Day 3 of our visit to Norway. Well we thought we had seen the worse of the rain on our first day, but today it just came bucketing down and put paid to all our plans. It was a day spent almost entirely in the car, desperately wishing that it would stop so that we could fully experience the beautiful landscape that we were driving through. By the way, I’ve had so much time to write this blog post that you’ll notice that the photos are better quality than you may be used to on my blog! Don’t expect it to continue!
We started late, given the weather. On our way out of the lobby I noticed this fella up on the wall and just had to share! We’ve noticed quite a lot of dead animals on walls on our trip so far…
We spent about an hour wandering around Dalen’s small village centre, stopping for a coffee at the local wool shop – yes, you read that right. I picked up some lovely soft angora wool and some knitting patterns – in Norwegian of course, so that will be an interesting exercise when I get back! I love the intricate pattern work in the jumpers I’ve seen people wearing here. A bit of a challenge I think!
Here is one of the Dalen buildings against the mountain backdrop.
We then set off with plans to visit a few museums and sculpture parks – each of which was jettisoned one by one as the weather worsened. During a lull we managed a very quick visit to Nesland Churchyard, but again we were beaten back.
Still, we managed to see some great vistas because of that rain.
Our next stop was Amot, a larg-ish town with a shopping centre. With nothing else to do, we thought we would wander in. It kept us amused for a little while at least, but 
given how small it was we couldn’t really stretch this much more than 15 minutes.
One observation we were starting to make is how bunkered down all the public spaces in this part of the world tend to be. Clearly, everything here is built with one aim only – to keep out the cold. Little wonder – given that this August summer’s day was down to seven degrees with a buffeting wind and rain sheeting horizontally. So although to our eyes all the towns appear to be deserted and the shops closed, everything is in fact fully functioning and bustling behind closed doors.
We decided that our next stop should be the ski-centre known as Rauland. Again seemingly deserted so we drove on and out of town up to Raulisterfjelle (a mountain lodge), where we lucky enough to find a log fire and great burgers and chips.
The next part of the drive was spectacular – in spite of or maybe because of the torrential rain. We drove alongside the huge Totak Lake on Route 362 on our way from Rauland to our night’s accomodation at Hauseliseter Fjellstue. It was awe-inspiringly beautiful even in the rain.
Wikipedia tells me that its the 10th deepest lake in Norway and that 306 m Totak “this tremendous overdeepening marks it as a glacially formed lake with characteristics similar to a fjord.” Really spectacular were the waves thrashing across the surface of the water in the rain, and the gushing waterfalls which had sprung across the surrounding mountains in the pouring rain. It was so blustery that we weren’t able to really stop for photos, so here is the best I could do.
Finally, we arrived at our destination, Haukelister Fjellstue, which is a mountain lodge in an upper alpine area. It’s set in a bleak, deserted landscape by a lake – but so beautiful. Hopefully tomorrow we might get some respite from this rain so that I can take some more photos. The lodge is quite spartan, but at least it’s warm and dry!
