Me and my friend Brynja Dís decided on going on our own little three day hike from Konsmo to Kristiansand. The hike is part of a historical path called the child wanderer path and is said to be a path that children walked to get work and back home. The path itself is longer than three days but we felt like this was enough for us. We had divided the walk into three parts. The first path from Konsmo to Laudal which is 12 km, then from Laudal to Nodeland which is 31km long and then finally from Nodeland to Kristiansand which is 11km long. We had with us two of her dogs and two backpacks filled with food and our equipment.

We had read about the trip and watched a video so we knew the path should be fairly easy and comfortable so we were confident that we would manage just fine. We took two buses up to Konsmo and then there we had to find a church where the path was supposed to begin.
Well we found the church and there was an obvious sign that told a little bit about the story and had pictures about the next part of the path. According to everything we had read the path was supposed to start behind the church and the first bit was supposed to be very steep. Behind the sign and into the forest was a small path, so we started walking after a minute searching around the church to make sure it was the only path visible.
We thought it was very strange when early on we had to climb using some small robes up a rocky hill and that was very challenging with our backpacks and two dogs running around us, we had to lift them up a few times.
When we got up the steep cliff part there was no obvious marks anywhere that we were on the right path. When we read about the way it mentioned that it was a very obvious path and it had markings that said which direction to go. We decided to continue up since we  knew the direction we were supposed to go. We hoped that if we just continued upwards and in the right direction that we would stumble on to the right path.
What a mistake!

We continued just going up, up, up and in the right direction, after checking our bearings at the top and using Brynjas phone on maps we knew where we were supposed to be heading and where we were. The map Brynja had showed some kind of road just below us so we thought we must have missed the sign. We didn’t want to walk down again so we continued to walk above and along the road. That walk was very difficult because the further we got the tighter the forest got and we had to walk back to avoid cliffs and across a swamp. But we kept our hopes up that we were on the right path. We saw a big power line tower on the top across from us at one point so we thought if we could just get to there, walk downwards then we must see the path!

When we got there the forest was so difficult to walk and with the dogs pulling us along that are arms got all bloodied and we had to walk so slow because we were walking down a very steep hill. We ahd been walking for hours and it was really varm when we finally found a path! But according to the map on her phone we were still slightly above the marked path so we assumed that we had to follow this path down until we saw the other one. Turns out that road was a TRAINROAD! That road led us straight to a tunnel so we stopped thinking about that road and after talking together we thought that the path we originally found was the child wanderer path. We started to walk up the path that we had just been following down and we started noticing the blue marks on the trees so we got our hopes up that we were finally on the right path. The path was covered in snow that we had not expected so our feet above our hiking boots got soaked pretty fast. When we finally got up again the path and the footprints led us straigh to a small river, so we hopped across on stones but when we got across there was no more footsteps or marks to follow.

Now we were completely frustrated and the sun would be setting in awhile so we decided to keep in the right direction but have a look out for a nice place to put our tent up.
So we started walking until we found another path, but then we decided to follow the path down as far as it goes and just go until we reached the ground level again and find a place to tent. Well that path took us to an area where they cut down trees so we had to crawl over some fallen trees but we tried to be at the edge because the fallen branches were cutting into the paws of the dogs.

We were so happy when we finally saw houses again and a man walked towards us and asked us what we were doing there. We started talking and explaining that we just wanted to walk this child path and it was supposed to be a nice and easy walk but it was anything but easy. Then he asked us where we started and when we said konsmo church he just laughed and pointed to a church and said ,,this church,, I didn’t know if I should laugh or cry but it was too funny not to laugh about it. He then told us that the path start at some yellow house at the end of the town! We had checked the information about this path so many times and it always talks about behind the church and there was nowhere mentioned anything about a yellow house. This whole disaster of a trip was definitely not our fault. After catching our breath we asked if he knew where we could put our tents up and he offered us his backyard, then he come to us with a full bag of dry firewood and two big bottles of water.

After a terrible night where it was so cold that our outer tent froze and we had to have the dogs in our sleeping bags to keep us and them warm. I lost count on how many yatzy games we played and we talked about just taking a bus to the next part and continue with our trip.

But then after we let the dogs out one of them pissed on the tent, it smelled awful inside all morning so we decided we couldn’t spent another night this cold and with a smelly tent as well. When we talked about our change of plans with the man that allowed us to tent he offered to drive us and the dogs to the next bus station!
After waiting for the bus for a few hours we finally were going home we realized we took the bus in the wrong direction !
We still managed to get to Kristiansand eventually and thought the best way to end this amazing trip was sitting in the sun by the harbour enjoying the view.
What I learned from this is always expect the unexpected and even though everything is going wrong you still have to keep thinking positive and remember to laugh at yourself. We definitely had a lot of fun and we kept our spirits up by just laughing at ourselves because it was kinda typical that it happened to us. There is also nothing wrong with deciding to go back and not finishing what we started. Even though it was for silly reason we made a decision that was the best for us and we made a promise that we would do the whole original path later during a summer time where we have the correct information.