Norway in Spring 2011 (Part 4, Alesund, Alnes, Stryn)

30 May 2011, Alesund and Surrounding Islands (Alnes)

Alesund was one of the location we stayed for 2 nights. In the morning, the skies were blue and the sun was shining bright. In less than 10mins, the weather changed as thick rain clouds came over our campsite. There wasn’t much places to cover today so we decided to take it slow. In the end we stayed in our cozy cabin watching TV and replying to emails until 10am before driving out to do some town exploration.

Sunny sunny

Raining raining, but rainbow in sight

 We stumbled upon the bus terminal 15mins drive away from where we stayed, which has a few shopping malls and each comes with big supermarket chains like ICA, COOP, Kiwis and Rema 1000. A good place to stock up on groceries especially for people like us who prefer to cook dinner in our cabin. For lunch today, we had McDonalds for the 1st time in Norway. It was the most costly McDonalds we had in the world. It cost about 80NOK for a fillet-o-fish which goes about SGD $18 per meal. With this amount of money, we can actually prepared for ourselves for sumptuous meal with all this amount.

At the MOA shopping area

Expensive Mac for lunch considering exchange rate

Shops in the shopping mall.

We did some shopping and wife got a fair bit of nice clothing from H&M. The price was reasonable and surprisingly affordable. Ever since we were in Norway, we have been visiting almost every H&M shop we saw. As my wife said, finally we had some taste of civilization again after all the nature visits and challenging snow summits. We left the MOA shopping district and drove up to the Aksla viewpoint up on the hills overlooking the Alseund town centre. The road was through some residential areas, and when we approached the top of the hill, the road was very narrow, allowing one vehnicle to drive through at a time.

A wind vane at the top of Aksla hill

Town centre of Alesund (seen from hills of Aksla)

Alesund Town center

From the hills of Aksla, we drove under the sea through the long undersea tunnels along route 658 to Valderoya, then again another tunnel to Giske, and finally another tunnel to the Godoya island where the small little village of Alnes is. In the village of Alnes, the the road is just a single lane one way road, so you will have to give way to on-coming traffic or vice versa. There is an Alnes Lighthouse built in 1876 which is opened to tourists for a small fee. The small village is very quiet and very few tourists will come here, esp tour group.

Near the Alnes Lighthouse by the sea.

The Alnes Lighthouse (1876)

The road from the Alnes, leads back to the small village centre where a school is operating. Guess it was break time and only a few children were playing behind the fence in the school compound. There are many nicely coloured seahouse by the sea. Under good weather and bright sunlight, the colour of these seahouses give a good contrast for photo taking.

Seahouses at Alnes

Seahouses at Alnes

Seahouses at Alnes

 We took a slow drive back to the town of Alesund. Since the weather was great, we headed back into the town centre to explore around and take more pictures.

Street view of Alesund

Another street view of Alesund

Boat at the inner habour

While we were walking around town, we realised some old buildings from the outside was actually a shopping mall on the inside with restaurants and supermarkets located in the basements. As it was a small shopping mall, it could be easily hidden away from the old facade look of the building. After a last walkaround in the mall, we drove back to our campsite, wrapping our trip to Alesund.

Back at our Cabin at Prinsen Strandcamping

Dinner prepared.

31 May, Getting to the Jostedalsbreen National Park

Today we left Alesund from the Prinsen Camping to head over to the Jostedalsbreen (Jostedal Glacier) National park. The accommodation for the night would be at the Sande Camping at Loen. A little village just to the south of the town of Stryn. It was raining in the morning when we woke up. We made some hotdogs for snacks along the way. We loaded our bags again as usual into the car and bid farewell to the seaside campsite. Before we went on the highway, we made a stop at the Mcdonalds at Moa to check emails with their free Wi-Fi. The one that we paid for at the campsite was quite bad. Mcdonalds did not serve breakfast like in Singapore. Maybe the crowd wasn’t enough and I noticed the locals don’t really fancy McDonalds. Maybe they have a better customer market in the cities. From Moa, we took the route 60 all the to the ferry crossing at Magerholm. We were just in time for the ferry and straight away drove up the ramp and onto the ferry towards Orsneset.

