Monday, February 22, 2010

Mo I Rana - Iceberg Right Ahead!

Day 12: Mo I Rana Sightseeing: A chance to visit the Svartisen glacier (Norway's second largest), subject to weather conditions. This afternoon free time to relax by the lake and enjoy the beautiful surroundings. (Breakfast and Dinner included)


Hotel: Rossvoll Senter
Breakfast: 8:30 Bus departs: 9:15

This morning we were off to Svartisen Glacier, it seemed we might have gotten a bit lost on the way to the boat, but we got there, which is all that counts. The boat ride took about 20 minutes and then we had to hike on what was pretty much a mountain, almost all plain old rock. The hike wasn't so bad, though it was raining most of the time and a bit slippery. We found a waterfall early on in the hike, which was really nice. After about 45 minutes we got to the sign that says you shouldn't go any further since it's not safe. A couple people went closer to the glacier, but I didn't. I was already worried about getting back down, so I wasn't going any further.

After I got there and took a few pictures it was time to head back. I was a little nervous about climbing down. There were quite a few big steps up that I had to now go down, preferably without falling and hurting myself. I slowly made my way down. Towards the end, where it was just walking I managed to twist my ankle and fall down, but I was fine. I found this whole hiking thing too stressful, trying not to fall is hard work, I'm never going hiking again!


Inject - that was my original opening paragraphs; however, I remember this much differently. The hike up was a workout, but not difficult. But I was very worried about hiking back down, I have a fear of hiking down, it's slippery and I tend to have visions of falling and breaking a leg. Hiking back down I was on the verge of tears at one point because I was so afraid and having trouble navigating the rocky landscape. I would follow the trail of other people but would end up in a spot with a valley that was too steep to climb down and back up and would have to back track to another spot. On top of all that drama in my head I was so slow I was afraid I would be the last one back and the boat would leave without me.


Back to the original post:

We were back at the campsite a little after 1pm for lunch and a rest. I had lunch, washed some clothes and then and went for a walk, it was me, Nancy, Skye and Jacqui. One of the women in the grocery store gave us some general directions to a waterfall. Along the way we found a horse, he wasn't hard to find since you could smell the farm he was on from a mile away. He was a nice horse, he came up to the edge of his roped in area to get petted. We kept walking after that and found a power plant and we thought we could hear a waterfall, but couldn't really find it. We poked around a bit and there it was, it was HUGE and we could climb the rocks near it (since I enjoyed climbing rocks so much). Jacqui and I were a bit nervous at first, but we both made it so we could get some pictures. Then we climbed up through the woodsy area and made our way back to camp. When we got back people were starting to stir again so Nancy, Lis, Jacqui and I played Uno.

We had an early dinner tonight, 6:30. After dinner I went (as did many people) to the grocery store for ice cream, we deserved a treat after all the hiking we did that day, not that we needed an excuse for ice cream, this was a vacation. After that we watched some track and field competition on TV (something you can understand when it's not in English) and made it an early night.