Churches and Tunnels

The rain had stopped this morning and the misty hills around Oppheims Lake were very atmospheric. We were up and on the road for 10am, as early as it seems to get for us which is fine. We had hatched a semi plan for the day, and this started with a visit to a tiny village called Undredal to visit the smallest Stavkirke in Norway. There were long tunnels along the way and these kept the boys amused. We turned off the E16 and took the wee road north down to sea level and the village. Parked up we walked the last bit to have a nosey around. We found the little church but it was shut till 12AM so we wandered down to the waters edge and the houses and cafes that were there.

The Aurlandsfjord is very steep sided and one of the south eastern tributaries of the main Sognefjord-The King of Norways fjords. At its furthest point it extends inland for about 205km (120 miles) from the sea, thats about the same distance as from Linlithgow to Aviemore. It is never more than 6.5km wide. At its deepest point it is 1308m deep, that's almost the same depth as Ben Nevis is tall, there is a 200m deep layer of sediment at the bottom of the fjord so its actually 1500m deep. It is more than 1000m deep for over 100km of its length, however at a point where it enters the sea there is a shelf that's less than 100m deep, so in actual fact it's almost an inland lake. Pretty amazing stats!!

Undredal is a lovely and very isolated little village with less than 80 inhabitants. They are unique in that the village is the only one in Norway (legally) licenced to produce goats cheese from unpasteurised milk using traditional methods, there is a museum within a cafe explaining the processes of the cheese making and displaying all the tools from cultivating and harvesting the grasses and berries from the steep fields to making the cheese, its very interesting. We were given a taste of their traditional brown cheese made from the left overs of normal white goats cheese making, the whey and cream. It is delicious and very "uncheese" like. In fact it has the texture of fudge and tastes like toffee or caramel. It is full of natural sugars and is most commonly eaten with toast and jam or maybe on a waffle. The white goats cheese was also delicious as was the speck, also made from goat. A few purchases were made. By the time the shopping was over the tiny church was open and we spent a wee while looking around inside its 4 small walls. We had a good chat with young lad who runs the place and several other tourist related enterprises that he is part of, he is local, he was brought up just a few miles along the fjord and he is trying to raise his young family in a way that they understand and realise what they have on their doorstep. They don't make a lot of money but they seemed happy with their lot and I totally understand why. We were entertained by some of the local bird like, an Oyster catchers was very vocally keeping us away from its chick which was wandering about beside a car and we were dive bombed by an irate seagull which had laid its 3 eggs in someones flower pot.

 After lunch we headed back up the main road and on through Flam, this has Europes steepest non rack and pinion, standard gauge railway line running up to Myrdal. From what we gather its more of a tourist attraction now than anything else, being the 3rd most visited site in Norway. Its also not cheap, so we elected to scoot through and not bother with it. It looked a bit like the House of Bruar shopping place which screams only one thing to me......Money!!

The 2nd part of the days plan was to travel through the worlds longest road tunnel which was just a few miles along the road. We had rather hoped to got through the tunnel and then return by the road over the mountain that the tunnel cuts through, however it is not yet open this year due to late snowfall. the boys were impressed with the tunnel as were we all. At 24.5km long it way longer than anything we've been in till now, and a good bit longer than the Mont Blanc tunnel. At 6k, 12k and 18k it has an area you can pull over for a rest. Theres a  bin and fancy blue lighting so I assume you are actually allowed out you vehicle.


Part 3 for the day was a visit to Norways best preserved and original Stavekirke at Borgund. This is an impressive and to be honest totally weird shaped building. The wood used in its construction was harvested about 840 years ago and its mostly original. It is all black as it is painted with wood resin mixed with charcoal. The interior wall and rood structure is very intricate, resembling that of an upturned boat, designs and techniques taken from the Viking era which by then had since ended. There is also a very good exhibition explaining all about stave churches, their design, how they were constructed, how they fell into disrepair and how in the late 19th a century a new government act declared they should be protected for future generations. Hundreds of years ago there was a stave church in almost every town, now only 28 remain. The museums are great as most of the text is written in English so we are not left scratching our heads second guessing what the information panels say.

After this we headed east a little more before eventually turning off onto the 53 road as we planned to visit Ovre Ardal. This road had a temporary road sign at the end of it, which we're are not entirely sure what it said. We best guessed it to mean no vehicles allowed over 2 tonnes between Monday and Friday, hopefully not the other way round and allowed only between Monday and Friday. This road cuts across the bottom edge of there Jutenheim national park, a vast high mountainous area. The road topped out at around 1117m above sea level and to start with it looked like it might not be the best plan due to the vast snow piles all along the roadside and the totally frozen and very large lake, the weather was also gloomy and wet but it was the route we had chosen so decided to give it a bash. It was absolutely fine but almost like driving through a vast tundra sort of area, soon we were heading down and out the other side towards Ardal. We were very disappointed not to see any reindeer, not actually sure if there are any here but it seemed like the kind of place they would thrive in. There are also hundreds of (what we assume were) little summer houses all along this route with their turf roofs, strangely they were all empty except for a very odd one. If they are summer houses they can't be habited for very long each year.

This road got a little exciting further on after a sign which said 8% gradient for 9km. They angle was very uniformly steep, the hillside it came down was very, very steep, looking over the barrier was definitely not recommended. There was nowhere for the road makers to make turns so they had to build a tunnel into the hill to allow a turn in the opposite direction to be made. Once again, the brakes were cooking by the time we got to the bottom and found the campsite in Ovre Ardal.

The place is deserted, we appear to be the only ones here. After our curry, the boys and I played for a bit in the campsite and had a wee wander up the river before the heavens opened again. Better weather is forecast from tomorrow and for the foreseeable future so fingers crossed we can keep the shorts on as we head further north. Tomorrow, we will have a good long walk, it's a while since the boys properly burned off some energy.