Northward bound…

Now that I have started to prepare my van again for its next trip later this year, I remember why I finally named it "Schnecksche". Schneckchen or in the Hessian dialect Schnecksche comes from the German word for snail 🐌 (Schnecke) and the diminutive suffix -chen used to indicate that something is cute and very small and in this case also very slow. The name just fits perfectly to the way I continued my journey.

Without a clear destination, I continued to follow my longing for solitude and tranquility.

I set my compass to North and chose the roads that led me further in that direction.

I often stopped to take in the beauty of the landscape, like this view across the lake Sandvevatnet towards Buarbreen, an offshoot of the large Folgefonn glacier in the Hardanger region of Norway.

The weather was still very changeable and when I drove along the Sørfjord, one of the inner branches of the large Hardangerfjord, the rain caught up with me again, while I was shooting this video on my phone.

As I am clearly not a videographer (though it is something that I want to explore more on future travels), I prefer the photos that I took, when I was safe and dry back in my van. Partially because I was dry 😉 but also because I think they reflect more of the mysterious atmosphere that was created by the mix of dark, low-hanging storm-clouds, rain and sometimes a sudden ray of sunlight..

I watched this for quite some time, while I was having lunch and before I finally continued my drive north, crossing first the main Hardangerfjord and then the mountains towards the Nærøyfjord, a very narrow branch of the mighty Sognefjord.

I found a small campsite at the end of a gravel road in a tiny village right at the fjord. It was officially already closed for the season, but I contacted the owners and for a reduced rate I was allowed to stay for 3 nights and fill up my water tank. Despite the nearly constant rain, I truly enjoyed the silence, just watching ferries and boats pass by now and then.

All of the photos I took with my camera, except for the one at the end of this post, were lost, but luckily I found one video and three photos on my phone. Looking now at the one of my "bed-sofa-work and cuddle corner” I remember that It was actually quite cold and I needed to save battery. At that time I did not yet have an additional battery and solar panel - not that the solar panel would have been of much use those days… 😂

Finally, on the last day of my stay, the sun broke through and I could go for a slightly longer walk, take a video and this photo and dry out my van.

In the afternoon, I remember sitting in the open van-door - which I love doing -, with my lunch-bowl in my hands, watching another van arrive and the people going fishing from the shore and I knew it was time to move on…