Eidfjord, where we’d wanted to rent a canoe, turned out to be, well, a disappointment in a few respects. Of course we still managed to glean some goodtimes, we still rocked it (I'll explain later) but the canoe thing just doesn't seem to want to happen for us.
It’s pretty, and misty,
and those who rent canoes want to brief you on how to use them, but they don’t like to rush to get to you. The guys who wanted to rent to us were 20 minutes away from the kiosk we’d gone to and paid to rent one from, apparently, and although we’d already paid around 400 krone, we asked for our money back and went for coffee and to rethink our plans. 
On the way, I saw my dream Wendy House. Should I ever have kids, I want them to have one of these. 
Then there was this sign, which tickled us. 
After a quick coffee and some Firklover chocolate in this cute coffee shop,
we ran into Stacey, (whose blog can be read by following the link on the right of the page under “Read this Blog!”) who told us there were Viking Graveyards a mere scenic walk away. VIKING GRAVEYARDS! My heart was set on it, imagining ancient, maybe petrified wooden crosses and the horned helmets of fierce Viking warriors strewn nearby or placed as sepulchres marking out the buried heroes.
We set off on what looked like a fairly elementary walking trail. It was gorgeous, with white water rapids
and wild strawberry patches, 
and this calm, serene clearing where we skimmed stones on the glass lake, 
until this group of fishermen and women whistled angrily at us to stop disturbing the fish.
It was soon after then that we made our fatal mistake, we took the advice of another fellow crew-member, to “not even look at the map” and listen to his directions to get to the graves. These involved, amongst other points of interest, meeting two men in a handmade boat with a big red Nissan truck. He said at first, we’d wonder what we’d gotten ourselves into, but it was worth it, and that if we saw a black horse, we’d gone about as far as it was worthwhile to go. I began feeling like I was in an episode of LOST.
We set off with renewed enthusiasm. Two men, handmade boat, red truck, check.
Turn left and see upward trail through grass and bush, check. 
20 minutes of climbing later, upward trail disappears somewhat,
eventually to nothing but these stones
(yet Eric sees a rope to scale the cliff-face further up) and we know we’ve gone wrong. 
Surely these are not Viking graves....
There would be no grave sighting today, time was running out, and we were not sure of our map location any more…
We made it back, singing the well known Scarrott tried-and-tested, down-but-not-defeated walking song “Nothing Compares to You” made famous by Sinead O’Connor. Eric left me to go to rehearsal, with all the unused canoe money to spend in the one souvenir shop that Eidfjord has to offer, and I bought him a couple of stickers, one of a troll and one showing two moose, er, together, for his electric bass.
That night, you see, I was to guest-sing the Four Non-Blondes hit “What’s Up?” (but known typically as “HEY, Yeah, yeah-eh-eh!” or “What’s Going On?”) in crew bar, with Eric playing as part of a crew jam in which the Galaxy Orchestra band plus another one of the ship’s bands would play.
Now, I know that he played this song on his very first ever professional gig, so I didn’t want to mess it up. All photos came out badly, it was a tough light, but it went well by all accounts, and I did manage to get a few photos of my man, rocking out in a bass solo or two later on.
These are the nights one remembers for a long time.
It’s pretty, and misty,
and those who rent canoes want to brief you on how to use them, but they don’t like to rush to get to you. The guys who wanted to rent to us were 20 minutes away from the kiosk we’d gone to and paid to rent one from, apparently, and although we’d already paid around 400 krone, we asked for our money back and went for coffee and to rethink our plans. 
On the way, I saw my dream Wendy House. Should I ever have kids, I want them to have one of these. 
Then there was this sign, which tickled us. 
After a quick coffee and some Firklover chocolate in this cute coffee shop,
we ran into Stacey, (whose blog can be read by following the link on the right of the page under “Read this Blog!”) who told us there were Viking Graveyards a mere scenic walk away. VIKING GRAVEYARDS! My heart was set on it, imagining ancient, maybe petrified wooden crosses and the horned helmets of fierce Viking warriors strewn nearby or placed as sepulchres marking out the buried heroes.We set off on what looked like a fairly elementary walking trail. It was gorgeous, with white water rapids
and wild strawberry patches, 
and this calm, serene clearing where we skimmed stones on the glass lake, 
until this group of fishermen and women whistled angrily at us to stop disturbing the fish.
It was soon after then that we made our fatal mistake, we took the advice of another fellow crew-member, to “not even look at the map” and listen to his directions to get to the graves. These involved, amongst other points of interest, meeting two men in a handmade boat with a big red Nissan truck. He said at first, we’d wonder what we’d gotten ourselves into, but it was worth it, and that if we saw a black horse, we’d gone about as far as it was worthwhile to go. I began feeling like I was in an episode of LOST.
We set off with renewed enthusiasm. Two men, handmade boat, red truck, check.
Turn left and see upward trail through grass and bush, check. 
20 minutes of climbing later, upward trail disappears somewhat,
eventually to nothing but these stones
(yet Eric sees a rope to scale the cliff-face further up) and we know we’ve gone wrong. 
Surely these are not Viking graves....There would be no grave sighting today, time was running out, and we were not sure of our map location any more…
We made it back, singing the well known Scarrott tried-and-tested, down-but-not-defeated walking song “Nothing Compares to You” made famous by Sinead O’Connor. Eric left me to go to rehearsal, with all the unused canoe money to spend in the one souvenir shop that Eidfjord has to offer, and I bought him a couple of stickers, one of a troll and one showing two moose, er, together, for his electric bass.
That night, you see, I was to guest-sing the Four Non-Blondes hit “What’s Up?” (but known typically as “HEY, Yeah, yeah-eh-eh!” or “What’s Going On?”) in crew bar, with Eric playing as part of a crew jam in which the Galaxy Orchestra band plus another one of the ship’s bands would play.
Now, I know that he played this song on his very first ever professional gig, so I didn’t want to mess it up. All photos came out badly, it was a tough light, but it went well by all accounts, and I did manage to get a few photos of my man, rocking out in a bass solo or two later on.
These are the nights one remembers for a long time.
1 comment:
What a great adventure! Too bad you didn't see the Viking graves, but maybe there were Viking ghosts hanging around too.
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