Ferry just left at Magerholm

Parked vehicles on the lower deck

This was a short crossing of just 24mins. Once we reached the shores of Orsneset, we continued on route 60 all the way to Stranda. From google map, there is a road that is a short cut to continue on route 60, but we wanted to see the little town and route all the way to Stranda. Nothing much of interest and no cafeteria and restaurants in site, so we just took the route 60 out of town and on the way towards Hellesylt. Hellesylt is one of the little ferry stop where travellers would board the ferry to Geiranger. This ferry trip will allow them to enjoy the scneary of the Geirangerfjorden. The famous S-shape fjord that winds its way to the deep cove of Geiranger. From the mountain road looking down at the Hellesylt ferry terminal, it is really a small place with a few houses. We took the tunnel cutting into the mountains on route 60 and reached the town of Grodas at 12 noon. This place is a popular stop over for tour buses as we came across a few tour busses park near the supermarket and pertrol station. Tourists from the bus were actually strolling along the lake side. I think it is a lake as it is not linked to the open sea. The lake is called Hornindalsvatnet. The lake was calm at that time and we could see the reflections in the water. Should be a good weather day, I bet we could see the mountains and skies in the water. 

A floating platform on the Grodas town's lake

A small garden area just in front of the town area.

After a 30mins break walking around the park, we hopped onto our car and continued on the same route 60 to the bigger town of Stryn. Stryn is a much bigger town than the rest that we came across for the day, there were 4 supermarkets all within walking distance. We bought some food to cook for dinner. Trying to get some grilled food, we explored through the 4 supermarkets, ending up buying some frozen pre-pack marinated chicken mid-joint wings. 

Driving into the town of Stryn

As part of today’s activity, we intend to visit the Briksdalsbreen (Briksdals glacier) which is located to the south of Olden. It took us another 20mins to reach Olden, and from here it was a drive on a narrow road deep into the valley all the way to the Briksdalsbre fjellstove. This place is actually a famous mountain lodge complete with souvineir shops and cafeteria serving food to bus loads of tourists all around the world. We parked our car for a fee (automated parking machine) before walking up to the cafeteria for our late lunch. The restaurant was packed with tourists from the tour buses, all there to see the Briksdal glacier. From the souvenir shop outside, it is a 3km walk uphill to the glacier terminal. Of course you can pay for the buggy ride that brings you up the hills and closest the dirt road can bring you. From there it is still a 15mins walk to see the glacier terminal.

Briksdalsbre Fjellstove Cafeteria

Chicken chop for lunch at the cafeteria

As the restaurant was was crowded, we had to wait about 30mins before our food arrived and it was 2:30pm. We took 30mins to finish our late lunch and a quick toilet break, we took on the trail to cover the 3km walk to the glacier terminal. It was a gradual climb of acceptable steepness up the hills. Along the way, there was a big waterfall and the water was pouring with great strengths, all because of the season when ice is melting and the waterfalls are most powerful. About 30mins of walking we came across sign boards telling us where the glacier terminal ‘s position back in 100 years ago and how the effects of global warming cause the glacier to retract.

Jostedalsbreen National Park

 

Position of glacier back in year 1800

Huge rocks can be seen around here, all the effects of the glacier power moving these huge rocks where they are hundreds of years ago. After an hour of walking, we reached the glacier terminal, in front of a small lake and the ice meets the water. The glacier was very narrow, but the ice above it was all in a big mess. Columns of ice jutting out giving us a feeling that some of them might collapse down onto the lake below. 

Briksdal Glacier

It was still raining lightly and after taking enough pictures, we headed back on the same dirt road we came. The walk to the glacier is free. It only cost you if you want to take the buggy instead of walking. The bus tourists all boarded the buggy. And those who walked all the way were mostly self-drive travellers like us. In a country like Norway, unlike New Zealand, it seemed we were the very small group of Asians who would drive around in Norway and visiting places like the locals and Europeans. As it was downhill, we took about 40mins to reach the carpark. That concluded our tour for the day and our next stop was the Sande Camping site which we had booked a night’s accommodation. 

On the way back. 2 huge rocks forming a shelter

Sande camping is located in the village of Loen. So we took the same route (and the only route ) to leave the valley and back to the little town of Olden. From Olden, it was a short drive to reach Loen and again we need to drive into the valley to our campsite. The road again was narrow allowing only a single vehnicle to pass. Around 6pm, we reached our accommodation which we booked a cabin with toilet and kitchen for 550 NOK.

Sande Camping reception

View from our cabin

We had a superb view of the lake but the weather was cloudy and still drizzling. We hoped the weather the next morning will be good as we would be going for a glacier walk on the Bodalsbreen (Bodal Glacier). The meeting place for the glacier is at our camping site. It is run by an adventure company called Briksdal Adventure and they have an office just beside the reception building. We cooked the mid-joint wings that we had bought and it tasted fabulous. Didn’t expect such frozen food would taste so nice. It was a good dinner meal with spaghetti and corn soup. 

Rainbow caused by the evening sun shining through a cloud opening

 

A good end of the day with such a sumptuous dinner, plus a rainbow outside our cabin. The evening sun finally managed to pierce through the clouds.


Let's move on to Part 5