Preikestolen

I said in my last story that I would show one more awesome holiday picture, and here it is! This is Preikestolen, a very famous rock and view point, chosen by lonely planet as one of the top ten views in the world. Since I’m totally into cool nature stuff like this I decided to go to Stavanger to be able to see it in real life.

Like all the good stuff in life, it took some effort to get there.  It was still about an hour from Stavanger and then a two hour hike. However, since it is not high season and since it is Norway, I could not get to the hike with public transport, the closest I could get was on a 10 km distance. That’s why I hitchhiked. This was easier as it might sound, since I had to take a ferry and could ask for a ride there, that I found soon. On the way back I could ride with some people that also did the hike. Despite of the (of course) terrible weather, there were still a lot of people hiking up there. It was a really nice hike, I love how the surroundings in Norway change really fast: from dense forests to open plains, and from lakes to deep drops. Since the weather was bad, there were a lot of waterfalls that turned up out of the blue. On top the wind was so strong that the water falling down was blown back up: it’s an experience to see a waterfall going in the wrong direction.

And then I was at the top. I must admit the view was not as good as expected: it was still really cool, but in my opinion a bit overrated. That did not make it less worth it, because it was really cool to stand there. It is as I said a big rock that was formed by the glacier that also formed the fjord, and chopped of pieces of rock and carried those away. It’s a steep drop down into the Lysefjord of 600 m and as you can see there are no fences or anything to obstruct the view. Of course I had to go to the edge (on a moment of low wind). In case you were wondering, the red dot in the distance is me. It was very scary, I looked down for two seconds realizing then that I was too terrified. But it was a very awesome experience.

I also really wanted to go to Kjeragbolten (for the googelers), a single rock in a gorge, a 1000 m above the fjord, but that hike was closed in autumn because it is too dangerous. So seems like I need to go back here some time, but after this time in Norway I already realized that.

Ha det!