Taz keeps an ear out for tall trekking tales

Saturday 31st July - Evje (pronounced "Evian"!!)

OOO its good to have wifi back.

Done a few kilometres on foot, bike and in the van since the last post and some of them were very painful! Near Stavanger in Southwest Norway there is a rock called Preikestolen (Pulpits Rock) that sticks out over a fjord and it is 600 metres above sea level. Its less than 5km each way but because of the climb it takes about 4 hours for a round trip. And unfortunately it was the one thing in Norway David wanted to do.

It didn’t start well. We’d checked into a camp near the start of the climb but it cost a bomb and was very crowded. We didn’t sleep well because it rained heavily in the night and we worried that the van would be bogged down and even if it wasn’t we would miss the view after the climb because of cloud. Crack of dawn (well 7.30) I trotted to the showers to try and beat the queue – didn’t work. Did feel rather self conscious in my white towelling robe (IKEA) with my little pink ….o dear can’t remember the name, but the scrubby thing I wash with, everyone else was in their hiking, cycling, being generally active gear. In the meantime David picked up the loaf of bread we'd ordered, £4. But from there on it picked up. We managed to negotiate our way out of camp without any knocks and made our way to the walk.

Walk? Well there might have been little kids, someone going up in flip-flops and a man carrying his dog, but that was no mere walk! It was an introduction to mountaineering. But well worth it even tho neither of us could manage to look over the edge and David had to lie down, hold his camera over the edge and blindly snap away! Lots to look at on the rock anyway. Like: Spot the Italians - the ones putting on suncream, Spot the "I like to travel light" couple in their 70s who had climbed up in all in one ski-ing/climbing/ fixing the radiator suits and stripped to their waists when it got too hot (black lacy bra on the woman), Spot the British couple with their thermos of tea and packed lunch (well you have to keep up the tea levels, don't you?).

Free entertainment last night. Just started cooking tea when one of our Norwegian neighbours began his Friday night keyboard session blasted through his speakers to entertain the whole camp whether we wanted it or not. So we all rocked through various Norwegian tunes and the odd (very) Tom Jones number. Bizarre in a fun way.