Day 57 – at Lakshol

There was just the Dutch van and mine at Lakshol last night. There’s a few houses in the village, but with the exception of a farmer the rest are holiday homes and vacant at the moment.

The Dutch, in their spanking new 4 x 4 Crafter had a rather timid female border collie, which after a while got on with Roja famously. The owners were surprised, as usually the dog is so timid that she is quite anti-social.

We set off walking on the trail to the waterfalls at a similar time, but I let them go ahead. The guy seemed quite hard work, though his wife was very pleasant, he knew everything there was, or so it seemed, about van conversions, and the area. Their intention was to walk the whole circuit, which is 20 kilometres, and might sound reasonable until you did some research. The whole trail is difficult, a step up from moderate. It has slippery boulders and tree roots, and requires scrambling in a number of sections, but particularly two, one after 5 kilometres or so, and the other, on what would be for normal people, the second day and a stopover in the hut, but this couple, or rather this guy, thought he could do it in one day. It was already 11 am, and I expected it would take 10 hours. They had no sleeping equipment with them for the hut.

The trail takes in three waterfalls, Laksholforsen, Storskogvassfossen (just after a tricky ascent) and Vaerivassfossen, which is actually quite difficult to get close to. The best viewpoint for it, was my destination. I had a paper map which I had picked up yesterday, and gave it to the couple with my destination marked on it. I thought they would need it more than me.

Certainly the hiking is slow and surefootedness is needed for a large part. But the views of the sheer rock faces of the surrounding mountains, the remoteness, but most of all the autumn colours made it quite a spectacular day.

Just after the ascent to the second of the waterfalls I met the Dutch couple and their dog; they had changed their mind, unsurprisingly, and decided on the same destination as me. We chatted a while. They are in a four week vacation, so very different existence to mine, and heading for Lofoten islands where he will take a photography course, and she will go horse riding. I can understand the 5 day separation, certainly from her part.

This is a top day out for labradors in particular, as there is almost constant swimming opportunities, and a variety of different sized sticks.

I was back to the van for 4 pm, the 10 kilometre taking 4 hours, with an hour chilling. I caught up with some book reviews and avoided the news / radio..

A word of recommendation for a couple of films I’ve seen over the weekend, one today, one tomorrow..

I watched Key Largo at the weekend. It’s been a few years since I saw it last, so mostly forgotten.

What struck me this time, is its pessimism, a real sign of the times, it was released in 1948.

Both Bogart and Bacall play characters foreign to them.

Bogart plays Frank McCloud, a war veteran, a hero really, but now a hopeless drifter who can’t settle down.

Instead of a ‘femme-fatale’ Bacall loses her sharp tongue and seductive allure and plays a kind-hearted widow looking after her father in law,

But Edward G Robinson as Jonny Rocco steals the show, which is some performance when our against Bogart.

Apparently off screen they were great friends and mutual admirers of each other, rather than you might think.

The lighting and backdrop of the seedy hotel in the hurricane enhance the noirish elements.

The theme it plays to is a simple enough one, whether you should take action when an aggressive act takes place in front of you.

It’s one of my favourites.