–          18-05-15 / 22-05-15

Monday

Wake up early for a shower and wait for the Norwegian students to pick me up with a car. We drive to Spicheren to drop some of the bags in another car and drive with three cars to Kongshavn. We wait there for the boat to pick us up. It’s a small boat and it has to go to times to bring everyone to the island. The boys and girls are split up and have their own houses. We sleep in the old barracks of the war. Len informed the man of the sailing boats too late and now they are not ready for use so we will not sail this week but go sea kayaking instead. We are divided in mixed groups with the Norwegian student and I’m in the group with Jørgen, John aslak, Mats, Nicolay, Stian, Adele, Kirby, Sven and Osvaldas. The weather is very nice today, the sun is shining and there is almost no wind. We put our stuff in the rooms and have lunch. One of the Norwegian girls brought a slackline and we play with it for a while. We gather all together at the big kitchen with kantine and get introduced to the teachers Kjetil, Ketil, Svein and Len. We start with Ketil and he teaches us about using fishing nets and overnight on an island. Jørgen has to give us a short lesson and Kjetil explains the rest. We take the nets in the rowing boats and drop the nets in the water. During the rowing I’m fishing and catch 6 fish in a row. We row to the island where we stay tonight. We attach the boats to the rocks and explore the island for a nice place to stay tonight. We split up the tasks and I go prepare the fish we caught.  It starts raining and it will rain for the whole night. We light a fire and prepare some food. We go to bed very early. We sleep on the lifejackets and branches from the pine tree. We lay very close to each other to stay warm.

Tuesday

I wake up from the others who are already awake and are walking around.  I slept pretty good. We pack our stuff, clean the place we slept and go back to the boats. The water level raised and the waves are bigger. It’s a challenge to get away without smashing into the rocks. We have to pick up the fishing nets. Our net is stuck behind something and I can’t get it up. We go back to Randøya and will pick the net up later. We arrive at 7 in the morning and everyone is still sleeping. I make myself some hot chocolate and a good breakfast. We gather at 9:30 to clean the nets and learn how to make fillet from the fish. Two of our group start with preparing a lunch from the fish we caught, two go with Ketil in the boat to get the last net and all the others clean the nets. There is a lot of sticky seaweed in the nets and it’s a boring job to get it out.  We stop at 12:00 and have lunch. They made a really nice fish soup. We have a little nap after the lunch and gather for the next activity at 14:00. We go on the motorboat and learn to read sea maps.  We’re back at 16:30 and make evening dinner. We have an evening walk with one of the teachers and he tells about the history of this island. We go in the bunker, were they still have some radio equipment from the war.

Wednesday

We start our day with rowboats. Johnaslak teach us how to row and we do a little game to get into the rowing. I’m in the boat with Mads, Nicolay and Stian. I don’t get the rowing at all in the beginning and we’re going to every direction except the right one. It’s really hard and the boys give me instructions how to do it right. I get the hang of it after the game and we have a lot of fun. The weather is really good and we sit in t-shirts on the boat. We change positions after a while and we make a trip in the area. We are back at 12 and make lunch. Our next activity is sea kayaking with Len.  Sven gives us a short introduction on how to use the peddle and how to go forward\backwards. We practice some techniques and do a game where we have to make a raft and jump over it to switch places. We do a race who’s fastest and once we have to stand up in two rafts. We have a lot of fun and the weather is still very nice.  We’re back at four and I go with some people to the other side of the island for fishing.  We have dinner together with our class and florin is cooking for us.

Thursday

We start with sea kayaking and do a big trip around the islands. After we have swallow water biology. Mads prepared a lecture for us about all the sea creatures in swallow water. We put on a fisherman’s suit (don’t know the name) and we walk in the water looking for some animals and plants we have to find. We can use nets and a kind of binocular to look under water and we collect some creatures we see. At the end we check what we‘ve collected and try to find the names for every item. It’s hard to find the right names for every plant because they look similar above the water. Svein cooked some of the sea snails and we try to eat them. And to be honest they look disquieting but taste oke. We go back have dinner and play some games in the cantina in the evening.

