What happens when you turn a corner in Norway!

A moment lived in Norway by Georgina Mckimm, a traveler from United Kingdom

On February 22nd 2016, I moved into my VW Caddy and have been living in it ever since. One Van and No Plan is literally what it says on the tin! I live in my van (Callie the Caddy) and just take each day as it comes. Check out what I have learned and experience along the way!

Heading down from Bodo after spending a memorable few days in Saltstraumen, the plan was to head to the ferry then down towards the south of Norway, but when you turn a corner and there is a f***ing Glacier in front of you! Your plans change!

Parking up opposite the Svartisen Glacier it then becomes my sole mission in life to touch it! Now you could have done the touristy thing and grabbed the boat over to the other side for 150 NOK (15quid ish) but why pay for something when you can get there for free! So what I thought was going to be roughly a half an hour Kayak turned out to be a good hour +. Not that I minded as Kayaking around Norwegian Fjord is an awesome way to really understand the sheer size and beauty of them! (check out the video of the Kayak over here)

After reaching the shoreline and hiding my bright Green kayak in the reeds I set off on what looks like an hour ish walk to the Glacier! Again I am seriously not good at judging these timings! Heading towards the Glacier and stumbling across two moose on the way is always an added bonus! Getting to the lake at the bottom of the glacier was stunning and you could really start to understand the sheer size of it! I was mesmerized back at the Van, let’s just say I was like a kid at Christmas!

The sunshine was now out in full force, having set of prepared for a day of cloud and rain a walk to the glacier in my full-length wetsuit was beginning to look like a bad idea! The walk around the lake was stunning, waterfalls falling from all around the glaciers shimmering in the sun through the trees. Tiny little streams trickling underfoot! Once you make it around the lake you get hit with a choice, you can follow the red or blue route up to the glacier! I did the obvious thing and choose red for Man Utd!

So off I scramble up the rocks, halfway up the red route you are hit with pretty much a vertical climb. Which I would definitely not recommend doing in the midday heat in a full-length wetsuit! The benefit of it I supposed was stopping every two minutes to breathe and take in the stunning views this place had to offer!

Reaching the top and popping your head over the last rock is an incredible feeling just standing there taking in the beauty of the Glacier, the height, the width, the coolness that radiated off it!

And the BLUES! Don’t get me started on the colors this thing had on show! On top the white, with a hint of baby blue to the underneath deep dark blue with shades of purple!

I sat there for hours just studying it with my eyes, the blues were mesmerizing! I really didn’t know you could get so many shades of Blue!

Then the sounds, the volumes of water rushing down underneath to droplets of water falling on the rocks around the edges! With the occasional sound of chunks of ice separating away and smashing against the ground!

After pulling myself away from the Glacier I decided my knees would probably thank me if I went back down the blue route! They did! I would recommend this blue route over the red route! Scrabbling under and over rocks and jumping through waterfalls much more fun route!

After heading back down from the Glacier and picking a few blueberries along the way I made it back to the Kayak just in time as the tide had come all the way up to the reeds and the front of the kayak was surrounded by water! Great timing as I didn’t fancy a swim back! I’ve seen the amount of Jellyfish these places hold! Thousands!!

The Kayak back seemed to go a lot quicker than the way there, probably cause I just spent the whole time reliving the beauty I had just seen!

I just touched a f***ing glacier!!!!

This traveller has a blog : Wake up to the World

credit photo : Georgina Mckimm