Day 2 - Vigeland to Marnardal

David and I left Vigeland just before 9am. Still dark. It had snowed in the night, then rained, then froze. The roads and pavements were like one big skating rink. Shortly out of Vigeland we decided to don our new “snow spikes.” A rubber sort of slipper that goes over the boot and has a few highly effective steel spikes. Walking suddenly becomes normal again.

David sporting his new snow spikes. You can tell they work because he hasn’t fallen over.

Once again all of todays walk is along roads. The main road out of Vigeland is not too busy and finally we turn off on a minor road to go over a pass. The sunshine and showers of the day turn to snow and we are soon trudging uphill on a snowy road. “Couldn’t you ski?” I hear you ask. No, the gravel road just below the surface of the snow would destroy the skins on the skis. We don’t meet up with our skis again for another 3 days.

Lunch stop at the side of the track

Shortly after lunch we saw a local exercising his Malemute dogs the easy way.

The sun came and went. When it was out it was stunning.

We did about 6 miles on this lovely road, past lakes and beautiful houses, before returning to the spot along the main road into Marnardal at 4.10pm having walked 17.3 miles (27km) and ascended 1,250ft. I must admit that I was utterly knackered.

Here we were picked up by the marvellous Ewen of Adventure Norway. Who took us back to his place and fed us a delicious spaghetti bolognese made from (shut your ears vegetarians) Elk (‘moose’ to all you Canadians and Americans).

Off to bed very soon. Tune in tomorrow to see if I manage to get out of bed.