Day 71 – at Innerdalen

A grand journey on foot today into ‘Norway’s Most Beautiful Valley’. On this autumnal day with the leaves on the trees making their own individual paths between yellow, orange and red, and all those colours in between, with the waterfalls bursting from heavy overnight showers, and with practically no other visitors around, it went down pretty well.

It’s a 4 kilometre walk on a decent track that is drivable for necessary transport to the huts that climbs 300 metres, with an option of a slippery path for part of the way, which I took on return.

It was a day for lots of pictures, and they do a better job than my writing.

Up at the last of the huts, an old guy stopped me for a chat. He was volunteering his services working there for a few weeks, in exchange for a bed and some food. He was insulating a new toilet, very important work as we agreed. He told me that 2 days after he retired, 6 years ago at the age of 61, he put on his backpack and hiked 1200 kilometres from his house up to North Cape, setting out at the end of May and and reaching there in mid-August. He regularly volunteers in National Parks working in huts using the skills he had when employed as a builder.

I was back mid-afternoon just as the rain returned, good timing for a change. I’m the only person at the car park surrounded by spectacular peaks that is crammed in high season and at weekends.

I caught up with a few reviews. Two of films I watched at the weekend..

Two films from the weekend that I thought were well worth the time..

Firstly, Jim Jarmusch’s <b>Paterson</b> which is such a simple story, yet done so well. It’s about. Bus driver in Paterson NJ who enjoys writing poetry. His life, and that of his partner are ordinary and uncomplicated, as is his poetry, as is the film.

A really pleasant way to spend a couple of hours.

And, <b>Gaslight</b> with Ingrid Bergman as Paula who knows she’s going crazy, and suspects her husband, but still loves him as a type of Stockholm Syndrome, and Charles Boyer as the affecting and memorable villain manipulating her. Turning down the gas in the lights is just a taste of his cruelty; such a creation and so will played is his character that like the best films, it lingers in the mind long afterwards.

The fog on the streets of Victorian London plays its role also, and adds to the noir-ish atmosphere.

It’s very Hitchcock-ian also. So much so that I had to check to remind myself he wasn’t involved.

It also features the debut performance of a youthful Angela Lansbury as a streetwise and free-spirited maid who is nonetheless taken in by Boyer. She was actually Oscar-nominated for her role.