Flom to Myrdal express....

We drove over from Etnadal to Flom and settled in to the local campsite that was like most things in Norway, grossly overpriced. Asked if email was available the young lass in the office said "yes of course, it's free but it doesn't work"! I have to confirm that she was correct.

 

Approaching Flam which is located at the tip of Sognefjord. It's a popular calling spot for cruise liners as you can see.

 

Our campsite was only two minutes walk from the railway station and an adjacent "tourist centre", (that's what they call the places that are set up to extort huge sums of money from unsuspecting visitors in Norway) and every self-respecting town has at least one. We booked our return tickets for our railway trip at the tourist centre for about the same price that you can purchase a liver transplant in Thailand and also wandered around the other tourist traps for a little while.

 

The trains ran about every hour but the only train with seats available on the day was the last one at night, that left at 1840 to Myrdal, returning to Flam at about 2115. It turned out to be a good choice as our carriage was only about three-quarters full going and half-full coming back, (as the train connects with the main line from Oslo-Bergen and this train took a fair number of one-way passengers).

 

 

The rail line between Flam and Myrdal is only 21km long but climbs from sea-level to 3000 feet over this distance, making it one of the steepest in the world. The scenery, even by Norwegian standards is stunning and photos can't really bring out the scale of the landscapes. Here are just a few:

 

 

 The start of the uphill journey.

 

 

A 150 metre waterfall.

 

 

 Iris feeling the cold and spray!

 

 

The waterfall seen above passes under the railway line and then continues for about another 400 metres below, but you can only see the latter section from the valley floor.

 

 

 

 

 This photo gives a bit of the sense of the scale of the place. The winding road and the bridge over the river were used during the construction of the railway between 1920-1940. The road is just used as a cycle track nowadays.

 

 

 Our railway carriage also had one of these! An emergency saw, with instructions on how to get it out from the case but not what it was supposed to be used for. Break the glass and saw some firewood chaps, the fire ain't burning hot enough?

 

During our trip up the valley we shared our seating bay with two others. A Norwegian with a Brazilian. (That is a Norwegian lad and a Brazilian lad just in case you were starting to wonder). One really interesting exchange occurred when the ticket collector arrived to check that everyone had coughed up for tickets and the Norwegian lad had a short but intense discussion with the ticket collector with both using English rather than their native Norwegian.

 

Anyway that's enough scenery for one day. After returning on the train to Flam we spent the night and then the next morning drove on to Bergen but that's another tale.