.: fjord explorer :.

To commence our latest adventure, we packed the night before and left with plenty of time to spare, figuring in Staus and so and crossed Germany without incident. Denmark, though I was sorry to only  use it as a transit point and there must be some interesting things to see outside of that corridor from Germany to the ferry lines, but was surprised to encounter the traffic jams there instead. I guess the country of only five and a half million gets a bit overwhelmed when infrastructure and considerate drivers are descended upon by an international onslaught of vacationers. Still, we made it to the harbour in Hirtshals in plenty of time and had an early supper and a bit of a rest on the beach before boarding. Once we finally got underway in the Fjord Cat—for catamaran, the seas turned kind of choppy and we were tossed about a bit. 

After a two and half hour bumpy ride, we came into the Norwegian port town of Kristiansand at about 02:30. It had been a very long day and we were glad to finally get some sleep. We left Kristiansand the next morning, after seeing a bit of the town in the day light and getting our bearings and made our way through the Lista region to Brogaten by Farsund. There, we climbed around the ruins of an ancient fort that had seen I guess many different incarnations throughout the ages. Just opposite was a compound that was some of the extensive remnants of the Atlantic Western Wall from 1942. After some Norwegian pancakes and some complementary coffee for filling out a rather lengthy and probing survey in the accompanying museum, we went on to Varnes, hugging the coast and being generally in awe in every direction and at all times. There was also a bunker and artillery battery hewn into the cliff face that we explored. The hike up there, however, was more of a challenge than advertized and we readjusted our itinerary and sought out a camp site not too far away in a village fronting another fjord branch called Svinland near Kvinesdal. 

The following day, we drove through the Flekkefjord—and taking the scenic route was absolutely breathtaking, despite the rainy weather, winding our way up and down the fjord. No real respite came for the rain but nonetheless, we enjoyed stopping at the larger town of Eigersund to see the architecture and local culture. Afterwards, we drove a bit further north along the coast through Ogna and Brusand and camped directly behind the dunes of the shores of the North Atlantic. The rain broke the next day for us as we went on to Jørpeland. 

From Brusand, we took another leisurely drive through the outskirts of Stavanger (this we will get to see later) onto to Lauvik where we crossed with a ferry into the Lysefjord. We are going to assail the Priest's Pulpit (Preikestolen) in this area but before embarking, we toured down the lenght of the gorgeous landscape, doubling back so we could view the rock formation from a distance at the vantage point called Skrøylå. We took a very beautiful hike after enjoying a bit of a picknick a saw more of the amazing features of the landscape and a cascade of water gathered from points all over the mountain. This evening, our camp site is base camp for our hike up the Priest's Pulpit on tomorrow.