Friday

Our last activity is deep water biology and we go snorkeling. Nicolay is giving us some information about the equipment and divides us in groups to look for certain animals and plants. I’m together with Johnaslak and it’s really relaxing to hang in the water and look at the sea bottom. We notice that its warmer at one side of the area and we stay here longer than at the other side. We collect sea stars, snails, jellyfish, and seaweeds. It’s cold and we go back after one hour. We take a look at all the things everyone collected, and try to find the names. We go back to the barracks, pack our stuff and clean.

–          05-05-15/08-05-15

We stay at Helleviga for a week to teach some outdoor skills to the last years students of a school. We made a program for them what covers an evening and morning of outdoor activities with one overnight in gapehuts.  The students are coming in three groups and every day a group leaves at 12 and a group arrives at 6 in the evening. We’re also staying in gapehuts 30min walking  away from the school camp. The activities included: abseiling, canoeing, orienteering, fire, stretchers, management games and shelters.

We started with heavy rain, but as soon as the firs group arrived the weather got better. The groups were very cooperating and everyone was involved. It were really nice groups to work with.

We had three birthday’s this week and we celebrated them  at the campfire in the evening. Florin played a birthday song on the harmonica and we were all singing. One of the school groups showed us the traditional Norwegian way of singing the birthday song  with a dance.

The camp was a great success, the students were happy, the teachers were happy and we were happy. They decided to do a camp like this next year.

–          27-04-15/30-04-145

Monday

We travel by bus to the Byglandsfjord. On our way we see some ice floating on the fjord. Len is already at the location with the canoes and lifejackets. Sven and Luke give us a quick basic lessen about the canoes. We have a lunch break after and enjoy the last sunshine of today. The weather forecast predicted a lot of rain for this week. We drop all our gear in the canoes and peddle to the first island we cross. We go from island to island and take a short break to stretch our legs on every island.  After a few ours the weather gets worse and the wind and rain is blowing through the fjord. It makes paddling hard and some are really struggling to cross the water. It even starts snowing and it makes my hands very cold. We decide not to go to the island were we are supposed to camp but on the shore of the fjord on a sheltered beach. It’s still snowing so everyone starts with preparing their sleeping place and create a dry spot. Some are sleeping on the beach and some are sleeping in the woods. I sleep in the woods nice and comfortable in my hammock. The weather gets better and we have sunshine in the evening. We cook and explorer the place. The people who sleep on the beach create a house of the trash and make a campfire.

Tuesday

It starts as a beautiful day, there is no wind and the sun shows up behind the mountains. We continue our trip through the fjord . After a few ours the river got a more rough stream and Len wants to practice going in and out of the eddy’s. I did this with small river kayaks, but I don’t like doing this with the big boorish canoe. I’m glad that I’m in the canoe with Luke, he has control over the canoe and teach me what to do. I don’t get any of the instructions of Len, he’s only shouting that we do everything wrong and that’s not really working for me. After the practise we arrive at the big dam near Troll active and we go on shore. Troll active provides a rafting lesson, but I choose not to do it. We stay in two little cabins and cook in a big common kitchen in a tent. There’s not much to do and we go to bed after dinner.

Wednesday

We start cycling today. Troll active rents bikes to those who didn’t bring their own bike. Half of us brought their own and so did I. The rent for the bike is more than I paid for my own bike. We cycle to the climbing crag near the road. We drive through Evje and take a break at the bakery. They sell their bread of yesterday for 20kr and almost all internationals buy one of these. I bought a really nice bread with almond and vanilla cream inside. We continue our tour after one hour. We are almost at the climbing spot and it starts to rain. That’s sad, now the rocks are wet. We arrive at the place and start with preparing our sleeping places.  The rain stops and Len is showing us around in the area and tells something about taking groups to a climbing spot. He shows us how to hang out ropes and we start climbing. We do some abseiling and after it starts raining again and we stop climbing. We make our dinner and go to bed. It’s a rainy and windy night but we all stayed dry.

