Glacier gazing...
- pangani9
- Jun 2
- 2 min read
Day 33: Monday 1st of June, 2026.
Kvamsey to Mundal, Fjaerland
3.5 hours
Heavy rain overnight, but we slept well...Thankfully it dried up for our departure for our short passage inland, continuing up the beautiful Sognefjord....the 'King of the Fjords'... the longest and deepest fjord in Norway - at 1308m deep at its deepest, and 204km long...
Deserving of its name...the scale of the mountains were breathtaking - the highest mountains in Northern Europe... (that scale can only be pictorially depicted by seeing the tiny dots of houses at the base of the mountains on the water's edge - so here is a fuzzy example)...
...The few small enclaves of houses, that punctuated the shoreline were remote and could only have been reached by boat...
...and every so often we spied small hydro units, making good use of the glacial melt waterfalls...
Deciding to take a northern sidebranch of the Sognefjord, we entered Fjaerlandsfjord, and around 20km later arrived at the idyllically situated Fjaerland...an international book town (it has 10 second-hand book shops)... situated at the base of Jostedal Glacier - the largest glacier on the European mainland...
...a quick bite of lunch, and then out with the bikes, to cycle up to the Glacier Museum... where we watched a stunning wee film...and learnt that the green fjord waters were due to the 'glacier flour' that is the finely distributed particles of silt and clay within the meltwater, which refract the blue green light to our eyes...
...and then onward and slightly upward,...
to an arm of the mighty Jostedal glacier at Boyabreen...
...Its icy blue hues visible at the higher thicker edges...
...a quick cuppa, and a compulsory bun...
...and then a quick cycle downhill, back toward the boat...
....where the clouds parted and allowed the sun to come out...
...and show Fjaerland in all its magical glory...
...and once the bikes were safely aboard...
...we sat and enjoyed the views...
...and then had dinner at the Fjaerland Fjordstue Hotel
...and enjoyed more of the evening views...
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