Day 4 - Marnardal to…

Jan 6

…a road junction in the middle of nowhere.
It was another long day today and daylight hours are short. We started out from the rafting centre,. Adventure Norway where Ewen had been looking after us at 8.20am, shortly after dawn. We arrived at a road junction some 21 miles (33km) further north at 5.30pm. More than an hour was in the dark.
Here are a few highlights of the day…

We foolishly weighed our rucksacks at Ewen’s place. Mine is the heaviest (I am not happy about this) at 13.5kg. They feel like 18kg which is worrying because when we pick up our skis and food supplies for 6 days at Ljosland we will be adding around 7kg to this weight. My thoughts on this fact are unprintable but begin with a “*#%#!”

The day was beautiful, but cold. The temperature when we set out was minus 15 degrees c. By the end if the day it had reached a positively balmy minus 10. This Mother Nature lots of opportunities to show off.

*David had just tried to thaw out a very small section of this view.*

We stopped for a snack break and found a possible new source of travel, which I briefly borrowed.

I failed to convince David that this should be my new mode of transport. All he had to do was pull, but no, he was having none of it.

5 km down the road we met up with Ewen for the final time. He even treated us to coffee with some friends of his.

*Rumour has it that Ewen and Billy Connolly have never been seen in the same room together.*

It was lovely seeing the water in all its winter forms as we passed. Some, slow moving lakes had already frozen and were covered in ice and snow. Some faster moving water where the black liquid was slowly congealing into solidity.

*A lake slowly freezes as the sun makes a brief appearance above the horizon.*

Well after dark David and I finally made it to our rendezvous point with the van from the Eikerapen Alpinsenter (ski centre) where we have rented a cabin for the night.