Norway Day 5: Adventure Hiking and Beautiful Scenery Near Hjelle

What a lovely view to wake up to!

We enjoyed a yummy breakfast at our hotel. U, Megan, Matthew, Me

We drove along the part of the Gamle Styrnefjellsvegen Scenic Route that was open (the rest opened a week later).

Couple of beautiful waterfalls.

Megan touching snow.

U

View towards our hotel on the Gamle Strynefjellsvegen. It's pretty incredible because our hotel is quite high but this is much higher still.

So many waterfalls!

The village of Hjelle. This was the other place we had considered staying in the region.

It is very picturesque!

See the farm up on the hillside? This was one of the hike suggestions we received the previous evening. She told us that as a kid, she should thought it was a hard hike but now it is not hard at all! (The Segestad hike is around 4.2 km round trip with 300m of elevation gain.)

Replica of a Bronze Age stone (1700-500 BCE) found in the area. Symbols represented include a serpent, a dagger, two axes and two discs (interpreted as images of the sun). Archaeologists believe the stone may have been a memorial to a rich woman.

Local church and cemetery where the stone is located.

From the church, we went on our adventure hike (Skuten hike). Adventure had not been our intent but when the trail came to an electric fence gate, we weren't sure if we could continue (we since learned that it would be fine cross through the gate) so we instead followed a big path that looked like it zig zagged up the mountain. However, the path got smaller and smaller as we followed it.

Megan, Matthew and Me on the big path heading up the mountain.

The path eventually ended so we cut our own path up the mountain. Note that we could see the upper part of the trail in Google Maps so knew we would join up with the main trail eventually.

U, Megan, Matthew and Me. Matthew was not a fan!

U helping Megan up a steep section.

A sampling of the area we walked through. It really was a bit crazy! Or adventuresome!

We finally connected with the main path. There were black blobs of poop on the trail that became brown as we got closer since the flies flew away when we approached. Pretty gross! 

We ran across a bunch of goats on the trail. (I'm guessing they had something to do with the poop....)

U, Megan, Matthew and Me in the shelter at the overlook.

Looking down into the Stryne Valley. The kids thought the water looked like resin, it was so smooth!

The church near where we parked our car.

We hiked down the other route. It was a bit steep at points plus the rocks and roots were slick. However we made it down ok with only one complete fall (there were lots of slips!).

Me on the way down.

Lots of rocks and roots on the hike down.

Once back at our hotel, we walked out to the Videfossen waterfall.

Megan and U

Megan, Me, Matthew, U

We enjoyed playing in the game room.

Megan, U and Matthew playing pool.

Matthew taking a fancy shot.

Me

Megan throwing darts. She found it quite satisfying!

U, Matthew, Megan and Me playing table shuffleboard.

We also played Bang, the dice game.

Our evening view into the valley from our room. Stunning!

U's step count: 10k