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Svalbard Trip - Day 8 - Norway

Blogging at 22:00 on Saturday 27th July from intended overnighting spot N 61.44522°, E 06.01747° / http://maps.google.com/maps?q=loc:61.44522%2C06.01747

In spite of being somewhat functional, last night's aire camp proved right enough. As an aside, it also dropped quite cool during the night and first thing this morning certainly had something of an autumnal feel.  

And so, to business. We broke camp and arrived in the area of the Løvstien parkrun a good hour early in order to park in the only space that wasn't quite big enough for a truck for miles around. The area is heavily residential and subject to more parking restrictions than you can shake a stick at. Fortunately we were able to secure the crucial space and all was well.

Well, apart from the parkrun, that is. My days it was tough. In the briefing the organiser described how, if you found yourself on a flat section, anywhere, you were off the course and lost. He wasn't joking: the ascents and descents were utterly relentless. The event itself was well attended with plenty of Norwegians (some travelling) joined by a good few Brits, as well as a couple from Poland and a bloke from Australia. It was a leg-buster for sure but - as (nearly) always - the suffering was rewarded with a massive dollop of endorphins and some general feel-good about the day to come.

Not that the day that came needed much help. We've basically bumbled through huge tracts of fjordland and the landscapes are just spectacular. They're huge, waterfall strewn and stunningly gorgeous.

Because we've essentially covered ground we haven't dedicated much time to wildlife-watching today but have had some decent sightings, anyway. Best have been a distant eagle, an almost-certain pine marten climbing a roadside tree as we drove by (Emma's sighting), a couple of small flocks of crossbills, and a Scotch argus butterfly.

A note on tunnels. Well, they're just bonkers. So much a part of the infrastructure are they that the Norwegians do stuff with them that seems totally alien to us. They're often built with steep gradients, for example. We went through one today that was (a mere) 5km long, and which had an 8% gradient along it's entire length. It was also almost perfectly straight and plummeting through it really did conjure images of descending into the bowels of the earth. Another freaky one is junctions in tunnels. A couple of times now we've had fast traffic merging from the right from its own dedicated subterranean network. It maybe doesn't sound weird, but it certainly keeps you on your toes.

The Norwegians can certainly do tunnels and bridges.

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