Norwegian Meal Time!

Ok guys, Im very sorry for not having updated this blog in a long time, but I had to finish my last assignments for the university... yes, you heard and understood right, Im here for studying in the first place, so sometimes stuff needs to be done! :)

Nevertheless, I had some nice events and parties in the last few weeks, and of course Im very keen on sharing this stuff with you! We start with an introduction to international meal time here in Norway, but first I have to elaborate on how we got there:

Daniele, the Italian neighbour introduced me to the joy of wandering around through Norwegian forests, hunting for mushrooms, because the people here dont really make a habit out of it, so around mid-September to mid-October the forests are crawling with all kinds of different mushrooms. We saw almost everything, from poisonous, big as a fist Amanita species, to the awesome garden of Cantrell were we finally picked a lot of delicious Cantrells.

After washing and preparing them to be ready to eat, Daniele came over and delivered an AWESOME pasta with Cantrell sauce... and like an Italian chef, we were forced to watch and not interfere while he was cooking ;)

Enjoy the pics, and just add a LOT of amazing flavour :)


Here we have them... freshly picked Cantrells, bathing in salt water as first stage of the washing process

And thats how they look like while drying out on some kitchen paper...

Just look at how powerful the yellow color of their stems is! Now they are clean and dry, and ready for one night of fridge storing. Its important that they are covered!

Aaaaaaaaand action!! Daniele starting with the preparation; dissecting the shrooms into 4 parts with bare hands

Meanwhile, some butter, garlic and chili pepper are heating up in the frying pan

 

 The butter is molten, and now we can add the Cantrells into the pan!

A pinch of salt for those guys!

 Now some Creme Fraiche, to make it creamy and tasty!

 

Close up of the Cantrells, now ready with everything... as you can, there's some parsley to top it off!!!

Pasta and sauce cooking the last few minutes... soon it will be ready!

And here it is! Awesome Penne with spicy Cantrell creme sauce!

Stay tuned for some more updates during the next days... featuring parties, and a ferry trip to Denmark!!! See you soon....

Finally: Kjerag

Last Friday we finally did it: We conquered Kjerag! The weather report was promising, and so we decided to do a one day-trip, driving to Lysebotn and hiking to the Kjeragbolten as well as coming back from there to Kristiansand in a 10 hour-period. We started early in the morning, departing from Kristiansand at 7:00 am and we came back around 19:00 pm, resulting in total 12 hours, consisting of 6 hours driving and roughly 6 hours hiking and fooling around on the Kjerag ;)

Before advancing to the pictures, I have to state that this trip and the Kjerag area in general was the most intense experience I have made here in Norway until now. You are confronted with some breathtaking and simply awesome views, and it really feels like something to stand on the Kjeragbolten at the end of the tour, peeping down 1000 m to the fjord... I heartily recommend this to everyone that visits Norway, it is one of the most rewarding things you can do here!!!

Now, for the pictures:


Around 11 am, we arrive at the parking lot where the hike starts... weather conditions more than perfect!

Nice landscape shot with the visitor centre at the edge of the cliff, above Lysebotn, the small village underneath

Starting our ascent... in total, there are 3 ascents and 2 valleys you have to pass until you arrive at Kjeragbolten

A view back... notice the distance to the visitor centre !!

Pausing to catch our breath after the first ascent...

The group in motion!

The first valley... marshlands

The chains are put up sometimes to help hikers climb the rocky surfaces

A nice view of the first valley and the surreal landscape it offers

Climbing up the second ascent... a view towards the other side of the fjord

One of my favourite pictures... a little cairn in front of colossal landscape

Another surreal area... in general, you feel kind of strange while hiking on top of the fjords, because it is so different to habitated areas...

Pretty high up already... the little village one can see in between the mountains is Lysebotn, at the end of Lysefjord

Seems like the best place for an amateur self-portrait!!

First panorama shot trying to catch the atmosphere up there...

Meeting the girls... it was really funny, another group of international students from Kristiansand was there on the same day we went, and we met them here, halfway through the hike

Snow-covered tops in the distance....

Second panorama shot... the last one was looking back to the valley, this one is looking at the other side of the fjord

Nice atmospheric picture... one of the biggest cairns I've ever seen, and also a Wikipedia-celebrity ;)

There it is! Kjeragbolten from afar

One of the many wonders of nature...

It's a pretty long way down...

...but it features an amazing view into one part of the fjord

Now for some action... first posing on the Kjeragbolten

And the obligatory hero pose...

