The Osterfjord
Voss – 12th June
Today was to be a short journey from Bergen to Voss, about 1.5 hours, however because the next accommodation doesn’t allow check in until 6.00pm (3.00pm is the norm) and we had to be out of the last one by 12.00pm, we had 6 hours to fill in. I planned a geocaching trip as we drove alongside the Osterfjord and then Lake Vangsvatnet, stopping at any small town that had something slightly interesting to see. Osterfjord is just one of Norway’s 1000 fjords. It is 27km long, 1-3km wide and at the deepest point 639 metres below sea level.
Driving alongside a fjord means going through lots of tunnels or taking a very long detour around the mountains surrounding it. To get from Bergen to our first geocache at Stangehelle took 17 tunnels (longest 2.8km), lots of road works, 2 missed geocache opportunities and Norway testing their National emergency alert system just as we entered a tunnel. Road works in a tunnel means digging up the middle of a lane and laying cables or extending the entrance for falling rocks. We missed 2 caches due to roads being blocked off or diverted.
The next cache was at the Hellestraumen Bridge. Built in 1927 it is believed to be the only suspension bridge in Norway with one tower. It fits a very small VW with German number plates, just.
Next cache stop was at the Dale church and tunnel. Dale is the place that makes traditional Norwegian knitwear that Kiwis can’t afford to buy. We went to the outlet store which also doubles as a museum for the mill and the Norwegian Winter Olympic team’s uniforms which were woven by Dales. Even on sale we couldn’t afford the smallest item, NZ$600 jerseys were discounted to NZ$300. The town has very little to offer, a closed church, a café that inspired us to go to the supermarket for lunch, and a library and emergency services that looked like they were housed in a condemned building.
Grunkavagen or Dalseid has a geocache by a bus stop, the photo shows the said bus stop, and most of them in the area have a sod roof like this one. This cache appealed to me because the owner said there was Viking history, battle history from the 11th century, WWI and WWII, whaling evidence, a place Napoleon stopped on his honeymoon and even more recent a Woodstock revival. Then you get there, find a bus stop and a sign about pioneering the area and mining, if you check the cache details he does admit he has no idea if anything of significance did happen there but he would love some stories.
5 tunnels later we arrived at Bolstadoyri station and church, pretty place, with a small bridge to access the town.
Next stop was the Evanger church cache and to find the well preserved old buildings, and the sausage factory. We found the cache and a big rhododendron, but no sausage factory.
The next two caches were by Lake Vangsvatnet which has terrific views of the lake, neighbouring towns and white stuff on the mountains.
A geocacher obviously couldn’t find the cache, which was not in the decoy bird box, so they wrote their details on the notice board.
We arrived in Voss an hour early and filled in the time shopping. Voss is a winter sports area; it also has a gondola which provides access to hiking trails in the mountains, a lake and river for summer activities and is a key town to access other fjords.
Today’s ABBA tribute is the song title ‘Disillusion’ (1973), for the town of Dale. I would have expected more from a town that produces beautiful, colourful, fine products, not a grey run down town with nothing to offer the passing tourist.