April

This month was busy, but also relaxing. We had a lot of free time, but also a lot of trips. A bit of both worlds. This month we went on two trips: a cycle trip and a mountain to sea trip. I will tell you about these trips in another post.

Like always we had some theoretical lessons, but this month not that much. We learned about leadership behaviour, motivation and coastal friluftsliv, as preparation for the mountain to sea trip.

In the practical lessons we did preparations for our trips. First we had some theory about tour cycling and told Thomas (a teacher of us) how he did his big cycle trip from the North to the South of Norway! His story was really impressive to hear! After that we also went to check out the bikes and tried them for a daytrip! The daytrip was really fun. It’s nice to see Norway again in a different way. By bike you see a lot more details and the tour we did, along the coast was also beautiful. I have to say Norway is a bit more hilly then Belgium and that you could feel.

For our mountain to sea trip and for our other water activities we had to do a life saving test. First the plan was to do this in the swimming pool, like I already told you guys earlier. But in this month the swimming pool was closed, because of corona. Our teacher then decided that we had to do the life saving test in the sea (with a lot of safety rules of course). The idea to do the test in the sea was a bit thrilling. The water was really cold, around 6 degrees! Okay, the test was a bit different then originally, we ‘only’ had to swim 50 meters and 25 meters with a ‘drowning’ person, but still. My two flatmates and me tried to swim in the sea at the citybeach one time as practice. Brr, cold! A week later our teacher Len decided that the water was too cold and luckily for us the swimming pool was open again. We did a different test in the swimming pool were we only had to show that we could save ourselves. We had to swim 50 meters fully clothes, tread water for some time, make some weird turns and somersaults and we had to take off our pants and tried to make a floating device from it, by getting air in there.

The weekends were filled with bonfires and fun games!                                                We did a German easter game ‘Oascheim’. It remended me of petanque, but then with hard boiled eggs and a reward, like coins or sweets on top of it. If you could hit the other boiled eggs and knock the rewards off, they were for you. We had A LOT of bonfires! We told stories about our trips to each other, we celebrates birthdays and we just chilled together with the nice weather.                                            My package from my parents and my aunt also arrived!! It was nice to get a package from home with some typical Belgian snacks. Oh, what did I miss pudding, Belgian chocolate and cookies! The summer clothes were also nice to get, for the warmer days that will come and of course the hammock! That one is already used a couple times to relax in the sun on a relaxing Sunday, lovely!

 

Weather update: Most of the time good spring weather. Really nice for all the trips, activities and weekends!

COVID-19 update: The numbers went down again, so less restrictions!

 

Fjord to sea trip (26 – 29 April)

preparation:

Sunda yevening we all (the half of the group that was doing the trip this week) went to the garage to load up the car and get our gear. We picked up our water gear, climbing gear and loaded the canoes.

Monday:

We drove with the bus to Bygland. There we started with learning some basic paddling techniques and getting used to being in a canoe. After that we started our trip on the Byglandsfjord. It was nice to be in the water and we were also very lucky with the weather (for all the days). It was sunny and there was just a little wind and almost no waves on the water. The fjord is really beautiful and after some paddling we camped for the night on an island. I slept for the first night in my hammock and I slept so good!

Tuesday:

We paddled further to Troll Aktiv. We had a lot of time that day, so we weren’t in a hurry. We did a long lunchbreak on an island and sunbathed there for some time. I really enjoyed paddling down the fjord! Finally at Troll Aktiv we slept in teepees. This night I had it pretty cold (like everyone), what was a bit weird thinking about the other night where I slept so good.

 

Wednesday:

Today we switched up our activities and we biked to Kilefjord, where we were going climbing, but not before a stop at a famous bakery in Evje! Finally arrived at the climbing spot we looked a bit around and did some tope rope climbing and abseiling. The abseiling was in the first moment a bit scary, because you had to just ‘walk’ over the cliff, but it was really cool to do! After that we chilled together with the group and went to bed (me again in my hammock).

Thursday:

Last day already again! We biked back to Kristiansand. It was a nice biking track, that was mostly unpaved and took us through some nice spots.

Cycle trip (18 – 20 April)

preparation:

We again divided the class into groups to mix everyone a bit up to get to know each other better. I was in a group with Spanish Laura, Sara and Deborah. We all wanted to go to the most Southern lighthouse, so our route was quickly decided and the rest of the preparation also went smoothly.

Sunday:

First bike day! Our ultimate end destination for tonight was the lighthouse (Lindesnes), what was 100 km away from Kristiansand. We thought it would be cool to sleep there. We started our route along the coast. It was nice to start with this part, because it is mostly flat and there are some beautiful views. We made fast some kilometres and did an ice cream break in Mandal. After that we got back up and biked further with our renewed energy. We made it all the way to the lighthouse! The last 10 kilometres were pretty hard, because there were a lot of hills, but we didn’t want to quit so close in the end. We saw the last bit of sunset and slept next to the lighthouse. Mission accomplished!

