Dividalen

It's time to get out of the hills as we head down Dividalen in search of civilisation and a phone or mobile phone signal to hopefully get a taxi to get a bus to get back to Narvik.

It's 6k to the summer road end (closed in winter), 11k to Ventebua (a waiting room and the start of the open winter road), 13k to Frihetsli, the first civilisation marked on the map and nothing else before our map runs out at 17k!

The initial 6km down to the summer road end is exceedingly pleasant. There's a proper path between the trees, although we do our best to lose it on occasions. There's also enough wee downhill sections with the odd bend to avoid the trees to make it fun too. We have a wee break and continue along the summer road. This is less fun, in fact it's a bit of a bore - 5k of skiing down a virtually straight forestry commission track. Arriving at Ventebua and the winter road end we're now skiing along an icy road, seeking out whatever snow coverage there might be. Not easy skiing, but at least the boredom is relieved by having to pay attention and hunt for the least icy track.

Finally we're at Frihetsli. No mobile signal, but Mick finds a farmer that lets us use his phone. He gets in contact with a local mate Cameron who does a great job tracking down our options. Unfortunately there's a major ski event on today in Tromso and all the large taxis are there, so it's not looking good on the taxi front, but it's left that Cameron will keep trying to get something organised and if that fails there's a school bus that'll be coming up the valley in a couple of hours.

To keep warm we continue on our way down the road. I must confess that my mood at this point was "deflated". The skiing wasn't ideal, the trip was over, all we were doing was plodding along to keep warm until a taxi or bus appeared in the other direction. An hour later deflation turned to elation as a minibus pulled up, followed by a people carrier. Skis off for the last time as we loaded all the gear into the minibus and spread ourselves across the two vehicles.

The minibus took us to a cafe in Skjold where we indulged in cheeseburger and chips, while further excellent work from Cameron established there was a bus that would take us to Narvik, with one change, departing at 17:00 even though the local taxi had assured us there wasn't any bus until after 20:00. It was here also that we started reading about the storms and rescues that had gone on in Northern Norway. There certainly was a lot of snow around down here at ground level.

Our first bus driver reckoned he'd not seen conditions like this in all his years of driving and once we got on the second bus going to Narvik this was again confirmed. In fact we arrived in Narvik over an hour late. Norwegian buses are never late!

Beer, Nachos and a warm hotel room - trip over - magic.

Today's photo is Rancidand & Kathy at Frihetsli awaiting Mick and hoping that he and Cameron have been able to arrange transportation.

Rancidand's Version