Climbing Preikestolen

On a Tuesday evening at a student bar, an anatomy, politics and anthropology student decided to go hiking in Norway. Nearly 48 hours later, they were on their way.

Getting to Stavanger, the nearest town to Preikestolen, must have been one of the most intricate, time-consuming and tiring journeys I've ever taken to travel a mere 700 km. Being the environmentally conscious and broke students that we are, we opted for the overnight bus from Copenhagen central to Hirtshals harbour. This journey began at half past midnight on Friday morning, where we arrived at the harbour at about 8:15 am. I can safely say we did not sleep that well - it was worth the 18 euros though. We then waited for the 11:45 am ferry at a local cafe.

Getting to the ferry was a mess. The company through which we booked the tickets gave no information on how foot passengers were to reach the ferry, and so we found ourselves sprinting a half hour walk through a harbour wasteland, trying to scale fences and such. We eventually found ourselves being loaded along with the cars as it was the only way we could figure out how to get on the boat the first place. This wasn't even the worst part of said ferry saga. For the next two and a half hours we continued to be thrown around the North Sea like little rag dolls, narrowly missing the scenario of us all throwing up our breakfast simultaneously, much like the poor passengers around us. Not only did the ferry rock up and down against the rough sea, it also swayed from side to side, occasionally shuddering after a particularly rough wave whilst we could hear silverwear clattering from their holdings in the kitchens. It was an absolute nightmare. Physically shaken but relieved after arriving in Kristiansand, Norway, we went to book our train tickets. Panning out the way we expected, the train arrived an hour late and we made it to our B & B at about 9 pm. Worth it for the environment though! As a silver lining however, the train ride was very pretty.

The next day we were all so excited for the hike. The weather turned out to be much nicer than we anticipated, as we were expecting showers and were greeted with none. We treated ourselves to the buffet breakfast where we ate ourselves stupid full so that we wouldn't have to buy lunch. A lot of muesli was involved. I tried Norwegian brown cheese for the first time, and can say that I was pleasantly surprised. It has a sweet but very subtle flavour.

We had booked our transit to Preikestolen earlier through GoFjords, which involves a ferry across to Tau and then a bus up to the base of the hike. This was so worth the money and we didn't have to stress at all.

The hike was gorgeous. I can't even put into words how amazing the views were, and how humbling the sheer size of the fjords is. The hike itself is relatively easy, taking only about 1 and a half hours to the top. The distance was about 9 km, with a elevation gain of 680 m. There were so many beautiful dogs. I'll let the photos do the talking.

A casual drop from the top, no safety measures included

The wind was ridiculously strong, to the point where standing still was difficult

One of the many beautiful dogs we patted - his name was Sam, from Germany

The fact that I am healthy enough and have had the opportunity to work hard enough to get myself to places like these is really so special. I don't want to sound like one of those university girls who says "going abroad changed me", but so far this has been such a great experience and I would really recommend visiting the hikes in Norway for a very humbling adventure.

After we made our way back from the hike, we got the B&B just in time for free waffles (Stavanger B&B, highly recommend). Whilst bonding over how good the waffles were, we met some girls from Sydney who were on their gap year and so went out for dinner with them to a local pizza joint.

Stavanger B&B

The next morning we caught a flight out from Stavanger airport to Oslo. As check out was earlier than we intended to leave, we had a walk around the endearing (larger than we expected) town. I loved the architecture of the buildings, and have heard the Bergen is very much the same and really worth a visit.

We arrived in Oslo in the early afternoon, which was our stopover destination for the next six hours. As we had heard, it wasn't anything special. We went to see the Opera House, and had lunch at Vigeland Park, which was full of strange sculptures.

A man juggling babies?

Our flight out from Oslo back to Copenhagen was late, around 9:45 pm, and I only arrived home at 12 am for classes the next day. This block (the semesters here are divided into two blocks) I'm studying Cellular Neuroscience which so far I'm finding rather challenging as the teaching style is quite different to Melbourne University, but I'll persevere and see how it goes. I also bought the cutest little practical souvenirs - these egg cup ladies in traditional Norwegian dress. I've named them Helga and Olga.

This weekend has been super rewarding, and just shows you how much you can get done in a few days!