Decisions had to be made…
I am struggling to find and select photos to include in this post. And this struggle is just the perfect reflection of the struggles that I have often experienced during my travels and I am sure I will come back to this again in future posts.
One of the decisions I struggled with again and again was deciding where to go or stay and how quickly or for how long. And the other one was, what to actually photograph and which of those photos I should keep or share. And only now in hindsight do I realize that those struggles are actually connected in many ways.
I remember that after two days at the little harbour, I felt that I should move on. I can still hear the voice in my head saying: You are in Norway now, so don't waste your time - you should visit all the famous places.
I decided to drive to Lysebotn at the famous Lysefjord. It would be a two-day-drive on small fjell roads as I had set my navigation system to "avoid motorways and toll-roads” and it was raining.
I took a few photos that day but only kept this one - the photo of a little birch tree in the high grass, showing the first signs of autumn.
The next morning I woke up with the promise of some sunshine, at least for the next few hours. So after a quick photo of my park-up (which at that time I still considered "mandatory”), I hurried to drive on, as the road down to the Lysefjord is one of the famous roads in Norway.
Lysevegen is mainly a one-lane road, even in the 1100m long tunnel (the only tunnel I have driven with a U-curve inside the tunnel 😳). It goes from sea level up to 950m above sea level in 27 sharp hairpin bends as well as some more moderate curves (see the screenshot I included from google maps). It is usually only open for about 6 months each year depending on the weather. Also along the Lysefjord is the famous Prejkestolen, a sheer cliff towering 600m above the fjord. In the end I did not visit Prejkestolen, but more about this later.
The views from Lysevegen were quite spectacular and I had the excitement of not only driving down but also all the way back up again, because there was no ferry from Lysebotn on that day or the next. In the afternoon the weather changed and a storm approached as predicted, but I had already spotted a place for the night earlier in the day.
Now you probably expect to see some photos from the road and the fjord, but the only photos I really liked were these three macro shots that I took just before the storm, next to my car.
And instead of keeping the photo I had taken from my park-up while I had passed it on my way down and when it was still sunny, I prefer this one from the next morning…
Looking at this photo now, I feel the same urge I felt that morning, the urge to follow that road and see where it would take me.
Needless to say, that I did follow that desire and the road. I drove on, away from the famous fjord and towards the unknown mountains in the distance, passing lonely trees, enjoying the solitude.
I can't even remember where I spent the night, because somehow I was not there and somehow it did not matter…