Norge

 After the Voss extreme sports week, pretty much our whole car (except the pregnant lady) came down with a rather savage flu (turns out late nights, lack of sleep and excessive drinking take their toll on the body...) so we hung out at Mikey and Margis's - the coolest people we know, to recuperate and do some life organising before we headed to the next destination. This was set to be Valdall - another festival/race about six hours away. 

 With perfect weather for the drive, what better activity to indulge in than a spot of ice fishing with my new fishing rod...?

 Icy lakey family shot

 

Jamie Sutton on the other hand, decided to indulge in his favourite activity. 

He then spent the next hour huddled in the van in a hoodie and pants despite the glaring sunshine - "Hey guys, can we turn the air con off please?"

 One of the ferries across the Fiords - note the macca waterfall in the background. We drove right in front of that guy after the ferry it was quite impressive.

 

The boys having a break (Jamie most likely mid break - "you have to hydrate guys") underneath Jostedal - the biggest glacier in Northern Europe. I know, I know it doesn't look big - this is just the edge. There's heaps more of it up the top. Nitpickers. 

 We found a glorious spot for dinner at the head of Norways deepest lake (something ridiculous like 500m in case you were wondering)

 Arty flowery dinnery shot.

 ...and drove past some more amazing fiords. (This is about as dark as Norway gets during summer. It could have been 10pm or 3am here. Who knows...)

 We were supposed to catch another ferry but we met up with Julian en route and he told us that we had missed the last ferry of the day. Luckily Julian had a friend who had a cabin nearby. We were in semi shock as we got escorted into this amazing cabin and welcomed with a shot of Jagermeister (shudder, try not to vom), and then fed and entertained until the wee hours by an amazing Norwegian family. 

We got to Valdall the next day and it started raining (funny that) and it didn't stop for two weeks, hence the lack of many more photos. Needless to say, Valdall was a bit of a let down. Partly because the race was super expensive, but Mainly, because someone who shall remain unnamed but who is Maori and has a crooked nose broke my fishing rod before we had even caught any fish. Things worked out alright though because we used said broken fishing rod to fix our tent pole which had also broken and ripped the tent. All together now... Gypsys.

 

 The next stop on tour was the Sjoa (say shoowaa) river festival - another six hours away. To get there you drive up the Rauma valley, home to the infamous lower Rauma section. There was about 150 cumecs pumping down her today though. This didn't stop a certain Maori with a crooked nose trying to convince us that there was a line on Flemmingfossen...

 In Sjoa we had lots of fun kayaking on high rivers and doing some racing and having the mother of all parties. Jamie once again providing us with general hilarity. "I'm going to try sleeping with my face mask. And my mosquito net. What? Why are you guys laughing?" Brilliant. 

 The national park up by the Ulla river (cant actually see the river but it is there) We had a race up here but it was raining so I didn't take any photos...

After Sjoa we were well and truly sick of the rain so as soon as the racing had finished on Saturday it was into the van for the 24 hour haul back to Germany. This was partly so we could get away from the cold but more importantly,  we had a rendezvous with a beer tent... Stand by.