Flam – Sogne Fjord

We spent the night at the head of another arm of the fjord close by at a place called Flam. In 1940 a tourist railway was built to take passengers from the cruise ship up into the mountains and give them a taste of the scenery from above. We took the train up the spectacular 3000’ climb, the train meandering in and out of the valley walls, through tunnels and around switch backs to get to the top. We came back down a little way in the train from where we had a very pleasant 3 hour walk back down to the harbour. We passed a few houses with this somewhat innovative roof insulation!

It was then time to start heading back towards the sea; 4 hours of motoring and a small bonus sail when the wind favoured us got us back to Balestrand.

On Friday morning we set off for a 2-3 hour walk to 1500’ peak nearby; we intended to be back for lunch then make some more miles back up the fjord. The tourist information here is not great. Half an hour into the walk we discovered that we could get to a much higher peak on what looked like a very nice circular walk.

We took stock of supplies. We had 3 crunch bars and a liter of water, decided that where there was snow there was water and that hunger was for cissies and set off for the top. What a fabulous walk. We topped out at 985m (3200’), once again we had lots of snow around us and plenty down our boots! Tired, hungry but very satisfied we got back to the boat, scrumped some more mussels for tea from under the pontoon and headed back out of the fjord.


We have suffered one tragedy this afternoon. Mike’s daughter Jenny had packed him off with a box of the most fabulous chocolate brownies that she had made. Needing to recharge the calories we tucked in for the final time and depression settled over Moondance at the thought of no more of these delights. Perhaps we can sweet talk you into another batch for our next cycling trip Jenny?