Thursday

We break up our camp and drop the gear near the road, and our teacher will pick it up later and bring it back to Kristiansand. We cycle back to Kristiansand and it will be around 60 Km. We take some breaks on our way and it’s raining sometimes. We take a break at a café in the last village we cross before we’re back in Kristiansand.

–          26-04-2015

“The sun is calling please come out and play

The sun is calling please come roll with me”

On a sunny day Miriam and me decided to make a trip on our longboard to the beach we can see from the bus to the airport of Kristiansand. The bike road looks nice from the car road and we are going to try it and see if we can reach the beach rolling on the longboards. Miriam looked up the road we have to take and the place where the beach is, is called Hamresanden. Most of the road is downhill and its around 12km. We start from my house and have a lot of fun rolling down the road. We have a beautiful view from the big bridge Varoddbrua over the Topdalsfjorden. We make it to the beach and the roads were nice and smooth for rolling. It’s a bit windy on the beach but the sun is still shining. We walk over the beach to the end and walk back again. We take the bus back to Kristiansand city. It’s sad that it’s raining a lot in Kristiansand because we had a lot of fun with our trip and I would like to do more longboard tours.

–          20-04-15/22-04-15

I go on a hike together with Kirby and two of her friends. We had the plan to walk to a certain point but we had to change plans because of constructions in the middle of Jegers. We walked around the area we were not allowed to go. We took a break at the lake and dropped our feet in the water. The weather was beautiful and some people were swimming in the lake. We continued our hike and searched for a nice place for our camp. Kirby and her friend put up a tent and I’m going to sleep in my hammock. I don’t put the tarp over it because it’s warm and it will stay good weather. I make a small fire to cook and the other are going out for an evening walk. We go to bed round eleven. I watch the stars and fall asleep.

We wake up round 9 in the morning and the sun is shining bright. We pack our gear and Kirby and her friend go home. I stay and take my time for a nice breakfast. I’m going to try walking around the area that  we are not allowed to go to and walk first to lake lomtjønn. I take a break and I see a beaver house. From this lake I walk to Kyrtjønn lake. I take a bath and dry up in the sun. I continue walking and try to reach the path up to den Omventebåt. It’s really nice to walk alone, I can take my own pace and can take a break whenever I want. I put my hammock up in the sun next to the small stream to den Omventebåt. I make a small fire and cook my dinner on it. I go to bed when it’s dark and have a good night under the stars.

I wake up very early and consider to walk to the top of the Omventebåt to see the sunrise, but I’m too warm and comfortable in the hammock and fall asleep again. I wake up from the sun and take my time for a good breakfast and packing my gear. I continue my walk and now I have to find a road that’s not on the map to go around the shut off area. I make it to the little lake but from here all the roads are closed. I see a runner coming through the woods and he comes from the direction I want to go to. I take his road through the bushes to walk around the closed area and after 20m I’m on the road again with the dangerous signs behind me. So I’m out of the danger zone and continue walking. I end up on the tracks I know and walk back home.

–   16-04-15

wood sorrel

We are doing a birdwatch with an overnight today. We drive all together with cars to the place where we are going to watch a special bird called black grouse. We park the cars and walk to the habitat of the bird. During the walk to the place Svein the teacher/guide shows us some plants we can eat like wood sorrel and something we called marzipan tree.

The other group befor us made a nice shelter so we only have to prepare our beds. We go out for an evening walk and Svein teaches us more about eating from the nature. Some try to eat ants and we learn that it’s better not to look for mushroom there is a big chance to confuse the good ones with the bad ones. Svein is a bird expert and can make a lot of bird sounds.

We have a beautiful day and the sky is so bright that we see a lot of stars. Some take out there mobile phones with an app that shows all the names of the stars and planets.

black grouse

We wake up early in the morning. I woke up of the sound of the bird, It makes a lot of noise. We try to see the bird but it’s still too dark to see it. And we sleep a bit more. We wake up round 5 in the morning but there is no bird anymore. We packed our bags and went back to the uni for our next lecture.

