Our Norwegian summer was brief, but pretty amazing and enhanced by exploring some areas and places we haven't ventured to before and making some great new discoveries.
Having grown up by the sea, the lack of sand in our vicinity is always quite disturbing, (but for others who shall remain nameless and don't appreciate the feel of it between your toes or in your picnic) are less keen. As I mentioned in an earlier post we are due to start work on the barn conversion later in the year and prior to travelling we did a few bits of research on nearby properties, what available and prices. One of the nearby places, had some great photos of the cabin but also a shot of the beach in Haltdalen! I'm sorry......what! The beach had golden sand, crystal clear water and back drop of mountains!
So from a photo and and what we thought could be a place name, we googled earth and consulted the map. There were 3 possible places in the vicinity, one of which was just off the main road, so we thought we would start there first.
On our first day we decided to find the beach and after looping back on ourselves and stopping along at a few different places we found a small right turning off the main road.
How can you not find this place!!!
Driving the hire car down a dirt track we came to a clearing (with one other car in) parked up and proceeded on foot! The anticipation for me was building, but for Ned it was just too much (he shares my love of sand and water) off he shot, squealing his head off, topped the ridge ) and there it was. An oasis in the middle of nowhere, not signposted from the main road, with free parking, a composting loo and rubbish bins which are kept are empty (see previous rants about our local beaches in the UK)
Ned's ability to immerse himself in any water he comes across was not lost on this particular day. Despite rolling his shorts up he was soon quite wet, with me yelling 'noooooooooo'......it was at this point I noticed another family with 2 children looking slightly alarmed at Ned's efforts and my ignored bellowing fatherly instructions across the golden sand.
I needn't have feared though, as the gentleman in question proceed to strike up a conversation with us (it didn't take long for to him to realise we were english....we are very noisy!) ....and he was equally surprised that we lived nearby and it turned out his brother law (who had a cabin nearby) was British. We had a great chat for about 20 minutes about various things and then he asked if he could take our number so his brother law could maybe get in touch and say hi!
Now...... this is the point where your Englishness kicks in and you immediately think -"I'm not giving you my number you could be a murderer, con man or about to abduct my children....(maybe not a bad thing some times, although I'm sure they would be returned very quickly). After swallowing my English paranoia of strangers......after all this is Norway and people are still trustworthy and honest we handed over our number, said farewell and departed happy with our new discovery, vowing to return and then promptly stripped Ned of his sopping clothing so he didn't soil the hire car any further.
Fast forward 24 hours and imagine my surprise when Kath said we had a call from said brother in law, and an invite to their cabin for waffles and coffee. We met our hosts at their beautiful cabin near Glåmos which was beautifully set with a wonderful view thought the tress. The kids snaffled most of the waffles (the best piece of advice was given about waffle makers...........will share next time....there's a whole post coming on waffles), they were lovely hosts who gave us great advice and we arranged to give them a guided tour of our 'småbruk'' a few days later.
More to come on waffles!
They also showed us around their adjacent family home (which belonged to the brother we met at the lake!) and was a beautiful timber house with blue shutters set in a tranquil lawn and worthy of the cover of Norske Hjem magazine.
So our trip to the beach was more fruitful then we ever thought and I can now rest easy that the beach is within short distance.......roll on more crunchy sandwiches, sandy toes and friendly chance encounters.