After stressful seconds on the stone, what about relaxing on the edge of the cliff rather?! XD

Another shot of the stone alone

And here we have some artistic fooling, Adventure Time-style... applause for Christian and Esperanza!

I close this post with an amazing view over the Lysefjord... this is not at the Kjeragbolten-site, but a short hike away, on an even higher plateau that offers fantastic distance view...

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAND, for those of you who prefer moving pictures, I made a video at Kjeragbolten, too. Enjoy (needless to say, I recommend watching in HD):

See you soon, folks!!!

Hiking Trip 6

After leaving Stavanger, we went to our next hut, lying at Frafjord. The landscape and surroundings there were pretty idyllic, and the best thing was the hut came with a boat, as the Frafjord was just right in front of the huts... when walking out to the "garden", you could already jump into the water, if the temperatures would have been a bit higher. As the engine for the boat would have been an additional 150 NOK though, we just rowed out to the fjord to try our luck fishing. Check out the pictures:

Frafjord Hut

First a little walk around the hut... kitchen

Living room featuring tv and the stairs to the first floor...

 My bed in one of the shared rooms :)

View out of the front window/first floor

View out of the back window... right into the fjord

The hut from outside... cute, isnt it?

The "adventure trail" to the right of the hut

Amazing landscape and finally some rays of sunshine!

Sunshine over Frafjord :)

This was shot from the "adventure trail" around the rocks... those are the huts as viewed from the fjord..

And here some detail of the said trail! Amazing how people trust this wooden construction ;)

Adventure Time #4: Crossing a rocky gap with the help of a rope, without knowing where it is fixed

And... fishing time! Rowing into the open water

Trying to catch some fish... first time I ever used a fishing rod.. and I have to say it was great. I had a really nice time out on the boat!

Rowing back kajak-style!!! Fast and useful, especially facing the coming nightfall and bad weather

Some really nice German in the hut!

And this was shot just after waking up the next morning... is there any better view after scrubbing sleep out of your eyes?!

The sun goes up over Frafjord...

We soon departed from this very nice place to go to our last target on the hiking list: the almighty Kjerag... it is located right on the other side of the Lysefjord (in comparison to Preikestolen), and is around 1000 m high. It also features the infamous Kjeragbolten, a big piece of rock stuffed in a gap between two rock walls, a very popular photo location. Unfortunately, we were confronted with some problems on the way there already, see for yourself...

Crushed by Kjerag

This was what we drove into, exact date 20th of September... snow. Real, thick and everywhere!!!

We even had to pass this guy to continue on our way to Kjerag. This is by the way at around 800 - 900 m height...

Luckily, I could still make some good pictures out of the car... we were simply stunned!

Check out the view out the windshield... and thank god Elena drove through the pretty dangerous twists and turns of this road just careful and slowly :)

Arrival at Kjerag "base camp"... this is already around 900 m

Looking down from the platform towards Lysebotn, the town on sea level...

And this is one of the most famous and sick roads here in Norway... I think it consists of 35 or 36 hairpins like that...

So, adventure-hungry as we were (at least the guys) we decided to give Kjerag a shot anyway. Chances where that it would not be snowing the whole day, so we started our ascent... after the first hill, we looked into a landscape like this:

...and decided, after a short discussion, to go back. It would be too dangerous to climb over this snow-covered rocks, plus the chance that it would be getting dark when starting the descent and then we would not be able to see shit...

Kjerag of course laughed at us when we turned back... and the sun joined him in his laughter. The sarcastic bastards!!!

Going down from Kjerag in a bitter mood... the surrounding landscape in stark contrast

I think this is a nice shot, still...

And now, for some final impressions of the way back. All following pictures were shot from the car and are listed in a chronological order, so that you can follow the landscape and weather changes, and see the brutal contrasts for yourself... before that, I'd like to thank the 7 other participants of this trip, my fellow companions: Elena, Lisa, Celine, Allison, Nico, Basti, Christian - you are an awesome bunch of people!!!! :)

Had to snap this... it's a short way to the god's hall here...

So this was the conclusion of our one-week trip. It was an awesome and unforgettable experience, and I will gladly come back here in my free time to have some kick-ass adventure holidays! By the way: The weather got a bit better during the last few weeks, and it will be some time until they close the road to Kjerag for the winter because of too strong snowfall - so we will try to go there and conquer it just at the end of this week! Im already getting very excited, and hopefully can provide you with some terrific pictures by this weekend! Have fun, and stay tuned for more!!!