Post hike plums
Tuesday, August 16th: Nordberg, Norway > Geiranger, Norway
We were up too late the night before and didn’t spring out of bed until 10:55 AM, five minutes before check out. We gathered our things and continued our drive to Geiranger.
We stopped at several scenic viewpoints along the way, including the overlook of Geiranger where suddenly a hop on hop off tour bus arrived. We saw the cruise ship below and the small city flooded with tourists, most of which forgot how to walk on the shoulder of the road to let cars pass by.
We checked into the campground and picked from one of two tent spots. The couple that ran the campground was very friendly and had a lot of house rules to ensure the facilities were kept tidy. We met their miniature collie named after a Swedish princess - she was the real boss of the place, and she knew it.
It was getting a bit late in the day, but we were still eager to hike to the Skagefla farm. Like many other hikes in Norway, there were a few different options to reach the trail: from Geiranger, by boat to Skagehola, from Homlung. We didn’t think it would be too difficult of a hike and were leaning toward hiking out and back from the campground, but the owners offered us a ride to the base of the mountain by boat for 600 NOK, so we took them up on it. It ultimately saved us quite a bit of time (and our fatigued legs), and the ride was beautiful with views of several waterfalls. The collie joined us with her very own life jacket.
The trail took us straight up the mountainside, which was the original route the farmers used pre-1900s when it was in operation. It was incredibly steep, but only 0.7 KM to the farm. There were three main buildings at the top - everything was boarded up, but we peeked into the windows and saw what living conditions were like back then. It was hard to imagine maintaining a farm so high up the mountain, but it was well protected from avalanches and supposedly a good way to evade the tax man by raising up the ladder when before he arrived with no other way to climb up.
We thought the trail back to camp was going to be mostly downhill. We were wrong. We had to keep climbing up the mountain before it eventually flattened out and then took us down a steep descent. Along the way we found wild blueberries and ate enough for our tongues to turn purple. As we neared the campground, we somehow lost the trail, cut through the tall grass and reached a plum tree in the far end of the campground. They were small, but perfectly ripe and juicy, and we ate them like cherries.
We grabbed dinner supplies in town and picked up a pack of sliced brown cheese - a Norwegian staple and fantastic on our cardboard looking flatbread crackers.
Campground: Solhaug Campground