Monday:

In the morning we decided to change our route a bit. We made it a bit shorter, because we already did so much kilometres on our first day. We biked back inland, so there would be more ups and downs in the road. Today were on the schedule two big steep hills from around zero metres to 200-250 metres height. The first was the most exhausting. It started really steep and it was also an unpaved path, where you lost a lot of speed because of all the loose little stones and sand. The second one was less steep and also on asphalt. We were glad that we already did these two hills today, so we wouldn’t have to do them tomorrow. We treated ourselves with a cold coke! After that we looked for a good sleeping spot, but we couldn’t find any place, so we biked and biked until we already did 80 kilometres. We decided to sleep on a spot, where we passed on our bike daytrip, 20 kilometres away from Kristiansand.

Tuesday:

Today was a really chill day. We only had 20 kilometres to go and we already knew the route. It was really nice to do a longer biketrip and see a different side of Norway in this way.

Trip Bergen – Stavanger ( 28 March – 3 April)

I went with 3 other girls, Elena, Mira and Pauline on a trip during our easter break. We went to the West coast of Norway, specific to Bergen and Stavanger. It was really nice!

preperation:

We all wanted to do some nice hikes during our trip, but also visit the city a bit. We all searched some nice stuff up and shared our ideas. After that we hired a car. This time I was one of the drivers. The second driver was Mira.

Sunday 28 March:

Go time! We picked up the car and drove all the way to Bergen. This took us the whole day, where we drove through so many different landscapes, snow, valleys, mountains… (9 hour drive). We parked our car and went to our hostel, where we were going to stay for three nights.

Monday 29 March:

Time to discover Bergen city! We walked around the city and saw a lot of nice stuff, like some nice parks, famous streets (Ytre Markeveien – white houses and Bryggen – colourful houses), some cool street art, some churches and the Bergenhus fortress. After that we walked up mountain Floyen. We took the main path up and enjoyed the really nice view. We hiked a bit around on the top and then went down with another path. The hike down was really nice, because we didn’t take the main path. It was all a bit more adventurous and more in nature.

Tuesday 30 March:

Today was the day with the worst weather of the whole trip. Rain, rain and rain. We decided to go for an hike in a forest (Hordnesskogen), because there we would be a little bit more protected from the rain. We made the hike more nice by doing some geocaching. After a semi nice hike, we went back to the city centre and went to a local bakkery to drink something and visit some souvenir shops, where I found already one souvenir for someone! We also did all our groceries and food preparing, because on thursday, friday, sunday and monday the grocery shops would be closed, becuase of Easter.

Wednesday 31 March:

Today we left Bergen and went on our way South, in the direction of Stavanger. We stopped on our way to hike up the mountain Bruviknipa. We read that this was a really nice hike to do, so we were very excited! Our expectations were rewarded! It was a really nice hike with beautiful views, but also not an easy one. In the beginning we had to go through a little swampy area. Good that we had our gaiters! Also when we were close to the top of the mountain there was still snow. Luckily there were some footprints from other previous hikers that we could follow. That made it easier for us. On our way back we also did a little detour, not lost oh no just a little short cut ;). Back at the car we decided to book an airbnb for that night. Mira had a bad stomach and did prefer not to stay in a tent. Normally we would now only stay in our tent, because the bad weather was over, but because of Mira her bad stomach we decided to sleep in airbnbs or other cabins for the rest of the nights. This night we found an airbnb in the middle between Bergen and Stavanger. We stayed with an old lady, who was very friendly. We arrived pretty late and got to know her a little before we went to bed.

BONUS GAME:

—- search the red cabin —

Thursday 1 April

After breakfast with the nice lady we were back on our way. Today we visited the famous ‘preikestolen’. It’s a cliff. It was a really nice hike up, that took us a bit less then two hours. It was quite busy, but the hike was still pretty nice. It was not just tarmac, more walking up and over rocks. We took some nice pictures at the preikestolen and ate something, before we went back down and drove to our next airbnb.

Friday 2 April:

Today we visited Stavanger. At first I was not that excited about this city, because I didn’t find a lot to see, but after seeing the photos of the other who already been here I got my hopes up. Sadly it was like I first thought, not so special (maybe also because everything was closed), but we made the best out of it! We visited the harbor, the chruch, some famous streets (Ovre Holmegate – colourfull houses and Gamle Stavanger – white old houses). After that we went to a local park and chilled there for some time in the nice spring sun. We drove already away from Stavanger and stayed in a nice simple little cabin, on our way back to Kristiansand.

 

Saturday 3 April:

First thing in the morning we dropped Mira of at Trollaktiv, because she joined the introduction weekend for maybe an intership or work opportunity there in the summer. After that we did a little hike close to Trollaktiv in Evje and ate outside our lentil stew before we drove back and went home.