–          01-04-15 / 03-04-15

I go hitchhiking with Misha to Preikestolen. We looked at the weather forecast and decided to go when the weather looked nice.

Wednesday

We take the bus at 9:30 to Flakkefjord and will start lifting from there to Stavanger. It turned out the bus didn’t drive to Flakkefjord and that the bus driver transmitted  it but it was said in Norwegian  and we didn’t understood. The bus stopped and the bus driver walked to us he tells this is the last stop. The bus driver is very kind and want to bring us to Flakkefjord but he has to leave. The man speaks a little Dutch and we have a simple conversation. We have to wait one hour for the next bus and we can drop our backpacks in the information building at the bus station. We decide to go to the supermarket to buy a fresh lunch and ask for a cardboard to hitchhike. We walk back to the bus station and the bus has arrived. This time I ask the bus driver if he drives to Flakkefjord and het tells me we have to change after 15 min. We have a beautiful view over the fjord through the windows of the bus. We arrive in Flakkefjord and prepare for hitchhiking.

This is the first time for me to go hitchhiking and I have no idea what to do and what works the best. Misha has some experience and tells me that no one knows, just do what you think will work. We walk from the bus station to the road in front of a gas station and I stand next to the road with the cardboard and smile to the people in the cars. After 10minutes a car stops behind us and a man and women can bring us to Moi. The man doesn’t speak English but the women does. We have some conversations about where we go and where we are from. They drop us at the gas station in Moi and wish us good luck. We walk to the access of the station and before we are ready to continuea car behind us hoots. It’s a family, a man, woman and a child. The parents are driving to pick up their daughter and had space left in the car for us.  I think about my own childhood and I don’t think my parents would drive that far so I could play with a friend. The parent speak English and are very interested in what we are doing and where we go. The girl next to me is singing songs and there is a nice atmosphere. They drop us off at a gas station in Helleland. and we search for a good spot. After 15 minutes a car at the other side of the road stops and a man waves at us. We walk to him and he can bring us to Stavanger. The man is a truck driver and has some impressive stories. I think this is the most interesting person we’ve met today. He’s telling about his live and where he’s going. He drops us off at the harbour of Stavanger and continue his trip.

We search for information about the ferries and in 30minutes a ferry leaves to Jorpeland, what’s on the island where Preikestolen is. The ferry leaves at 16:10 and we sail to the island. We arrive at the island and have no idea where we exactly are. We only have a big map for car roads so that’s a bit useless. We know we have to go to the right so we start walking. The weather is really nice and we can walk in t- shirts. We cross a camping place and see a sign on the road that camping in the wild is not allowed after the sign. So we walk into the forest and search for a nice spot to set up our camp. It’s not perfect but we found a place. We put up the tarp and make a lean to. During the process it starts to hail and we decide to make it a tent shape. We gather some wood and Misha light the fire. We make our food in a canteen cup on the fire. We have potatoes with onions and garlic and it taste delicious. We drink a hot chocolate after dinner and go to bed.

Thursday

It’s still cold but we slept well. We  take our time to wake up and Misha starts with making a fire. We start walking to Preikestolen at midday. We continue walking over the road. The road is boring to walk on and its quite steep. We’re talking about taking a lift up to the start of the Preikestolen track. A car in front of us stops and the people ask if we want a lift to the pulpit rock. We jump in and are very surprised about this offer without us doing anything for a lift. The man and women who are driving to their cabin in this area drop us off at the track and wish us good luck. They gave us the advice to look back sometimes to enjoy the view over the lake.

The track is covered with snow and icy because of all the people that walked over it. The weather is still pretty and we enjoy our hike up to Preikestolen. We see a lot of people who are not well prepared to walk here. Some are wearing casual shoes and slip over the track. Some clouds arrive in the sky, we hope they pass by. Someone made a snowman next to the track even with a carrot as a nose.

We arrive at the pulpit rock and enjoy the view. We take a break there to eat something and we make some pictures. We stay there for a while and walk back again. The weather is still good.

