little more than twelve hours after arriving at our rented cabin in the seemingly abandoned mountain village of Mysusaeter at the last hour of daylight, we ventured out on foot towards Ulafossen. Chalets stood empty after the end of the summer season in the mountains. There are plenty of them here, but no more than a handful had vehicles parked beside them by now, as if the entire place had been cast under an enchantment. A cool mist hung on the still air, unmoving, clinging to the trees and land as we stomped along the path. We weren’t sure exactly which path to take, but we knew roughly where to look, eventually squelching over a patch of wet ground through one of the sleeping properties at the edge of the birch forest as the sound of rushing water started to fill the silence with a growing crescendo. Into the trees we went, following the loudening rush to its source.
We couldn’t really have found a better spot from which to start. Ahead of us lay a spectacular series of tiers that crashed noisily and steeply through the colourful forest, long drops into shallow basins, the river chasing furiously down the mountainside and beyond us out of sight. This was my first taste of Norway, a waterfall that would surely draw huge numbers of visitors in any other place, yet here we were alone. We didn’t see another person in the two and a half hours we spent exploring Ulafossen, gradually making our way up to the bridge where the forest track crosses the river at the start of the Peer Gynt trail. This place barely makes the map here, which I suppose can only speak for Norway’s enormous wealth of natural beauty. And this was only the start of things. If the rest of our time in Norway was going to be anywhere near as good as this, then we were in for a very memorable adventure indeed.
A First Taste of Norway
I guess most people think of the fjords when they consider this country. Why wouldn’t they? For people like you and me it might be Lofoten. Funny how the latter is part of the lexicon of landscape photography, while for the rest of the population it’s mostly unknown. Unless you’re Norwegian it is anyway. Ali and I are going on our first ever (and depending upon how it goes only ever) cruise next Spring. Destination Norwegian Fjords. We’ve been watching quite a few YouTube videos of course, to see what to expect while we’re there. It seemed pretty clear that for many of those among them who visited the northern archipelago, Lofoten was a place they’d never heard of until their cruises took them there. Many of them were gushing with praise for the islands after the time they spent there.
Similarly, I’d never heard of Norway’s first and original national park, the Rondane, until some time last year. I can’t even remember how the area first came to my attention, but once it did, the deed was done. Steve and I had been discussing the possibility of a Scandinavian road trip for some months, and while Lofoten was a bit too far from his home on the west coast of Sweden, perhaps this was an opportunity to explore a less familiar but equally dramatic area of the country next door. With no real idea as to exactly how fortuitous the timing would turn out to be, we agreed upon the third week of September. At first we flirted with the idea of a two centre trip to Norway, with a few days in the mountainous region between Bergen and Oslo, but it quickly became clear that we’d spend too much time in the car and too little of it behind the cameras. Either base would give us more than enough to photograph in the few days we had. So the Rondane it would be then. I booked my flights and began to do some research in the usual places. Pins were sunk into maps, mountain roads and trails examined as closely as possible, the handful of available YouTube videos watched and watched again, and messages were exchanged with increasing levels of anticipation as September came ever closer.
And one Tuesday morning, a little more than twelve hours after arriving at our rented cabin in the seemingly abandoned mountain village of Mysusaeter at the last hour of daylight, we ventured out on foot towards Ulafossen. Chalets stood empty after the end of the summer season in the mountains. There are plenty of them here, but no more than a handful had vehicles parked beside them by now, as if the entire place had been cast under an enchantment. A cool mist hung on the still air, unmoving, clinging to the trees and land as we stomped along the path. We weren’t sure exactly which path to take, but we knew roughly where to look, eventually squelching over a patch of wet ground through one of the sleeping properties at the edge of the birch forest as the sound of rushing water started to fill the silence with a growing crescendo. Into the trees we went, following the loudening rush to its source.
We couldn’t really have found a better spot from which to start. Ahead of us lay a spectacular series of tiers that crashed noisily and steeply through the colourful forest, long drops into shallow basins, the river chasing furiously down the mountainside and beyond us out of sight. This was my first taste of Norway, a waterfall that would surely draw huge numbers of visitors in any other place, yet here we were alone. We didn’t see another person in the two and a half hours we spent exploring Ulafossen, gradually making our way up to the bridge where the forest track crosses the river at the start of the Peer Gynt trail. This place barely makes the map here, which I suppose can only speak for Norway’s enormous wealth of natural beauty. And this was only the start of things. If the rest of our time in Norway was going to be anywhere near as good as this, then we were in for a very memorable adventure indeed.