hiking trip

For my last weekend in Oslo Luani and I were going to go away to a fjord but because it’s getting colder all transport to all fjords has stopped so our back up plan was to road trip it to the fjord but we left it too late to book a car so come Friday the only hire cars available in all of Oslo were manual (of which neither of us can drive legally)

Despite these set backs, we weren’t deterred and our hopes for an excellent weekend weren’t crush so we decided to go on a hiking trip.
Luani joined the national hiking association, we chose a trail and roped Edgar into coming.
I was super excited about the trip.
Edgar, Luani and I were to venture off into the wilderness to a cabin up in the mountains, spend the night there and then take another trail home the following day. Simple plan (ha) right? wrong

We planned to leave the house at 0800 to catch a 0900 train, we didn’t leave until 10:30 and caught an 11:47 train.

The train trip took about an hour and to our surprise, when we got off the train we were surrounded by mist. All of the roads, trees and houses were covered in snow.
I hadn’t considered snow when I packed and was wearing the same super cool sandshoes I hiked in last time.

It took us about half an hour to figure out which direction we should head in and the then find the correct path. That path took us up a steeeeep incline for a good hour or two which was lots of fun in sandshoes on slippery ice.
We crossed many a bridge, took many wrong turns and had a close brush with death when we crossed paths with a blood thirsty hunter.

Because the ground was covered with snow I inevitably got wet feet from falling though thin layers of ice

After many more wrong turns and lots of back-tracking we found where we should be, up a cliff.
Part of the cliff was frozen over which gave wolfie a chance to show off his super human reflexes. anyway, we successfully made it to the top of the cliff to find a clearing with a few cabins in it which excited us quite a lot, posing as the silver lining to our cliff climbing experience. This excitement was brought to an abrupt halt when we found that the key we’d been given didn’t fit and of the locks of any of the cabins.
so we set off again in search of our cabin, on our venture I managed to plan both of my feet in a mixture of mud, water, snow and various animal feces so I volunteered to wait in the clearance with the hiking gear while Voldy and Wolfgang went on in search of the long lost cabin.
The returned a short while later, heroes, having found the cabin. so we all set off up the never ending mountain until we came to the cabin!

-The cabin sleeps eight and we already knew that another five people were also staying there (three of which were already there when we arrived)
We ate, and I changed my socks, which is harder than you’d think when you’re wearing jeans and stockings over your socks.
Voldy and Wolfie then wanted to go further up the mountain to see what was left of the sunset, I stayed home because of my wet feet and the impending cold.
the three other peeps also when for an adventure.

While there were gone I rugged up in wool socks, hardcore thermals, tracksuit pants, a skivvy, down vest, fleece jacket, beanie, sleeping bag and doona.
while wolfgang and voldy were gone the other two cabin members arrived, they were a middle aged Norwegian couple who laughed at me when they saw that I was so rugged up and it was only 5pm.
I then stayed in bed, dying of the cold until Luani and Edgar came home. When they realised I was cold they insisted I swapped sleeping bags with them (they both had hardcore camping sleeping bags and I didn’t) When I refused many many many times they made me take my feet (which were numb) out of my socks so they could rub them to warm me up (as good slaves should) after doing this Edgar sat on my feet and refused to get off until I agreed to take his sleeping bad, I won but did agree to have Luani’s sleeping bag on top of me

Once the remaining three cabin members arrived back, the middle aged man built a deliciously warm fire, so warm in fact that that I had to take my layers off and edgar had to sleep ‘naked‘

Luani and Edgar stayed up, ate dinner and bonded with our cabin mates, I on the other hand slept.

I slept right through the night without complaint until about 0400 when I couldn’t fight my need for a bathroom any longer so I put on my sandshoes and ventured out into the cold.
The bathroom was freezing and like the cabin had no electricity making my only light, the light of the moon.
The toilet was an old school waterless toilet , which I was fine with apart from the lack of toilet seat. I did my business and went back inside to bed, although I was wide awake I willed myself back to sleep knowing that everyone would be up in a few hours to see sunrise (which I promised myself I’d see after missing sunset)