Are You Paddling? August 26, 2006

We were up before 6AM getting ready to catch the 7:58 train and move on to our next stop, Voss. Voss is a small town just east of Bergen situated on a spine of mountains between Sognefjorden and the Hardangerfjord. Its main livelihood seems to be tourism and it is the jumping off place for adventures to both fjord regions.

Nordic Ventures offers kayaking, parasailing, paragliding and something they call parabungy. If I understood it correctly, they pull you up as if you’re parasailing and then you leap, I did say leap, off of the specially made platform to be rescued from the jaws of death by your bungy cord. I’m almost sure that I read one time that parasailing had a very high rate of spinal injuries. These guys just moved it to the next level. The guys at the kayaking center were competent and friendly (must be the crazy cousin that runs the parabungy thing) and we were soon kitted up and heading for the Naeroyfjord for a day of sea kayaking.

The first thing you will notice when you get to the head of the Naeroyfjord is the extremely steep and high walls of this fjord coupled with the relative narrow width make for a most dramatic scene. It is also on the UNESCO World Heritage List as one of the wildest and most prominent fjord landscapes in the world. I hate to keep saying this but please look at the pictures as I won’t even try to describe the scene. http;//community.webshots.com/user/davishongkong . Holly and I got a double kayak with me in the aft cockpit. The aft cockpit is where the pedals that control the rudder are located and being a guy I like the control. The other advantage to the rear seat was it was out of Holly view and allowed me to “coast” while the forward propulsion system, Holly, continued to supply power. Her cries of “are you paddling” echoed off the walls of the fjord. We stopped after 3 or 4 hours while Roscoe our guide from New Zealand built a fire and grilled pork chops and kielbasas which he served with a hot pasta salad. We asked Roscoe what he was doing in Norway. He told us that he guides in New Zealand during their summer and then comes here while its winter down there. Why Norway, “Because I wouldn’t go to a place that is not as beautiful as NZ”. Just as we finished lunch the first of several brief sun showers moved over us. The day was mostly beautiful with the showers passing quickly. We repacked the kayaks and pushed off, heading back for our starting point. The fjord was almost like glass with just a few ripples from a light breeze disrupting the mirror like surface. The calm was disrupted only by the passing of the coastal ferries that frequent this fjord with their trips to and from Gudvangen and offered a little excitement as we power paddled through the roller coaster wake. Before we knew it and before we wanted we were back at the small beach where we had launched our boats 6 hours before. With everyone pitching in we had the van loaded and were on our way back to Voss within thirty minutes.

Back in Voss, Roscoe dropped us at our accommodations for the night the Voss Vandrerhjem. This a hostel which is a first for us although we have a private room as opposed to dorm sleeping which hostels are known for. The room is Spartan but adequate with two single beds and two bunk style beds set perpendicular to the floor units, a bathroom and a row of six vertical cubbies that give each guest a personal place for their belongings. The Vandrerhjem has internet, a small food service area with a limited menu, a breakfast buffet and (thank you Norse gods) laundry facilities. We will utilize the latter before we leave on Monday. (Just so you understand our fixation with all things laundry, Scandinavia does not have laundr-o-mats (or at least very many) so if you’re traveling you look for these amenities in places you stay. As I have lamented in the past the option is doing it by hand.)