We were supposed to go on a 3 day hiking trip. As we are only have 6 weeks left in Norway and I’ve been so much around in southern Norway and the coastline, I wanted to go further up north to see some nice Fjords and be in the mountains. First I thougt about going to Bergen, but due to the snow still in the mountains and as we were supposed to go as a group, I joined Max and Paige to go to Preikestolen and Månafossen Waterfall.

Luckily we had Max car, which made us more independent and flexible. After 4 hours driving on Tuesday, we arrived at Preikestolen Fjellstue and found a nice camping spot right beside the lake.

We put up our tent, discovered our surrounding area and made dinner and fire in the evening. As it is not getting dark until 10 pm, we had enough time to get a long sleep and for an easy and realxed breakfast the next breakfast. Afterwards we climbed up Preikestolen, which took us, including breaks for photos etc, 2 hours. The view up there was just breathtaking. You could see all over Lysefjord and as we were off from season, there weren’t many people. We took our time to enjoy that unique place and the great view. We ate lunch and took a lot of pictures from all different kinds of perspective. After walking down back to the camping spot, it was around 4 pm and we directly started packing our tent and backpacks. We loaded the car and drove on beautiful small curvy roads to Eikeskog, the parking lod of Manafossen. I am really glad that we decided to go there and not to stay another night at Preikestolen to do the hike around the lake the next morning. The surrounding area and nature was so beautiful on the way to Eikeskog. High mountains, steep cliffs, big rocks and after every turn another lake. The spot at the parking lod was just perfect. We had a toilet, a river, that was easy accessible, a flat and big area for our tent, campfire place and some tables and chairs made from stone. After a nice and long evening at the fire, we slept quite long again and started our hike up to the Waterfall. I didn’t really expected much, as I have seen lots of Waterfalls before. But it was so much worth it. We were the only one up there and could enjoy the fresh breeze from the cold water. The waterfall has a free fall from about 90 meters, which was quite impressing. Max and me hiked for another 30 minutes further up into a valley to an old farm. I can’t still believe that people lived up there in the 19th century, it is so far away from everything!

After hiking back to the car we drove 4 hours back to Kristiansand. All in all it was nice trip. The trip was not preferentially a high physicaly active trip. It was more about enjoying the beauty of nature. The aim was not to be super exhausted, because you can get diverted by that. We wanted to enjoy nature to the fullfill and be with it. Or to say it with the words of Arne Naess:

 “As I see it we need the immense variety of the sources of joy opened through increased sensitivity toward the richness and diversity of life, through the profound cherishing of free natural landscapes…Part of the joy stems from the consciousness of our intimate relation to something bigger than our own ego, something which has endured for millions of years and is worth continued life for millions of years. The requisite care flows naturally if the self is widened and deepened so that protection of free nature is felt and conceived of as protection of our very selves.”

I think and I really hope, that this trip led us towards the perception to see ourselves as part of nature, so protecting nature would mean protecting ourselves. But I guess we are all even more confirmed about the beauty, pure,- and richness of nature.