We arrive at the DNT cabin and take a break before we try to get a lift back. We sit in the lounge room upstairs and have a nice view over the lake. It’s dinner time but we are not hungry yet. We ask for a piece of cardboard and try to get a lift back to Kristiansand from here.

We go to the parking place and hope for some people who leave from the track or the DNT hut. The first car that’s leaving the parking place can take us to Stavanger. In the car are two guys, one from Poland and the other from Norway. They also visited preikestolen today. The Guy from Poland tells us about food from his country. We take the ferry back and have to wait for it to arrive. I think It was 20:00 when we left the island. After driving in circles for the right direction they drop us off at a gas station. A man stops and tells us that he can pick us up after a few minutes if we are still there. Someone walks towards us and starts talking to us he’s interested and think we are hippies. Well maybe we are, I don’t know. When are you a hippie? The man who we met earlier picks us up and can take us to the next big gas station. He’s a truck driver or something similar and can get free hotdogs and he gives one to us. There is also a woman in the car but she doesn’t talk to us. I think she doesn’t speak English. We buy some food in the next gas station and ask for a bigger cardboard. The people who work there are from our age and we have a little chat with them. It’s late somewhere around midnight and there are only a few cars on the road.  A man stops at the gas station and he’s driving to Kristiansand. He Brings us to my house and we thank the man. We’re back round 2:00 in the night.

I had a lot of fun and a very good experience with hitchhiking.

–          30-03-15

It’s a beautiful day in our Easter Holliday. Most students went back to their home country and others are making trips through Norway.I’m staying in Kristiansand and my friend Misha is coming over to visit me. We decide to walk to the Omventebåt and we go a bit further to one of the tops called Oddersjaa. Misha is building a small fire and I’m eating an orange. He mostly use a council fire, this fire provides a lot of heat, good hot coal and will even burn in the rain with wet wood. We have a beautiful view over Bannaheia and Kristiansand.

Snowhole trip
–          23-03-15 / 26-03-15

This is our big ski trip in Berdalsbu with overnights in a snowhole and in a DNT- hut.

Monday

I go with the bus of 8:45 to Berdalshu. We arrive at 12:00 and Len and Tim are waiting for us with a van. We drop our backpacks in the van and walk up to the place we start our trip. We do a short check on equipment. We wax our ski’s and separate the group in two. One group goes with Len and one group goes with Tim. We ski over a track to the first hut. It’s warm and even rains a bit. The track is uphill and the wax isn’t working. It makes it a hot, and we ski in t-shirts. Most of the time I’m in the back of the group with Miriam and Kirbby. We are not in a hurry and talk during the trip. We arrive at the hut round 15:30. Our group is in the small hut and the other group is in the bigger hut. We order our stuff. Fill up big pans with snow start the fire in the stove to melt it. Len comes over and tell us about the DNT hut system. And gives us information about building a snow hole. Our group is divided in 4 smaller groups for the snowhole. We are looking for a good spot to build a snowhole this afternoon. Every group gets a winddirection to look for a spot. We go to the west and find a good place 100m downhill of the DNT-hut. The place has a big slope and underneath it is a small stream we can use to provide us from water instead of melting snow. We have time left and play around the hut on ski’s. round 18:00 we go back into the hut and cook our dinner. I’m eating lentils with dried carrot and paprika, butter, Kerrie and green beans. I do the dishes together with Florin. I walk bare feet to the toilet who is set in a small hut next to our huts. And the cold snow under my feet feels awesome. We have enough beds for everyone to sleep on a matrass. Len is sleeping on our couch this night. At 22:30 is everyone in bed.

Tuesday

At 6 o’clock in the morning Jochen’s alarm is going off and everyone is annoyed, but continue sleeping. Most of us wake up at 8:00. I have breakfast in bed, oatmeal with hot water. I pack my gear and help doing the dishes. We are ready at 9:30 to leave the huts. The weather is lovely, it’s warm, the sun is shining and we have a perfectly blue sky. We ski to the snowhole area’s people picked out and discus if they are good or not.

