A view mishaps, and now Voss

The day did not start well.  We could hear the rain on the roof of the caravan, and knew we were in for a wet day.  Packing up in the rain is never fun.  

During breakfast I looked out at the tents, and felt a twinge of sympathy for the people in them.  But they were a hardy lot.   Mind you they were all still in bed at 10.30 when we left.   So perhaps not so hardy afterall.

We quickly completed all our jobs, and hitched up the car, and amazingly all went smoothly.   We remembered not to take the caravan off the ramps until we had hitched up, thereby avoiding rolling the caravan back into a tree.     

After that our carefulness and caution disappeared, and I did not walk beside the car as Walter drove it, and the caravan, out onto the track.  As I should have, of course.  In hindsight.   Instead I quickly collected the last of our bits and pieces.   And when I looked up I could see that a branch was in the process of knocking over the antenna on top of the caravan.  Too late.   Walter borrowed a ladder, and cut the cable, and took off the antenna, in the rain of course.   He then covered the hole with gaffa tape.   One must always carry gaffa tape in a caravan.   Fixes everything.  

   We are now minus an antenna.  But as we prefer to keep our coffee machine in the television cupboard, we do not need an antenna.  Thank goodness. 

Nervously, I got into the driver's seat to drive the car to Voss.   I had a feeling that this was not going to be a good trip.   Rain and narrow roads plus trucks, buses, motorhomes and caravans.  Not a good mix.   

And I was right.   We had not gone very far when Walter informed me there was a coach coming towards us.  On a very narrow stretch of road.   As the coach would have had to reverse for quite a distance to find a passing area I knew it was up to me. I would have to reverse back to a wider part of the road.   Only a few metres back.   

Of course I went to pieces.   As one does in such circumstances, and could not remember which way to turn the wheel, to get which direction.   The caravan ended up blocking the whole road.   There was a queue of vehicles behind me, and a queue behind the coach, and everyone was looking at me.   The coach driver never said a word.   He just watched me.

 In the end Walter saved the day.   He got into the drivers seat, and I walked alongside the car, trying to give directions.  Eventually he managed to straighten out the car and caravan, and then reversed it back.   It was so embarrassing.   

And did it end there?   Of course not.   Further along there was another extremely narrow stretch of road, which was also very twisty, and quite steep in places.   But luckily I saw the traffic ahead had stopped and I managed to pull over just before the road narrowed.   

We waited, and waited.   First a car reversed back, and then a large motorhome.   Walter got out to investigate, and reported back that a caravan ahead of us had to reverse uphill, in order that a very large truck, with an equally large trailer, could squeeze past.   It took ages.  I must admit I was pleased that it was not us, having to reverse that caravan uphill.   Finally we travelled down in a convoy, and had to squeeze past numerous trucks, caravans and motorhomes, waiting in wider parts of the road.

 Thank goodness, the rest of the journey, over the bridge, through a tunnel and then on a wider road, went without a problem, although it did not stop raining.   It took us two and a half hours to travel fifty six kms from Loftus to Voss.

Lunch, and a very welcome cup of coffee, and we were ready to look at the sights of Voss, which is fairly high up, we think.  We climbed most of the way from Hardangerfjord.   But of course the cloud is covering mostly everything, so we are not really sure.   But Voss looks a pretty place.

The church.   Always a good place to start in a town.  It was built in early Gothic style, and finished in 1277.  It started as a Catholic Church, but during the reformation in 1536, became a Lutheran Church.

 The inside of the church, was very beautiful.  The carved angel suspended from the ceiling was carrying the baptismal font, which was lowered for each baptism.    It was added in 1820.

 We walked along the main street, where there were numerous cafes and shops.   There was a seconds shop for Hardanger Bestikk (cutlery), and we could not resist purchasing a few more pieces of cutlery.   We also visited an enormous outdoor shop, the largest I have seen outside New Zealand.   Walter has his eye on a pair goretex light weight trainers, so there may be a return visit to the shop.

A cafe, with a very strange person sitting at a table.  On closer inspection, it turned out to be a sculpture.   A witch?   Certainly not a troll, which seemed to feature dominately in all souvenir shops.

The legend of the trolls goes back to the era when the glaciers receeded after the ice age.   When people moved into the land, they found that it was inhabited by these strange creatures.   They were large or small, they were always very old and had long noses. Interesting characters.

Our campsite, which is in a lovely spot beside a lake.   Walter looking very happy and relaxed now we are settled again.

In order to help recover my self esteem, I successfully reversed the caravan onto our site, with just a little help from the caravan mover to finally place it exactly where Walter felt it should go.  These were very narrow sites.

Our evening walk, along the lakeside.  A very calm evening, with a few breaks in the mist hanging over the mountains.

Great for taking photographs of reflections.

These poor trees have their roots showing above the ground.   They remind me of spiders crawling along the ground.   Giant spiders carrying trees.

There was a flood here last October, and the force of the water in the river washed the footbridge away.

My view from the window of the caravan.   Not quite as spectacular as Hardangerfjord, but still pretty good.

Other minor mishaps also occurred today.   We forgot to lock the fridge door and it flew open, and all the food landed on the floor.  I dropped my telephone behind the drawers at the front of the caravan, and it took ages to get it out.    And Walter dropped his hearing aid into a glass of water, but luckily it dried off okay.

But all our mishaps faded into nothing, when we walked past the English caravan in the camping ground, and noticed that the front was pushed in on one side.   The side that is nearest to the oncoming traffic.   Obviously a misjudgement problem, when out on the roads.   A brand new caravan too.