One of the greatest honors a Norwegian can bestow upon a foreigner is to invite them to their family cabin in the mountains. It seems as though pretty much every Norwegian family has one. So you can imagine my delight when one of my friends invited us down to Telemark to stay at not one but two family cabins for the summer!

We first flew down to Oslo to spend the day with another friend before heading out to the cabins. My partner grew up working on some farms in the hills of Lier where a lot of produce is grown in Norway. He was still in contact with a friend who worked there and had graciously offered to give us a tour of the place.

It was inspiring walking through the greenhouses seeing the cucumbers and lettuce growing for a few reasons. First, I realized how little I knew about agriculture and secondly because it was amazing to see the efficiency of modern farming to produce such a scale of produce. I seldom think about it when I grab vegetables at the grocery store, but there is a lot of work and carefully planned optimization that goes into growing our food.

One particularly interesting sight was the several greenhouses filled with rows of lettuce sprouts. They were lined up in grouped rows by the date they were planted. You could see the progress of their growth as the rows stretched out to the far corners of the greenhouse. By the time they reached the other side of the building, they would be ready to be removed from their small pots and planted in the ground in another greenhouse nearby to finish maturation. I forget the number of greenhouses total, but I was told there were only two women managing the whole process!

Next came the beautiful vineyards of cucumbers. The long vines were strung up several meters high so that the cucumbers would grow long and straight as they matured over the weeks. Their roots were in potted in a hydroponics system with the vines strung up next to them and pruned daily by the farmers. When they were ready to be harvested the farmers would use high, moving metal platforms that moved down the rows while they cut them. Apparently the farmers worked so fast they could harvest an entire row of cucumbers within a few minutes!

We finished the afternoon with a lovely (but very steep) bike ride along the tops of the hills that surrounded the farming valley. My municipality is also a farming area, but we are surrounded by steeper mountains and more narrow ravines. Lier felt open, breezy, and the idealistic type of farming community.

The next morning, after a few issues with train swapping due to mudslides, we arrived in Telemark where our friends picked us up to drive to the cabin. It was a warm, sunny day, something I hadn't experienced often in my chilly Trondheim due to it being a particularly cold year. Her cabin sat on top of a lush green hillside overlooking a beautiful lake ringed by evergreen-dense hills. Wildflowers grew in trimmed tiers down to the boat dock, while a robot lawnmower silently trundled back and forth throughout the day, clipping the grass down to a manicured length. His name was Ludwig.

We were on a working holiday, but while I clicked and clattered on my laptop throughout the day, I was grateful to enjoy a panoramic view of the landscape from the dining room table. Throughout the day, cows and sheep from the neighboring farmstead would lumber over the hills down to the water's edge for a drink, then back up into the trees out of site. The lake was still except for the occasional soft breeze that rippled over the surface now and then.

Our afternoons were spent lazing about in the sun, swimming, boating, and walking along the winding dirt roads in the hills. On one afternoon walk, in the middle of picking wild strawberries and exploring abandoned houses, my keen eyes picked up on a snake slithering awkwardly across the path. We all stopped suddenly and noticed something was wrong with it by its unusual movement. Cautiously stepping closer, we saw it was a simple garter snake with a sharp bend in its spine. It had most likely been run over or stepped on, but it could still move fairly well, just not in a straight line. I picked up a long branch nearby and gently began to nudge it towards the grass. The poor thing struggled a lot on the dirt, but once it reached the grass, it was able to move in a more purposeful direction.

Later that week, we needed to swap cabins so that my friend's family could stay in this one with their children. We moved to their second cabin located along the edge of Møsvatn, not too far from Rjukan, which is famous for the hydroelectric power plant Vemork. The power plant was occupied by Germans during World War II for the production of heavy water needed to make atomic bombs. The Norwegian heavy water sabotage was a series of attacks launched on the site to prevent the Germans from advancing their development of atomic bombs, and the Allies were eventually successful.

Unlike the sunny, summery weather of the first cabin, this one felt more like a cozy autumn abode. It was a lot chillier here, but we didn't let that stop us from enjoying the tranquil views of this new lakeside view.

One of the unique things about Norwegian mountains, is that one can often find cattle and sheep roaming wild in the hills. This particular area had quite a lot of sheep roaming about, and they had a particular fascination with waking us up really early in the morning. It’s common to leave your windows open to get fresh air when you sleep at night because Norwegian wooden homes usually heat well. The downside of this was that at around five in the morning we could hear the sheep bells clanking just outside our window, followed by a heavy paw, and then the startling bleating of sheep calling into our window. Nothing wakes you up faster than hearing a loud “Baaaaaaa!!!!” right into your room.