Without backpack the area was nice to ski, with backpack is hard and a lot of people are falling down, including myself. Most of the time I’m falling is more for breaking than actually falling. Again it’s too warm for the wax and it’s not working at all. The area our group has chosen is good enough for the whole group of Len and we split our group in three smaller groups for digging and sleeping in the snowhole. Tim’s group is at the other side of a hill in our area. I lost my sleeping mat while falling and go back to find it. Luckily it’s on the last place I felt down. I return back and help Kirby and Miriam with building a cooking place with a couch and wind shelter of snow.

The boys are digging the snowholes. It’s so warm that they are digging without shirts on. We switch after a while. The boys take a break and I start digging with Miriam. I’m in the snowhole group with Daniel, Morrits and Miriam. We have fun during the digging. We find out it’s easier to use the snow saw to dig. We saw big blocks of snow out and Miriam started to build a wall around our entrance. I’m building a road to our snowhole, to make it easier to reach and to prevent walking on the roof of the snowhole underneath ours. In between we sunbath and enjoy the weather.  We have a break and take a look at the other group. They are building a combination of snowhole and igloo. They digged a tunnel with a hole and 5 people are standing in the middle of the whole with an emergency shelter over them. We all start throwing snow on them and it creates the dome of the igloo. After 10 min we stop throwing snow on them and the people in the dome sneak out one by one. The “sniglo” is build and we go back to work on our own shelters.

Jochen made a fire place out of our kitchen. Round 5 o clock  we finished the snowholes and sit round the fire and make dinner. I’m eating couscous with dried mushrooms, carrot and Kerrie. I go to the snowhole at 21:00. Miriam is already there and a candle is lighting the snowhole. The snowhole is warm and looks cosy.

Wednesday

I slept really well this night. The alarm went off at 8:00. I had breakfast and went out for a pee and boil water for my thermos. I pack my stuff, and we can leave the gear we don’t need for skiing in the snowhole. I wax the ski’s and at 10:30 everyone is ready to leave.

It’s cold and cloudy today.  Will is taking the lead and we go uphill between two mountain tops. My wax isn’t working and Len tells me to put on more wax.  The wind raves between the mountain tops and blows us away. I’m glad I’m wearing goggles, the wind and snow smashing in our faces. I’m in the back of the group again. I’m not so fast on ski’s. I’m so bizy with skiing that I don’t pay attention on the map. On top of the mountain we gather the group and build a shelter for a short break. We dig it on a slope and a part of it is coming down like an avalanche. The snow is coming over the slope and the break is cold and wet, but it feels good to have a break. We continue and do a practice with the compass for shooting grades to a certain point with people for when the weather is too bad to see features in the landscape. Jochen takes the lead and lead us back down at an other side of the mountain. It looks like an half pipe. Luke is last of the group and looks after everyone. I try to follow Jochen’s route but I’m falling over every time and get snow under my backpack and a bit in my jacket and its cold so I start to make my own route with more zigzags. I’m not falling over any more. We go back to the huts and take a break in the big hut. It’s for getting warm and dry our clothes. We do an evaluation about the ski trip we just did. We find out that some people have a different perception of being part of a group. Tim’s group also arrives at the hut. After a while a Norwegian class is in front of the hut and we have to leave to our snowholes. The weather is getting worse and I stay in the snowhole. I cook water at the door and write my note book. I make a hole above the entrance in the roof to provide the hole of more air. I go out for the toilet and find Norwegian students digging a snowhole next to our toilet. I have a nice chat with them, they tell about their snowhole and I tell them about our toilet next to them, so they won’t dig there. I help Anne and Katja with carrying water to their ‘sniglo’ and go look for another toilet place. I go back to my snowhole and go to bed.

Thursday

We have to dig ourselves out today. The entrance is totally covered with snow. It’s nice and warm in the snowhole and it’s good that I made a hole above the entrance for some air. We dig it out and face the weather outside. It’s stormy outside, a hard wind and it’s snowing. We wait for instructions of Len in our hole. We will ski at 10:00 and leave the snowholes. We pack all our gear and are ready at 10:00.

