Norway Part 1 - Telemark
With University finished for the year (or forever), Sam, Nat and I decided to head to Norway for 4 weeks to scare ourselves ahead of having to work for the rest of summer.
To get to Norway we went with the option of getting the Harwich to Esbjerg overnight ferry (or 5* ferry as it was later dubbed), this is a slightly more expensive option but cuts the driving time down considerably (better for already strained, overloaded Skodas...). We then proceeded to make good use of the showers and wifi in preparation for a long time camping...
The next day was quite a long one, having to drive across Denmark (soo flat!) with a brief stop in Aalborg for pasta in an abandoned carpark (but we did manage to connect to Eduroam) and then a late night ferry from Hirtshals to Larvik and quite possibly the worst camping spot ever in a layby on the 40 outside of Larvik...
Getting awoken by the scary shaking of the tent as large lorries went passed the outside and the never ending daylight, we cracked on with paddling, aiming to get warmed up. We went and paddled a section of the Numedalslagen the guidebook calls the 'Laks Run', a big volume section of river with the occasional straight forward 3+/4- rapid and large sections of flat, probably not worth the shuttle, but nonetheless getting us in the swing of boating. We then drove for a few hours north to the Telemark area near Lake Tinnsjo and quickly realised most of the rivers were pretty high. However we were relieved to find another set of British paddlers, Lee and Rory, at the Homerun section of the Mar river. With everyone deeming it too high, we headed down and got on the easier Lower section of the river, a nice 3+/4 Alpine style river. We then camped in a beautiful spot next to the Homerun waterfalls.
The next morning the levels dropped slightly, so we all manned up and paddled the Homerun, an amazing set of 6 waterfalls between 3-8m with little time to think or recover between each. We all did one full run each, with Rory and I running the last two twice and then got lunch. We then bombed it over to the Goyst which had dropped since yesterday putting it at a nice low/medium level. In all the excitement I manage to loose my phone. The Goyst is a long river at around 8-10km and is fairly steep with some large bedrock slides and a few falls of around 3-5m, it also has a hard get-in (we had to lower in our boats) but ends in the Lake. All in all, a great day!
The next morning we put on the Upper Austbygdi, the largest of the rivers flowing into the lake. This river has two sections, the lower which was too high and the Upper which was about 8km long and fairly pool drop in character with a couple of portages and a massive slide and big 8/9m fall, the Spanemfossen, at the take out. With beautiful sunshine and fairly high water, this river was up there as one of my favorites in Norway. Unfortunately, upon finishing this river we had to leave Telemark, but were excited to head to Voss to pick Nat up, whom had been paddling in Italy. This involved a 3.5 hour drive with standard Norwegian scenery (lots of mountains, some snow, lots of wooden buildings, lot of lakes, lots of long tunnels etc.), but we made it safely and camped next to the Lake in our soon to be favorite spot, Kvale.
Although we weren't in Telemark for long, I would strongly recommend it as a less known, early season alternative to Voss or Sjoa, as everything is very close together and the rivers all seem very varied and have great features, out of all the areas we went it is definitely the one I want to return to most to paddle more in!