About 20 minutes by car away from the house there are fun hiking trails on Straumøya. This island is on the south side of Saltfjord, while Bodø is on the north side. We decided to try out a coastal hike that first cut through some marsh, and then hugged the coastline. Scattered here and there we found some cloudberries in the marsh, and then reached the ocean.
Not unexpectedly, once we reached the water, Derek only wanted to look for crabs. There was no sandy beach area, so I'm not surprised we only found dead crabs and no live ones.
Another day, we parked in the same spot on Straumøya, but instead of hiking along the coast, we hiked up the hill for beautiful views. In the upper right corner of the next photos is Hopen, where my parents have their house.
On the way home, we stopped at the Saltstraumen whirlpool. We missed the strongest currents.
However, no trip to Saltstraumen is complete without stopping briefly at what we affectionately call Hobbiton.
Back at home, Derek liked to don his mosquito netting hat to avoid any potential bites.
Derek and Mimi built Mjölnir, Thor's mythological hammer, and it got some use.
Bananagrams was a fun and frequent pass time during lazy hours.
We hiked to the old quartz mine, not too far from the house. The kids wanted some of the quartz as a souvenir, so a few pieces did make it back to Mimi and Mormor's house. Later in the summer, when we were in Thailand, I was surprised to find a piece of quartz rock in my backpack that I had unknowingly been lugging around across continents.
Farmer Frank came to cut the fields near the house. It is always fun to watch the many iterations of the tractor doing stuff with various attachments. It involves a lot of trips and lots of time.
The kids love the little hike to the ski hut in Tverlandet. The three streams meeting is fun as are all the rocks.
Somehow, having a camp fire was a must-do activity and it eventually happened:-) It is always strange to me that the kids want to roast marshmallows, but yet they do not like cooked marshmallows. They just want to pretend to roast them, and eat them plain.
We had been monitoring the cloudberries and hoping they would ripen in time for us to pick them. On one of our last days in Norway, we hiked the forest backing to Mimi and Mormor's house and went to Mormor's super secret cloudberry spot. There were some cloudberries ripe enough to pick. I find the next photo hilarious. Everyone else is hunched over, picking berries, and Karina is the spot in the distance, as usual avoiding the group activity and reading her Kindle.
Our mildly successful harvest:
Mimi found a vintage (antique?) blueberry picking tool for Lydia to try. She was eager to make use of it. The wild blueberries don't look like much, being so small, but they are delicious. The blueberry jam Mormor made from Lydia's blueberries was amazing.
After nearly 2 weeks in Norway, it was time for our next adventure. The kids and I flew from Bodø to Oslo, then Oslo to Bangkok (11 hrs), then Bangkok to Krabi, where we met Nate, who flew in the opposite direction, at the hotel.
Eating some food at Oslo Airport:
No comments:
Post a Comment