Jutenheim to Hemsedal rally track.

Wednesday 26th July.

76 miles.

The Jutenheim had been wet when we arrived, it rained through the night, and the forecast wasn't great but when we woke in the morning it was really looking quite promising. I had woke and got up earlier today after an earlier night to try and get things going at a better hour. 

The plan was to get down to Hemsedal so the boys could do the aerial assault course which is good fun. But with the weather looking nice it seemed crazy to just shoot through this stunning area so after a quick map purchase I had a little hill in my sights....I got the usual faces at this suggestion but it would only take a couple of hours tonget up and down it and it would give us a better view of our surroundings as its quite isolated but also central. So by 10am we were yp the road a little bit and the boots were on and we were off towards a little hill called Gjendehøe. The road runs at 1000m above sea level here and the summit at 1257m was an easy wee peak for us. We were up and down in just over 2 hours and as expected the views were really pretty good. The next time we are in Norway we will spend more time in less places.....well....at least that's our thinking at the moment. All I need to do is get everyone more keen on a bit of easyish mountain walking....there is so much we can do here.

Back in the van and the race was on to get to Hemsedal....its the first time we have really been on any sort of deadline and its not good. The roads were lined with tourist cars and the traffic was slow. I had booked the aerial assault course for 14:45...the only bookable slot available and Miss Sat Nav gave us about 15 minutes to spare....what could possibly go wrong, lol.

The Jutenheim was lovely to drive through, it's hard to try and drive a motorhome quickly and look at the scenery too....they are not designed for speed. But we dropped down out the Jutenheim with still a good 10 to 15 minutes to spare when, for the first time Miss Sat Nav came up with a faster route to Hemsedal....excellent we would save another 10 minutes. So, we left the main road and started on something a bit smaller, and steeper, and much bumpier...the speed limit in this road was 80kmh...but you would need to be in some fairly sporty sort of car to be able to do that....not Bessie...We tried to work out where miss Sat Nav was taking us and it didn't look the best. But once you've lost some time by taking another road, trying to rectify the issue means more lost time...so we decided to stick with the new route which was actually doing alright....then we saw signs for the Panoramavegan coming up ahead....the name rings a bell with me for some reason, I don't know why.... but we had certainly never driven it before. By now for some time the road had not been a road as we British know it....it was a hard packed gravel track...better than a forestry fire track but only just and we had a long way round go on it....over 30km.

Then we came to the Panoramavegan toll barrier....which we could not get to work...it wouldn't accept my card, or we were doing something wrong with it....either way it wouldn't let us through. A vehicle had arrived behind us and we were blocking entry so I went and spoke to the man who fortunately spoken good English, he came to try and help us and in the end opened the barrier with his annual pass....he had a hytte in the area and was beading to it. The panoramavegan was lovely....a stunning road and well worth a future visit when we have more time. Bessie was coping well with the less than perfect surface although some of her undercarriage are now caked in a thick grey dried in mud. Eventually we reached the out barrier amd I had visions of us needing some sort of ticket that proved payment or entry in... before it would open to let us out... but no....as we approached up it went. We were now onto a better road...passed the Skogshorn which Callum and I had climbed in 2019 and soon down into Hemsedal...we had made it, and on time.

We got parked up and went to the Hoyt and Lavt shop to get kitted out with harnesses and helmets for the zip lines and obstacles in the trees. Logan has almost no recollection of this from 2019 only remembering one section but Callum remembers a few bits of it. Regardless its very good fun for them and for me, this time we all made short work of the whole course that we were allowed to be on....there is a section we still need to do but Logan is not yet tall enough so that can wait for another year. At 6pm we were the last in the park and it was shutting time. We handed in our kit and bought an ice cream, we chatted for a little while to a lady from Denmark who worked there as she was interested to hear where we were from, where we had been and also about our 2019 trip. Also, while we were there Joyce who didnt do the course had spotted a long brown animal in the river, we asked the shop workers about it and they said they have never seen an otter ...or whatever it was in the river. I think they may be watching for it from now on.

Ice-cream were finished and we went to the excellent Moen campsite, got checked in. The boys headed straight for the park while I sorted the van, drank a well earned beer while Joyce made a tasty meal for us hungry boys. We were able to sit out in the gorgeous warm sunshine and have dinner tonight, a fine end to a busy day.

Part one of my Hemsedal plan is now complete...hopefully tomorrow the weather will play ball and we can get up another of the Topp 20 hills. The campsite lady had loaned me a map and I am hatching a plan.