I had a wonderful weekend in Dovrefjell with my friend Linda some weeks ago. We took the train to Kongsvold after work on Friday. We stayed at Kongsvold fjellstue during the weekend. A very nice place in the middle of nowhere. They are famous for their fantastic kitchen and we have to say that we fully agree that the food was something extra here! They even have musk ox on their menu!

 

On Saturday we went out on a guided walk to try to find some musk oxes. The musk oxes live originally in Greenland, but a small population was brought to Norway in 1931, with some "refills" at later stages. Now there are a couple of hundred musk oxes living in Dovrefjell. You can also find a smaller population of musk oxes in Härjedalen in Sweden. They immigrated from Norway in the 1970's.

 

We didn't have to walk far to find them this time. We spotted them after a 30 minutes walk from the road! We sat down and watched them for a while when they were eating. Interesting animals! :-) They have a very thick fur that protects them from the bitter cold in the mountains. We also learned that they don't like snow. When the snow comes they climb higher up in the mountains where there is more wind, and hence less snow. The reason why they don't like snow is because they are heavy animals, and it's not so fun to walk in deep snow when you heavy. :-)

 

 

Two weeks ago I spent the weekend in Kragerø, on the southern Norwegian coast, together with my sea kayaking friends. The kayaking trip is an annual event and this year we were thirteen people participating. One of the guys has a cabin located on one of the islands in the Kragerø archipelago, which was our base camp during the weekend.

 

We went out on day trips in the area and on Saturday we discovered the island Jomfruland (Maiden Island), where we landed and went for a short hike to the lighthouse. We also found a cafe where we had a cold beer in the sun. You have to take all opportunities to get the most out of our short Scandinavian summer! In the evenings we enjoyed dinner together, served with refreshing drinks. :-) It was a lovely weekend and I felt so happy to be back among my friends again. Norway is such a beautiful country!