A rather relaxed day, as we didn’t want Geoff to have to do a lot of driving ahead of our 6+ hour trip tomorrow back to Oslo. That plus the weather was pretty socked in. When I first got up this morning, I could barely see the trees outside, let alone the valley or Vikoyri! It did dissipate a bit and since we had to go into town for some supper grocs, we decided to head out along the coast of the fjord in the opposite direction we had gone the other day. There was a lookout point about 20 km beyond Vikoyri reached by taking a very narrow road that looked more like a one- lane than a two-lane. If you met an oncoming vehicle you had to hope that it wasn’t too big and that there was a bit of a pullover so you could pass each other. We tried to get a few shots of the fjord and the opposite shore, but it was pretty socked in! We did find an interesting little place along another arm of the fjord. It was a little general store cum cafe, but it was the best stocked little store you’d ever want to see. Besides a surprisingly varied array of food, they had everything from wool and crochet hooks to batteries to swim goggles! It was called Fjorden Nærbutikk which loosely translates as Fjord Convenience Store! We drove along a little further but the views did not improve so we decided to head off back to Vikoyri. There was a large cruise ship in port but it wasn’t as crowded as we had expected. Probably by that time passengers had come ashore done and seen what they wanted and went back on the ship, because it was still raining. We grabbed some grocs and headed back to the cottage for lunch.
After lunch, even though it was still raining, Geoff, Pam and I dec8ded to head out and explore the hike we had read about that was not far from the cottage. It was a fairly rocky slog uphill but not as slippery as it looked. We hiked for about half an hour but since it was still coming down and we were all pretty wet, we opted to head back to the cottage. But it did feel good to be out and doing something physical, which has been somewhat lacking on this trip!
We had an afternoon snack of cheese and crackers and tried the sample of the local Gamaloft cheese. It is served on crackers with a sour cream and raspberry jam topping. On its own I was not enamoured of the taste but with the topping it was edible. Another yummy dinner with cheesecake and raspberry chocolate ice cream for dessert. Followed by some packing up for our departure tomorrow.