Holiday is a full time occupation!

Yes, we're still alive! More than ever, actually, but having holiday can consume a lot of time and didn't leave us any time to write on the blog. This one might become a long one, because of that...

After another night near Oslo (where the tent didn't move an inch, by the way), we made a hike to Kongens Utsikt, where we met a Portuguese waterdog with a similar color as Aily (Spanish waterdog), only much bigger. The hike was beautiful, and a good exercise before Preikestolen later on. One of the trees next to the path had a sign and a very special shape:

Due to a cancelation of one of our hosts (glass fiber was being installed in the street at exactly that time, so we couldn't possibly get there with the caravan), we rescheduled and drove to Telemark Kanalcamping in Lunde, near the Telemark kanalen and one of its water locks. When we arrived, parts of the campsite where still covered with snow, but we found a nearly perfect spot, close to the -very nice- play ground. A bike ride of about 23 km brought us to the biggest lock complex of the Telemark kanal: Vrangfoss, 5 locks in sequence.

The next day we did something new: we searched for a walk nearby the campsite via ut.no, followed the directions there, had to drive on a deserted gravel road for a while to be greeted by an almost new sign indicating the start of the trail! The trail 'Österholtnatten' took us 1,7 km up on a hill, unfortunately without a view in the end. Ilan was leading this expedition, warning us for every tree root, stone and more than 5 cm drop on our path ;-) But again, he walked the complete distance and gave us a lot of confidence for Preikestolen!

After Telemarken (where we had the only couple of hours of rain in our trip up until the 19th of May!), although a bit fed up with campings, we drove to Hogetveits Naturcamp in Abelsaeth and we're very happy we did! Together with a couple staying in a cabin, we where the only guests, the owners excused themselves because the campsite was not ready yet (due to more than 2,5m of snow during winter, which had only disappeared one or two weeks earlier, which sounds like a good excuse to me...), but everything was perfect. This place is like a dream: quiet and in the middle of nowhere, with some antique buildings on the campsite where we could make a fire and roast some corn. We were accompanied by sheep, lambs, kittens, a rabbit and very friendly hosts, who even picked us up for a horse and carriage drive!

Next stop: Sandnes. We got the opportunity to stay with one of the biggest Barock Pinto horse breeders in Scandinavia: Tonje Solberg, checking her stallions and discussing possible matches for our own Bella! Sandnes was our base camp for the climb to Preikestolen and visit to Stavanger. About Preikestolen: we all made it to the top! Ilan on his own, and even Gwyn walked/climbed the first km up and the first km down, Aily didn't seem to have a problem with it either, although she was as tired as we all were! Of course it was not a walk in the park, but it was surely not the terror climb we had read about. There is no danger in the climb at all (except for the viewpoint itself!) and doable for most people! As it was another day with perfect weather, it was rather crowded (warning: people try to make pictures in the most amazing poses...), but not like in high season, and we got the most amazing view! After the climb we went into Stavanger and both of our kids charmed the other restaurant guests while each eating there own portion of mussels!

We left Sandnes on the 16th of May, to be able to celebrate the Norwegian national holiday with Hanne, Ingv, Vilje and Live in Rosendal. We hadn't met them before, but they had been so kind to invite us to their place and to the local celebrations. We'll write about that fantastic experience in our next blog post!