Day 1 - Lindesnes Fyr to Vigeland

And so it begins. Monday 3rd January 2022. We said a fond farewell to the marvellous Trond, who has looked after us so well and who we won’t see for about 45 days when he joins us for the second half of the trip.

We set off from Lindesnes Fyr (lighthouse) rather late this morning at 11.30am for Vigeland 27km away (17.5miles). Stage 1 of 90 on our way to Nordkapp.

Outside the lighthouse at Lindesnes. Norways southernmost point.

Note the distance to Nordkapp. I don’t know why we are smiling.

The first 4 days of this trip are by road. As you can see, there is no snow and the summer route over the hills this one big big/marsh. So, 27km on tarmac it is.

The view out to sea from the lighthouse

Some amazing views as we walked parallel to the sea for most of the day.

Not such an amazing view but we are still smiling

Our rather late start meant that we were going to have to walk along the roads in the dark. The garage (coffee and cake stop) at Høllen , Lindesnes had no fluorescent vests to sell, but the lovely lady there gave us a spare one from her car. This and our head torches made us much more visible. The car drivers we did meet were fortunately very good and gave us plenty of room.

Almost our last view of the sea before it got to dark to see the sea.

We arrived in Vigeland at 5.30pm having walked in the dark for well over an hour. I was pleased when David said he was pretty tired and his legs ached. When I eventually took off my rucksack I think every part of my. It’s aches. My plan to get fit for this trip was rather scuppered by breaking a rib 8 weeks ago.

In Vigeland we had been kindly offered a room above the florist shop Det grønne hjørnet. Thanks go out to Kirsten for that.

We dumped our rucksacks at the lovely apartment, complained about our aches and retired to a local pizza/kebab shop for food. I read out to David lots of the lovely comments we have had on Instagram and Facebook. We spent a bit more time complaining about our aches and pains and then did a quick limp round the supermarket for breakfast and lunch (£4 for a loaf of bread!!!!!!). Then back to the apartment.

In bed by 8.30. But not before we had complained about our aches and pains again. Did I mention that already?

Tune in for more tomorrow. If the aches and pains allow.