Norwegian Words

The doors shut and the train slowly pulls out of the station. Through the window, the sights I have spent the last few days exploring whizz by as if my memory is on fast forward. As Lillehammer fades into the distance, my attention turns to the starting point of the epic journey along the Trolls Trail.

The train ploughs northwards along the valley floor. There is evidence that the sun is beginning to breathe life back into the frozen landscape. Time passes by quickly as I chat to the friendly locals and I am soon leaving the train in Otta.

Set deep in the Gudbrandsdalen, Otta occupies a strategic position at the confluence of the Otta and Lågen Rivers. Being the gateway to the Rondane National Park, Otta is the quintessential feeder town for the Norwegian wilderness: there is not much here in town and what little there is has already closed for Easter.

With nobody to ask and no information about the local bus, I simply trust the Internet research that I had completed days earlier. I retire to the waiting room to sit out the three and a half hour stopover. I am not the most patient person, so it is fortunate that the waiting room provides some much needed entertainment…

I enter the room to find one guy lying across several seats trying his best to get some sleep. Moments after my arrival, a rotund Norwegian lady enters the room. She barks, presumably Norwegian, words at me and my reply is simple: “English?” She huffs loudly to clearly show her lack of approval, and then wanders over to the sleeping guy. She then proceeds to talk at him for the next three hours!

In between there are several cameo roles. The highlights are: a Belgian couple who read the summer bus timetable instead of the winter one, resulting in an eye-watering £230 taxi ride and an English girl and her Canadian friend who somehow ski off the wrong side of the mountain – it will now take them two days to get back to their car!

Suddenly, as if there was a signal that only Norwegians can hear, people start to appear and, within the space of ten minutes, the place is again empty and I am on a bus heading to Høvringen.

The bus snakes its way up the steep cliffs that hold the Rondane National Park in place. At 1000 metres above sea level, the steep cliffs give way to the snow covered upland plateau. The old mountain village of Høvringen is the western gateway to the Rondane National Park and has several mountain lodges. Høvringen Fjellstue is one of the oldest and will provide me with food and lodgings for the night.