Day 4, 9 January 2016

A real feel of winter!... But no ice on lakes yet.

It snowed all night and we woke to the road completely covered in snow. The local shop opened at 0800 where we bought some food for breakfast and indulged in the free coffee before a 0900 start. It was fantastic to walk up the tree lined road with quite heavy snow falling. We had a debate as to whether we should remove the sled wheels and put on our skis and hope that the sled would glide as well as the wheels rolled. On balance we changed nothing, because there was still some grit under the snow that could have gouged and scratched the base of the skies and sleds. Also, the wonderful chunky tyres provided very little friction especially if we could run them in the occasional car track. We passed 2 enormous linear lakes that depressingly had no ice on them at all... Not a good omen for 3 days time. After 3 hours we came to major junction with a bus shelter where we shared a sandwich. Just then a snowplough came by and nearly flattened our sledges that we had parked on the road side. Another 2 hours passed and we arrived at Byremo, where we found the garage sold coffee, but with no chairs to sit on we perched outside. A final up hill push brought us to Sviendal just as it was getting dark. It did seem colder and the first signs of ice on lakes started to appear. Overall we were out for 7 hours and pulling the sleds for 6 1/2 hours, but managed to cover 29 km. The going was definitely harder with the snow covering the road and quite a few uphill sections. The day was rounded off perfectly by us calling at the house of 82 year old Elizabeth Haarland (who ran the local museum), who offered us to stay at her house when we enquired if there was any local accommodation 3 months previously. She was the perfect hostess providing food showers and a bed, in an area that normally has no winter accommodation. Much better than a tent by the side of the road in the new soft snow.