Day 83 – at Bøverkinnhalsen Pass, Jotunheimer National Park

Some snow overnight left the surrounding mountains looking quite superb this morning. It had cleared by first light though, leaving a few centimetres on the ground. A good to for the van to stay put.

Memories for me of the Falzarego pass in Italy back in April when I was snowed in for two days. There was more lying then, but I think now it is colder, and icier. It’s a great feeling to have everything you need, probably for several days if it was necessary.

I had researched a walking route that took me to a waterfall and lake nearby, though pretty much anywhere around here would have been wonderful this morning. There was no traffic on the road at all, and just the tracks on the snow of the vehicles that had been through.

At the waterfall I met a guy though. He pointed me in the direction of a decent path, and we chatted for a while. He spent half his working time in Oslo and half in a cabin nearby, a legacy of the pandemic. He had previously spent his whole time in Oslo, so it had been a welcome change. He told me about taking his 40 foot boat over to Scotland and around the Hebrides a few years back, and was equally interested in what I was doing.

Being a Saturday, it was a sport dominated afternoon, but all the time with the fantastic backdrop out of every window. With the sun out I had the van side door open most of the afternoon, though as soon as it dipped below the ridge the temperature dropped quickly.

Robbie Coltrane – These were great influences to my youth, Coltrane, Margolyes, Sayle, Saunders, Edmondson, Mayall… My twenties that is, the 80s. And the decade before them, Cook, and the Python team.