Len is telling us that we ski back to the road we came from and we are digging one person snow shelters somewhere there. Morrits is taking the lead and keeps the group together. The weather is getting better on our way down, and we can take our goggles of. We take a break next to a boulder and Lenn is telling us about making a snowprofile. We continue and stop next to a small hill and get the task to be under the ground in 20min. We start digging. After 20min Len gather us and gives us the news that we don’t have to sleep in this shelters and that we are going back today because it’s still stormy in the mountains. We walk along all the shelters everyone made and Len tells who will survive and who might not. Just one of our group wouldn’t survive. We ski back to the road and put all the gear in the vans. Someone off Troll active is driving us back to Evje because the bus had already left. We take the bus back to Kristiansand from Evje.

Jegersberg trip
–          18-03-15 / 21-03-15

Together with Luke and Osvaldas am I going to do a nice hike in Jegersberg.  I prepaired the hike together with Luke. We all made one evening dinner for the whole group and the other food we do on our own. Osvaldas is still recovering from an injurie on his ankle so we take it easy.Jegersberg trip

Wednesday

We leave at 14:00 from Kongsgard alle and walk together to Jegersberg. We walk to the Omventebåt today. the route is easy and marked by painted stips and piles of stones. We set our camp on the route to the Omventebåt between the threes with a water stream nearby.  The whole camp is set round 16:00 and we have plenty of time to make it comfortable. Osvaldas is sleeping in his bivibag under the stars, Luke brought a small army tarp and I’m sleeping under my own 3×3 tarp. I’ve got space for Osvaldas to sleep under my tarp if it will rain. I’m trying a new way of putting up my tarp and it took me some time to figure it out.

We build a nice campfire between the tarps in a hole that was already in the ground. I get some stones to put around the fire place, Luke and Osvaldas are looking for wood. There is plenty of dry wood hanging loose in the threes. Luke made a reflection screen of wood behind the fire and I made a couch to sit on.  We use water from the stream and we are eating my dish tonight. I made couscous with corn, split beans, paprika cream and curry. Not a light hiking dish, but it taste really good. We chill at the campfire and if the sky clears up we might see the Northern lights.

Thursday

I had a really good night and weak up from Luke who is cooking hot water and heaving breakfast. The sun is shining and it’s a beautiful day. Unfortunately we didn’t see the northern Lights last Night, but tomorrow we have a chance to see the sun eclipse. It’s our plan to walk to the Linvatna lake today. We wake up slowly, I have breakfast in bed, oatmeal with hot water what I had in my thermos from last night. We break up the camp and clean the fire place. We walk up to the Omventebåt and take a lunch break in the sun. I met the girlfriend of florin there and we have a short chat. We Put on our backpacks and an old men appeals to us. He tell us about a nice route at the west edge of Jegersberg and a hut on the route. It sounds great and because it will probably rain tonight according to the weather forecast we decide to walk to the hut and sleep there. During the walk we have a beautiful view over the Otra and Bonaheia. We met the man again at the edge of the cliff and he tell us that there is a climbing area underneath. The man turns out to be a ski and hike instructor and he’s very enthusiastic about the hike we are doing. We walk on and reach the hut. We attach our tarps to the side of the hut to prevent for the wind and a tarp on the roof against rain and increase the heat. We fit perfectly with three people in the hut, although the ground is a bit unequal. We build a nice fire on the fireplace what was already there. Ten meters from the hut is a swamp with a water stream. We collect some wood and relax in the sun. Luke teaches me to make a nice pot hanger for my pot and we have fun carving things out of wood. The sun disappears between the hills and we light the fire. We decide to go back tomorrow so we have one day to do shopping for the snowhole trip which start next Monday. We eat the dish of Osvaldas today, rice with vegetables and there is enough for a second dish. It started to rain a bit and we decide to go in the hut. Not long after we fall asleep.

Friday

We stay in bed for a long time. I go out for a pee. The sky is covered with clouds so we won’t see much from the sun eclipse.  We pack our stuff and walk back along the Omventebåt and return to the city.