Day Five: Austdølvatnet

After being woken by a group of 30 goats who ran by our tent with ringing bells, we were awake and ready to continue our journey through Norway. It wasn’t a long drive, but we had a few places on the way we wanted to see. Norway is known for its massive waterfalls, and we have seen a few smaller ones, but the one we went to see today is one of the massive ones, and I loved it!

After seeing the waterfalls, we drove further from the ‘online world’ into the mountains without internet or cell service. It is quite lovely and peaceful, but because of this, this post will be later online than the day I wrote it. (Currently Thursday 8-8-24)

We are lying in the tent together under all of our blankets because we are cold… It’s only 11 degrees out here and its’s only 7 PM. It’s going to be freezing out here tonight. The real reason we are cold is because we went for a swim this afternoon. We have a perfect sleeping spot next to a lake at 950 above sea level, and around 100m from here, there is ice on the rocks. The swim was really cold, and I felt like taking an ice bath, but after not showering since Saturday, it felt good to rinse it all off.

Before our swim, we went for a hike and reached the highest point we have ever been: 1012 meters above sea level. It was amazing to be so high and look over the mountains below.

This is also the day we drank fresh water for the first time from one of the streams here. We ran it through our water filter just to be sure, and it tasted cleaner than regular tap water. We did not need to add any ice cubes.

We hope the rain will stop for a few hours in the next few hours so we can go on another hike, but if not, we’ll stay warm and cosy under the blankets.