Silly Billies Return to Roam

Last weekend Ally Chris and I finally got round to our planned mission into Vindølbu hut in the Trollheimen National Park. We wanted a very easy randonee ski trip with lots of time to lounge about in the nice warm hut. We left Trondheim quite late after curry round at ours, and didn't finally arrive at the carpark until 11.30pm. But given that it had been pitch dark since 3 this didn't seem to matter so much. It was quite magical skiing in the moonlite alongside a frozen river. There was lots of snow and it was super fluffy, so at one stage when I fell over I couldn't stand up again. Finally we made it to the hut for a midnight feast and off to bed under the ice duvets - it was about -8 inside the hut. Nevertheless we had a very cosy night and woke late. The sun was shining on the other side of the hill so we chased it, but never quite got it. We skinned up a gentle hill side, unfortunately the fluffy snow of the night before had been damaged by wind, so it was a bit crust...

Trondheims Christmas lights, plus me in my trusty down jacket that has been my constant companion the last two months. Hello to all readers of Emily and Chris's blog! I am sorry there has been such a lapse in posts, I'm not really sure how this occurred...but fortunately for you the drought is over and you about to be swamped with an amazing barrage of exciting posts! Well, maybe not a barrage but there will be many (0: Chris spent 3 weeks back in NZ catching up with his friends and family and successfully reclaiming his World Rogaining Title with Marcel Hagner in the Championships that were held in Canterbury. Chris and Marcel at the prize giving Ian was also competing in the Rogaine World Champs and came 3rd in the Veteran category with Bruce Meder. Chris brought a nice new camera back from NZ with him, so as soon as he got back he headed out and took some atmospheric 'dark' shots. Dark and snowy is our land. This was about 8.30 am. The road to work is a sno...

This morning I woke up to find poor pumpkin man looking rather white and chilly! We had planned to go away this weekend and do some mountain biking and last minute long run training for Chris before the rogaine world champs in 2 weeks time. This plan went out the window as soon as we looked out of ours, so instead Chris is currently charging around Bymarke through the snow. I ran up the hill some way with him, we were just running up through the forest when we came across a whole moose family! They nonchalantly ambled off into the snowy trees. Chris is then running on to Ally's place - Ally will do the last part of the run with him. Before he went out for his run we spent some time clearing the piles of snow off our car and putting on our spikey winter tires. I was enjoying jacking the car up and down. Chris got to do the fun part when it started snowing again: Tomorrow we think it will definitely be time to head out on the fjell skis - it is supposed to keep snowing tonight, so c...

I have never carved a pumpkin before, so both Chris and I were very excited about this one which I made at school. On Friday night Kristof and Maria came over for dinner, so I welcomed them with the pumpkin man! In the doorway behind the pumpkin is Ally and me. Halloween makes a lot more sense here, it is getting very dark now and all the leaves have gone from the trees. The clocks went back on Saturday night, so it getting dark by 4.30 now. We went for a nice run in the forest on Saturday - Helen had organised a 'handicap' orienteering training (and just for the record, I won out of me, Chris and Ally (-: ) Chris and I did a good mountain bike ride on Sunday, around the back of Bymarke on a mixture of 4WD road and single track. The ice spikers work pretty well in the mud. Happy Halloween! Em.

The first snow came on Tuesday, so Chris had to get the skis and go for a blast in the park. He was sure he would be the first, but I spotted several other ski tracks! The weekend came around and the forecast was awful. We were a bit bored. Helen and Ally were also a bit bored. We put our heads together and decided what we needed was a good splurge in the mountains to cheer us up - a cosy hut, some fun times and a little adventure. So while most of Trondheim was huddled inside on a very snowy and rainy Saturday morning Helen and Ally swung by our place in their little silver car and we loaded on skis and backpacks and headed away into the storm. We drove through Orkanger and on along the E39. We were heading into the mountains of Nordmore to Hardbakhytte (800m). We turned into a very muddy slippery farm road and boganed around for a while before we found the right road and a little snowy spot to pull off the road. Helen had snow shoes on, while the rest of us had fjellskis. We origina...

Last weekend the Norwegian National Orienteering Champs took place in Beiterstolen - 5 hours South of Trondheim, not far from the Jotunheimen National Park. We headed away from Trondheim at about 5pm on Friday night, after I had arrived home from work and beavered away to make a pizza and some cookies for us to munch on during the long drive. At Oppdal we met up with Bård and Ola, and they joined us in our car to make our trip a little more environmentally friendly. We arrived at a cosy cabin at about 11pm and went straight to sleep. Chris and I were both feeling tired after a long week at work, and in the morning we had quite early starts to deal with. A plush grass roofed 'cabin' at Beiterstolen - the one we were staying in was rather more modest than this little mansion. The arena at Beiterstolen - they even had a big screen with GPS tracking following the competition, pretty impressive technology for following orienteering. I really wasn't in the mood for orienteering...

In preparation for the World Adventure Race Champs which Chris will compete in a few weeks time in Spain we decided on a kayak mission for the weekend. On the Thursday week night before we left it was very mild so both Chris and I took a dip in the Kyvannet - I'm pretty sure that will be our last swim in the lake this year (-: Evening and autumnal feeling swim in the Kyvannet On Friday afternoon after work I met Chris at the boat sheds in Ila in our wee Toyota Corola. I had already been in town purchasing some lengths of rope for attaching the kayaks to the little set of roof racks which came with our car. We headed out of town in heavy traffic and through to Orkanger. From there we drove the E39, a road we have previously biked along - until we made it to Valsøa where we loaded the kayaks and set out across the fjord in the gathering dusk. The fjord in the fading light - it was about 8 when we finally set out Chris organising the kayaks Nearly ready to go We paddled for over th...

I had been looking forward to this week since we first learned the World Orienteering Championships (WOC) were going to be held in Trondheim in 2010 - that was over a year and a half ago - I knew it would be very exciting and it certainly lived up to my expectations. Ian and Anne (Chris's parents) arrived in at Pirabadet terminal from Kristiansund on Saturday evening - just after I had said farewell to Al and Amber and watched them disappear on the train back to Oslo. The Forne's had been traveling around Southern Norway for the week before making their way to Trondheim. Chris was feeling apprehensive before the start of WOC, he had put in a lot of preparation over the past year and a bit we had been living in Trondheim - and on top of that he had just been asked if he could deliver the 'Oath of Fair Play' on behalf of all the competitors at the opening ceremony. Sunday morning was warm and clear, as Ian, Anne and I walked down to Sverresborg Folk Museum where the sprin...