Sognefjord explorations

Balestrand

We were up and breakfasted early to catch a Norled ferry back north a short way and into Norway’s longest fjord, Sognefjord, nicknamed the King of Fjords. It is the deepest and largest fjord in Norway, 205 kilometres inland with a maximum depth of 1308 metres.

It is a four hour trip mostly in Sognefjord to Balestrand, but travelling through other passages to get to the fjord. We passed lots of fjordside housing development, many houses with jetties and boats, and all the other things you need to enjoy waterside living. 

The mountains are a bit bigger here than some of those we saw on the coast, and the fjord is a substantial piece od water. 

Some of the North Sea oil that has enriched this country is processed in a large refinery we saw in the distance as we travelled up the fjord. Some of the shipping tied up at the refinery was definitely in the “heavyweight tanker” class, and the fjords are very much sea ways.

We arrived in Balestrand around midday and were able to check in after a short delay which we utilised to check out a local treat and enjoy a coffee on the verandah, admiring the view down the fjord.

The Kviknes Hotel is an impressive structure built initially in 1885, but with many extensions and rebuilds. The main building reflects what the locals call the Swiss style.

The current main structure was finished in 1912. The hotel has remained in the same family since 1885 which is a pretty astounding achievement. The many sitting rooms were ornate, finished in beautiful wooden furniture and elegant armchairs and settees. 

The main accommodation wings were built in the 1960’s and 70’s and looked more utilitarian. Our room had stunning views over the town and the fjord. 

Despite thtreatening weather we ventured along the shoreline for a walk. The church, St Olaf's was built by Knut Kvikne in 1897 for his English-born wife, as a deathbed promise. Margaret, uncomfortable with the Norwegian Lutheran traditions, had yearned for an Anglican church. It is built in the traditional Norwegian stave church style and has a beautiful wooden interior. There's a community group who care for it and over the summer the hotel hosts a visiting English minister for services.

Viking burial mounds show more of the history of the area. 

Balestrand grew with local tourism, and the development of local transport and communications. The local council in 1885 decided they needed to be proactive and they purchased several steamships to carry passengers and freight and generally get things going. The council owned and operated the company and succeeded admirably in developing options for the area.

Artists flocked to this area to paint the magnificent scenery

and formed an Art Commune which survived until the world started to be dominated by alternative philosophies and forces. Many houses built by resident artists with the iconic dragon ends still exist.

 

The local Tourism and Transport Museum celebrates those two aspects of the region and we spent an afternoon working our way around the many electronic still and video displays. Intriguingly the building  was carved out of the bedrock of Balestrand.  

Balestrand attracts lots of walkers and hikers who appear in the hotel lobby with all their gear and disappear into the mountains.

We decided against the mountain options, didn’t really come prepared for a Routeburn or a Milford track. We did a walk along the foothills above the town through the forest and streams.

About 12 km all up for our day’s efforts and some lovely views back to Balestrand and over the fjord. Our hotel in the background. 

 

The size of some of the trees surprised me, and they were logging in some of the areas we walked through. 

Some beautiful small streams and waterfalls, and it was lovely to get out on a beautiful summer's day for a walk on the mountain. The light in Scandanavia is quite something. Greens in particular have an intensity and luminosity we just don't see in New Zealand.

Flam

Midday today we were back on the ferry that dropped us here a couple of days ago to head up the fjord to see the top end of this very long piece of ice-age sculpting.

The trip to Flam was just a couple of hours, and the ferry took a detour up Naeroyfjord “narrow fjord” to allow us a viewing view a high waterfall, the second highest in Norway. 

It was fascinating while travelling through these very high-sided fjords to see farm buildings clustered around some relatively small cleared grassy areas, high up on the slopes. They do make cheeses, both goat and cow varieties.

We arrived in Flam to find an enormous cruise boat tied up, and it was very crowded ashore with whatever percentage of its 6000 passengers were doing a shore visit. We found later in our stay, that this particular vessel, one of the largest cruising ships in the world is in Sognefjord every Thursday for the whole three months of summer. Its cruise starts in Bergen and heads a little north of here to Trondheim on its weekly round trip. Flam is a small village of just 850 people, and it hosts more than 1 million visitors every year.

We stayed our two nights in the Fretheim Hotel, one of the original accommodation buildings and now a historic hotel, similar to our last stay in Balestrand. 

We settled in and headed out for a walk, and it was a very quick familiarisation of a very small village, and then a drink with a lovely view.

We spent our day in Flam on short walks around 

the port and tourist centre, then up the hill behind the hotel for a view over the village and down the fjord. The cows and horses were enjoying a bit of time on their summer pasture. 

                    

We then had fika at a small restaurant alongside the fjord and headed to the Flam railway museum. The Flam railway is the steepest adhesion track in the world with an overall gradient od 1/18 but 80% of the line has a slope of more than 5.5%. It is a major tourist attraction, deemed the most beautiful trainride in the world. It is just 20.2 km long, and took almost 20 years to build, often in  snow and ice. There are 20 tunnels (5,692 metres in total), almost all dug by hand, at times by just one metre a month. The track runs up the valley to meet with the Bergen-Oslo train line at Myrdal. That was our way out of the fjord, but not till the next day. The railway was completed in 1941, the Nazis had invaded Norway in 1940 and ordered the authorities to complete their work, which took until 1941. The German occupying forces electrified the line, but sabotage of the transformers delayed this for some time. 

The museum was very good, detailing the almost heroic task of building this line in extremely difficult terrain. In places the line is perched on perpendicular cliff faces, and has many tunnels, snow shelters and just one area of double track, to allow uphill and downhill trains to pass. 

Later in the day we walked up the valley about 4 km to the original site of the Flam village to view the church and cemetery, still in use.

The river flats aren’t large or expansive at all, but they are all well utilised for grazing and some cropping.

The river is swift and as you would expect has beautifully clear snow melt water. There was evidence of past salmon fishing at one point with narrow 'bridges' between rocks; it was obviously productive if the photo below is any indication. 

The railway line runs up the valley a little higher up the hillside but rises rapidly as it climbs from sea level to 866 metres. 

The next day we were at the train for an 8.25 am departure, seated on the right-hand side of the train for optimal views. It is a magic journey, past magnificent scenery and looks over small cleared areas on the river banks for the farming operations.

We stopped a couple of times for the views and a large waterfall. The spray made taking a photo really difficult, and it was freezing!

Our trip from Myrdal to Oslo was about five hours, with one unscheduled stop because the train in front of us had hit a moose, then another stop  at Finske Station in the freezing cold due to a signal fault.  

                

This trip across the mountains was also very scenic, with still lots of snow in mid-summer and lakes that were ice slurry rather than water. 

We arrived in Oslo a bit later than our scheduled time despite the train crew’s diligent attempts to make up lost time.