Day 12 – Through the mountains

Today the weather finally improved somewhat and we did a lot of hills. For the first time this trip, our route took us away from the coast and inland. This was a nice change of scenery, but made for a slower pace.

We woke up excited, since today for us has been like Christmas eve, with our rest day in Trondheim beginning tomorrow evening. So we set off strong, going 30km until our rest break, where we sat at a picnic table overlooking a swolen river and waterfall, watching fisherman fly fish.

Back on the road, we held off for our lunch break until 60km, where we found a sheltered bus stop to have lunch. Throughout the day there was continuously changing weather. We had to put on and take off rain gear hurredly 27 times or so (says Viki – actually maybe 7 times). It was an exciting day for us as we finally had our first wildlife encounter, after having seen “elk crossing” signs for the past thousand kilometres. I shouted back at Viki “look at the ponies!”. We stopped and watched them saunter across a field and realized that they were in fact elk! We later also saw a fox, which was also pretty exciting.

Afternoon snack break was at 90km on someone’s front lawn. Finally, the last 17km brought us to kilomtre 107, where we set up camp by a lake and picnic table. We finished our last cheesy pasta last night so tonight brought a new dinner. We had plain rice with a vegetable stock cube, a tetra pack of tomatoes, some olives, and a can of tuna. I had my doubts, but it ended up being alright. Viki was happy that it wasn’t an instant meal and I was happy with a big bowl of food. Earlier at our snack break today, I wasn’t satisfied with the measly granola bar apportioned to me so had to resort to eating raw oat mix.

Since we did more than necessary today, we only have 70km tomorrow to reach Trondheim! We’re planning to wake up early as we can’t wait to get to a warm and dry place to sleep, a place to wash our clothes and dry our sodden selves, and a buffet dinner.