One day we took the Krossobane gondola up to the mountaintop for some day hiking. There were quite a few people at the beginning of the trailhead, we soon found ourselves in isolation as we headed into the mountains. Off the distance we could see Gaustatoppen, a famous mountain peak, and tourist destination in the area. We would hike over there the following day.

The sky started out cloudy and the terrain was wet, filled with small streams and low shrubbery. We had a few delightful moments when the sun came out to reveal a bright blue sky, but the weather did fluctuate throughout the day. In either case, it was a comfortable temperature for hiking.

As we passed by a large outcropping of boulders, I heard a high-pitched screeching of a bird calling somewhere above us. Try as I might, I couldn’t find the source, but it sounded like a bird of prey. Wildlife was fairly scarce here, except for small birds and insects. At one point we discovered the nest of what I believe to be moths, but unfortunately I get a picture of it. Draped between some shrubbery was a dense web, crawling with small worm-like creatures, it was fascinating!

Overall, the hike was short, and I wish I could have stayed out there for much longer. As with most hikes in Norway, as soon as you wander just a bit, you begin to feel as though you are in deep wilderness with no one around. Alas, it was getting late in the evening, we headed back to the cabin for a delicious salmon dinner.

We returned to the area the following day, but this time we headed up a different gondola on the adjacent mountain side. We were taking a gondola to Gaustatoppen, a famous tourist destination at the top of the 1830-meter-high mountain. The gondola ride was completely different from the one we took the day before. Instead of an open glass carriage, we instead entered a dark and damp tunnel, and crammed into a very small and certainly old looking trolley carriage. The tunnel was maybe 4 meters across and high with a slow ascent that took about 20 minutes. Just outside the carriage wall, I could see an emergency footpath staircase, slowly dripping with tiny water streams from the condensation that had built up in the damp tunnel. The repetitive mechanical clicking of the trolley wheels as it streamed to pull upward, was unnerving, so I tried to distract myself by listening in on a conversation between the carriage driver and some passengers.

The uncomfortable ride up was absolutely worth it for the breathtaking view that greeted us when we stepped outside. Standing well above the horizon line, I could see below us a whole mountain range of loose gray rocks that tumbled down until they met the soft green tree line forest that framed deep blue lakes. Further down in the distance, I could see a thin trail winding its way up the cluttered hillside. It was dotted with a rainbow of colors from the jackets of tourists that endeavored to make the climb instead of taking the trolley. Normally, I would choose to make the effort and hike up the trail in order to reap the reward of such a beautiful vista. However, when looking at the crowded ant trail of hikers I was glad that we had opted for the creepy trolley ride.

At the highest part of the peak, there was a thin and treacherous path along the spine of the mountaintop, where one could follow it to reach the final outlook. The view is already amazing to me, but my partner decided to make the trek out there. I sat down on the platform nearby and angled my feet over the edge. Waiting for over a half an hour, I watched the clouds float by, casting dappled patterns of shade throughout the mountain range. Behind and all around me was an endless flow of tourists. I tried to keep my sights fixed on the mountains and soak in as much nature as I could. I felt lucky that I could simply sit here and enjoy the view and the sunshine on my cheeks for so long. Many people simply arrived at this location, took a few selfies, and then quickly headed back down.

I don’t think I’m the only one who has felt this, but in a strange way I enjoy the feeling of looking over a cliffside. Sometimes I get this feeling like the mountain is pulling me, like it wants me to jump. There’s a haunting, but alluring terror when you look out and realize how close you are to death. You are merely accidental fall or an unintentional bump away from crashing into the millions of jagged rocks that draped over the steep cliffs. For a while, I was torn between morbid fascination and anxiety for the safety of my partner, when I lost sight of him far off in the distance. Thankfully, I eventually saw him reach the flag, and my heart lifted for a bit.

Nature Watch

This year, I started to more seriously observe and document different species of nature and wildlife I found on my adventures and wanderings. One of my main goals of these blogs is to showcase nature, so going forward I plan to have this special Nature Watch section in my blogs to share my findings.

Summer in Southern Norway

Nature Watch

Birthday Blast through Poland

A Short Summer Hike