We started our cruise at 8:10 this morning in Skien (pronounced "she-en"), Norway with about 20 passengers.
As we make our way to our first set of locks, there are many beautiful homes on the hillside.
At Loveid, we went through our first locks. The locks here come in sets. Most are two locks together, but there is also a set of three and a set of five (just like the Bingley Five we did in England on the Leeds to Liverpool Canal). Sometimes their locks are carved right out of the rocks.
Here in Norway our two lock keepers follow us from 8:30 to 2:00 pm, operating all of our manual locks (all but the first set). When we leave a lock they jump in a van and drive to the next lock. There they are patiently waiting our arrival again.
A grandmother and grandson only went as far as the second lock set at Ulefloss before departing. We took on a few more passengers to offset the loss.
We had the opportunity to get off and walk at Eidsfoss. We walked to the next set of locks at Vrangfoss about a mile away.
At Vrangfoss is where we had our five locks together, so we were able to film our boat, the Victoria, going through four of the five locks. We always like to see things from both sides.
Those of us that walked got back on board the boat and "we proceeded on..." After our exhausting 1 mile walk and wonderful picture taking opportunity, we decided to have some lunch downstairs in the salon. It was a hamburger on top of a piece of regular bread covered with some special Norwegian cheese, garnished with onions, tomatoes, and lingonberries.
At Lunde everybody got off. Everybody but US and the crew of 4. What? Pat and I are now the only guests on board and we have four more hours and two more sets of locks. Yes, it's the Pat and Karen Charter Canal and Lock Cruise. So peaceful.
Immediately after leaving this lock and all of our passengers behind, we passed the Henrik Ibsen boat coming from Dalen, going to Skien. This is a beautiful boat that Karen originally want to take, but fortunately the boat we were on had much more space up front for viewing.
During the next 3 hours the river way gets narrow and then opens up to a large lake. We pass under a father and son on a bridge who stopped their bike ride to watch us go by. There are just a few kayaks out on the lakes. The towns are sparse in this region and we only see a few people out of their houses who wave at us. There is no wind and the lake is like glass. Up on the hill is a classic, black Stave church.
We go down a short inlet through a swing bridge to the city of Kviteseid, where we picked up a new chef. She's been on the boat for one week now. In an hour or so she will cook us dinner.
We split a chicken focaccia and a hot dog. It's a very relaxing, totally beautiful boat ride.
The houses and hillsides, trees and rock cliffs reflected in the water are just beautiful. Norway, all parts of it, are amazingly beautiful.
We arrive at Dalen right on time and our bus, mini bus, is right there waiting for us and only us. The road out of Dalen is very windy, like the road we drove the Twizzy cars on. Lots of hairpin turns.
No comments:
Post a Comment