Silly Billies Return to Roam

Just to shake things up a bit...for the first time ever Chris is going to write this post! He spent more time in Finland than me and he was kind of more part of the action than I was too, so it seems appropriate he is the author of this O geek post. Not really related to this post, but it is a pretty photo of Chris orienteering during the Trondheim sprint cup final. Hello there, well I'm not sure I'm qualified to post on this prestigious blog site, but I'll try my best ): While Emily was hard at work, I was skiving off in Finland to run the first two World cup orienteering races. These were held near the town of Salo on the South Coast of Finland. These races were followed by another world ranking event somewhere nearby, before I final meet up with Emily at Jukola the following weekend After many many hours of busing, training, and catching the ferry from Stockholm to Turku, I finally arrived in Salo late at night (Although it wasn't really night as it never really gets...

What wonderful weather we had on Saturday! That, coupled with the fact it was a three day weekend meant it was definitely time for another adventure. Chris and Em up to no good in the mountains again! The university O club here (NTNUI) had organised an orienteering training event over near the Selbusjoen lake at 7 pm on Saturday evening, so we planned to bike out to the event with our gear to head into the hills following the event. After a pleasant 1.15 ride out to the meeting point we assembled for the girls' and boys' mass starts. Off into some depressiony kind of terrain, myself along with several much more reputable orienteering others (not to name any names (-:) spent 13 minutes on the hunt for control no. 1. After several more controls working out in a alarmingly similar manner my 'orienteering patience' was dwindling - not aided by the fact I was being eaten alive by mosquitoes every time I stopped to look at the map! However, not being one to give up I stomped...

The 17th of May is Norwegian National Day. In New Zealand a national day might mean a public holiday and not too much more. In Norway the whole population comes out to town to celebrate, dressed in their national costume, the bunad . Its an amazing day and a big part of it is the barnatoget - school childrens' parade. I decided in my role as an assistant teacher at a school in Trondheim the chance to walk in the parade was to good to miss! Luckily forewarned that even without a bunad the dress code was formal, I donned a nice skirt and cycled into the bustling town on a wonderfully hot summery day. The crowds on the streets made it hard to even make it into the school, but eventually I forced my way through. The children all looked beautiful in their wee dresses and shirts. We began marching in procession with flag bearers and a brass band at the front. The streets were packed, everyone was out to see the parade. It was a cool experience and was an insight into the importance Nor...

We just returned from a fantastic long weekend in the hills and I am still buzzing! We headed into the Jotunheimen Mountains (about 6 hours South of Trondheim) with Ally and his Australian friend Tim. Just to pack things in on Thursday evening we all ran in the Sprint Cup before taking off with a very fully laden car towards the Jotunheimen. We camped high up on the Dovre plateau on a somewhat average camp spot close to the main road. There were patches of snow all over the rolling alpine plateau, but serious signs of spring were all around with buds popping up, lakes thawing and patches of green grass and mosses emerging everywhere. The Dovre Plateau After a chilly picnic breakfast in a nippy breeze on a very fine spring morning we jumped back in the car and continued the journey on through Dumbås to Lom. Our plan for Friday was to go up a peak called Loftet which was not so far from the big peak we planned to ski on Saturday - Galdhøpiggen - the highest mountain in Scandanavia at 246...

Right, well I am getting a bit behind with my postings, but I have been busy! So this post is for the weekend before last when I along with 14 other of my Wing OK clubmates headed to Skåne for Tio Mila - one of the biggest annual orienteering relays in the world with approximatly 10 000 runners. For all my non O geek readers this post may not be a dazzler, but read on anyway...maybe you will get inspired (-: The Gist: The mens race starts at 9pm, there are 10 men per team and each runner heads out as soon as the previous returns until the last runner returns at around 9 oclock the following morning. The women's race is the previous day, held entirely in the daylight and there are 5 runners on the team. We flew to Rygga airport (near Oslo) on Friday morning, then hired cars and drove further South and into Sweden. Chris and I drove to the Eliteseries Sprint race where we met up with Øystein and Elise. Those three all competed in the sprint race while I spectated (the series title gi...

We just got back from England and Trondheim was no longer a snowy place! The green grass is showing everywhere and small buds are appearing on all the trees. It is a wonderful thing seeing spring in Norway. This photo shows the thaw beginning a few weeks back in Trondheim, look at the pretty blue lake! We left for Scotland over a week ago via the horrible overnight bus down to Oslo. On Saturday morning we arrived in Oslo and wandered through the grey cold city. We visited Frogner park and all its interesting sculptures, then sat in a warm cafe for many hours. At 2 oclock we caught the Ryanair 3 hour bus trip to Oslo Torp Airport (nowhere near Olso!) then flew across the ocean to Glasgow. Frogner Park with its funky statues We arrived in Glasgow to clear skies, a very fresh breeze, and some lovely daffodils. We caught the train to Mark and Sylvia's and we were so excited (we were starving) to be welcomed with a wonderful meal (home made bread, pumpkin soup, veggie haggis and ne...