Silly Billies Return to Roam

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...