0321 A Break in Kinsarvik

6^th Aug 2015

Trolls, forests, and hydroelectricity.

We met Jos and Ricky for breakfast up at their cabin, taking some of our own supplies up with us, and afterwards went off to do our own things for the day.  We spent the morning relaxing and catching up on wifi etc, and then after a quick sandwich for lunch we set off for a walk at about 2.30 pm.  The weather wasn’t perfect, but it wasn’t raining, so we decided to follow the rushing Kinso river behind the camp site up towards a waterfall.

Excavations in Kinsarvik have established that it was a meeting centre for many of the villages in the Hardanger area as far back as the 14^th and 15^th centuries, and there are stories of people living here in about 1200 AD.  We crossed over the river in town, pausing for a moment by some wooden carvings of some of the local trolls, and then set off up the most delightful trail through the forest, with the river beside us.

The moss covered the ground between the trees, and created a magical scene. The trail we were walking along was obviously once a well-used “road”, with extensive support walls built from big stones along several sections.  Apparently it is not unusual to find pine trees over 350 years old higher up in the hills.   We continued up beside the river, passing old wooden bridges where we stopped to check for Trolls before crossing.

Eventually we came to the hydroelectric station that was built in 1917, and is still producing electricity today.  The falls beside

the station are quite dramatic, cascading down over the ever-present sheets of rock that you see everywhere in Norway.  We decided to turn round at this point as we were meeting Jos & Ricky for supper and needed a couple of hours to get back, so we headed down the trail beside the river for a while, marveling at how clear the water was.  We stayed on the road this time, wandering down through the houses in the village, some with sod rooves.  I also found

a tree with black pine cones and tried to takes on for my collection of pine cones on my dashboard (from Australia, near Dad’s grave in England, Alaska, and Patagonia !) but they had a sticky gum on them, and would have made a mess !  we also tried to get into the old 12^th century church in the village but it was all closed up. 

Once we had cleaned up a little, we met Jos and Ricky and went down to a local restaurant in the village that was better than the one the previous night, which was fortunate because it was pretty expensive.  But we had another enjoyable evening with Tanja’s parents and then we headed back to the car with rain threatening overnight.  It didn’t look too promising for our onward journey towards Bergen tomorrow…..

More photos here :-   https://picasaweb.google.com/110185357936043625130/0321ABreakInKinsarvik?authkey=Gv1sRgCMbF5NK985vV3gE