What: Self Organised Hiking Trip-Spring
When: May 1st-May 4th, 2018
Where: Flekkeyfjord
This was a very nice week of mountain climbing, exploring forests, swimming and staying in a beautiful cabin by the water. There was about 6 of us which was an awesome zsize for what we were doing that week. Me and 3 others headed off Tuesday morning. It was about a 2 hour drive North West of Kristiansand. The views along the way were spectacular as usual. We arrived in Flekkefjord around 1pm as we took a few wrong turns on the way. We had a quick snack and set off the trail. There was many different trails but our goal was to end up at the DNT hut. There were many bumps along the way. First, we stopped at what thought was our hut but the key wouldn’t work, walked a few more kilometers, stopped at another hut that wasn’t ours until we finally reached the prettiest White House surrounded by amazing scenery. There was a stream that ran down the mountain in front of the house where we got fresh water from, mountains surrounding us and just all together a beautiful space. (ADD PIC) It was technically a DNT hut but it was far from a hut. It had 2 floors, could sleep up to 30 people, a very large kitchen with a stove, electricity, and two wood burning stoves. So with only 6 of us sharing this place, there was so much room for activities. *insert Step Brothers quote* In the evening we relaxed a bit but then headed out for a little exploring all together only doing about 8k that day.
The following day we woke up and after having a relaxing breakfast in our new home headed down a trail to the water where we hung out for a bit waiting for the other 2 to arrive. They came in around mid-day so we had lunch together then went on about a short 5k walk. We weren’t fast and explored along the way taking our time. There were also massive mountain stops surrounding us so we climbed a few to get to the peaks. We messed around a lot and before we knew it, it was dinner time so we all helped in making a huge tasty dinner. Although it was early in the month the sun was already starting to stay up longer so after dinner we explored our area some more. When the sun did begin to go down we started up the bonfire outside and had waffles and toasted marshmallows for desert.
On Thursday we were all very keen to do a longer hike and just be out all day since we were in such a beautiful place and were heading out on Friday. The night before we got the maps out and marked out a route we wanted to take where we would stop at some nice mountain peaks and then detour to get to a little lake and loop around. We got up early Thursday morning to have a quick breakfast, pack our day sacks with water and lunch and headed down the trail we had previously discussed. We didn’t have the best weather this week as it was cloudy and raining off and on throughout the days. It was hazy as we were going through the woods and then started to downpour on us. We didn’t think to bring our waterproofs so we all got quite wet. The path was very muddy at this time as well. We still stopped on the peaks which we were all glad we did at it was very pretty. Then we stopped at a lake side for lunch. We all decided just to head back a little early Incase the weather got worse and just hang out by our place. We did about 12k that day so better than nothing. We got back and the weather cleared to we hung outside reading, doing yoga and napping. Quite enjoyable.
Friday morning by 8am we were packed up and split in two groups since we parked the cars in different areas. I went with Maike and Jo where we ended up getting lost on top of the mountains in fog and a massive pour down of rain. No cell service and no maps (oops, sorry Len) We had to go all the way back down the moutains and on to a new track where we FINALLY met up with the others almost 2 hours later. They were by our car waiting and worried that something had happened. Thankfully, we were just lost. We were also meant to drive up to the Flekkefjord caves but once there you had to walk on a path of rocks the whole way and since we were exhausted and because it was raining we voted against it since the rocks would be very slippery,
All in all we had a great time despite the not so pleasant weather. It was a fun time even if we didn’t hike nearly as much as we wanted to. There’s no such thing as a bad week in beautiful Norway.