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It’s Thursday 15 September (or at least, it was!). By the time we wake we are miles up the Geiranger Fjord at Hellesylt. Here we marooned a number of enthusiastic hikers ashore. They were going to walk the final section over the mountains to Geiranger. We still had three hours to sail to reach the head of the fjord – but to be fair, the fjord does take the long way round!
Fabulous waterfalls including the “Seven Sisters” …
… amongst hundreds of others …
… and mountain tops shrouded in clouds. Very atmospheric!
At Geiranger we were ferried ashore on the ship’s lifeboats.
Our trip today was up the “Eagle’s Road” which zigzags up the side of the mountain into the clouds. After eleven hairpin bends, at 620 metres above the water, the view from Eagle’s Bend was spectacular. Even if some of the mountain tops were missing!
Our ship anchored near the head of the fjord can just be seen!
The road itself is an engineering masterpiece, but it was built too narrow to take passing tour buses. Not for faint-hearted drivers!
Once over the top we found ourselves in relatively open pastures between the peaks, although even here they were building a tunnel to take the road underground to avoid the risk of avalanches which frequently block it. Snow in winter and rocks in summer. Keep going driver!
We paused at Eid Lake near Eidsdal (I told you there were lots of “between” places) …
At Nordal we left the “main” road. We turned right onto a gated, private dirt road up a valley to Herdalssetra.
This is a cooperative goat farm operated on the transhumance principle. It is one of the largest community alpine farm centres for goat farming in Norway, and there is an unbroken tradition of alpine farming here stretching back in time more than 300 years.
At one time there were 30 or so co-owners. It’s now down to three. They farm about 450 goats and produce cheeses – soft and hard white cheeses and the traditional caramelised brown cheese. Farmer Giles (not his real name) explained the process.
We had a tasting experience and, as we had missed lunch to take this tour, we didn’t under-consume the products! Very tasty they were too!
All but two “demonstration” goats had already been taken off the mountains ahead of the snow which is forecast to start tomorrow!. Let’s get out of here – we can’t afford to be marooned up in the mountains till next Spring! An interesting visit, but clearly the operation is now heavily biased towards tourism.
Back aboard, things got a bit formal again …
… as we sailed back out of the fjord on our overnight passage to Molde. It was “interestingly” rough in the open sea as we transferred from Geiranger Fjord to Moldefjord. Luckily the worst of the rocking and rolling was late at night and Glenda’s tablets worked a treat!
We survived to write another day!