Chasing Waterfalls (Fosser)

After our misty trip up to pulpit rock, we drove into the night looking for a spot to camp off grid. Unfortunately the Norwegian law allowing this also stipulates that you must be off the road and more than 150 meters from any home. Despite being quite a sparsely populated country, this was quite hard to find. We eventually pulled off the road at a picnic spot between two road tunnels, hoping we’d picked a quiet spot.

It turned out very well, as our view in the morning was a very fine one over Sandsfjord.

We followed the Ryfylke scenic route along Riksveg 13 to the town of Sand to see an award winning footbridge. If the award was rustiest bridge (or even most urban bridge in a rural setting), it probably won hands down. Judge for yourselves.

Nevertheless it was in a nice spot, although as it was Sunday, our trip to Sand was short lived as nothing was open (except the salmon museum, which didn’t reel us in).

Next on the trail was the very pretty (but very quickly outdone) waterfall of Flesefossen. After a bite to eat we got back on the road past the small town of Røldal (we pronounced it like the children’s author) and found our next waterfall the other side of a steep pass.

Latefossen is an interesting waterfall, right beside the main road (main for Norway at least). It’s the confluence of two separate short outflows from Lotevatnet (a lake on the Austdelo river).

The reunited Austdelo then flows under route 13 and straight into the Storelva (which I think literally translates as big river). It was definitely a popular tourist stop.

We spent the night in the sizeable (for Norway) town of Odda. We might come back to talk more about Odda later, but for now we’ll move straight on to the next day, when we headed north again, in search of another waterfall.

The valley north of Odda, on the banks of Sørfjorden, is famous for fruit, so we stopped to pick up some apple juice and cider to sample later.

Past the town of Eidfjord, we climbed up towards the Hardangervidda plateau, including some tunnels that looped round over each other.

At the top of the climb we headed down a side road to a grand car park next to an impressive if a little dated looking hotel.

Just below the hotel was a viewing platform overlooking a vertical drop back down the valley we’d just come from and into it cascaded the magnificent Vøringfoss waterfall. It was an amazing sight as the water shot out of a gap in the rock face and into the valley below.

As well as the first platform, there are many other viewing platforms, some of which were very precariously hung above the rocks.

We were very impressed by such an awe inspiring place, and were very lucky with the weather, which was supposed to have been much worse back down the Fjord at Odda.

If you haven’t had your fill of waterfalls, don’t fret, there are more to come, but for now we’ll head back to our campsite for tomorrow’s big adventure!