June 18th: Lillehammer (205 kms)

Feelings: Safe, Confident.

Referendum decision: The new time for starting to look for accommodation is about three, three-thirty. Also, frequent stopping en route is now mandatory. Today was a tad different as we actually had a destination—Lillehammer. Our mandatory stop en route was Hamar and its Open Air Museum with its glass encased sixteenth century church ruins. It looked quite amazing—the glass was Louvre like, Fed Square like and because we had taken the free walk around the grounds option rather than entering into all the buildings, the church beneath the glass was shadowy and ghost-like. The park where the church and the other Norwegian buildings where situated seemed a popular spot for the locals too—one man had come to practise his archery and his arrows twanged through the quiet location. In the church an Asian couple were getting married.

Lillehammer was difficult to negotiate for the same reason that it made a great place to host the Winter Olympics—it is perched on a slope angled not dissimilarly to a ski-jump. This necessitates two tunnels through town which seem to cross over each other. We knew the camping ground was downhill, but they blocked of the roads that went down from the road that traversed the down area for some reason and so going downhill couldn’t actually get you down the hill. It’s easy once you have the map but that was still a little way away. We finally found the sign for the only road to go to the ‘down’ and found the camping ground. I think that Norway may be having a higher than average level of snow melt. Parts of the camping ground had been washed away into the middle of the river. We paid for a tent place, drove the car onto the boggy tent area, sat there for a while, and then went and upgraded to a hut. All in all this was a good move as the water was quite abundantly coming from the sky as well. I really enjoyed the sound of rain on a solid roof that night.

We spent the afternoon climbing up the over nine hundred steps to the top of the ski jump. My greatest idea of fun. It was okay—only half the size of the Eureka Tower. It was a great view. There are two jumps: the actual championship jump and the slightly smaller one for practice. We decided to come down on the small one. when we got to the actual bit where skis leave snow and hit air and ran out of stairs. there was a very rocky ladder but it didn't appear to be life-supporting. the choice was to slide down a wooden panel for about eight feet or climb up the stairs again. The wooden panel won. My legs were wobbly for about an hour afterward—there was no way I could have climbed more stairs. I did obviously have a wobbly brain as well as I managed to lose the key to the cabin. Can't let you know in polite terms how cross I was. And we were charged a heft fee for the replacement. All up, financially, we would have been better off staying in a hotel. I have lost all my key holding privileges have been revoked.