Skiing sillyness and the 1st of May

So it has been a little while since we updated the blog, that is because we have been off doing what we love to do, getting 'out n about'.

The end of April saw us drive from Gothenburg, Sweden to Haukeli, Norway. It took us a little under 8 hours as the Norwegian roads are narrow, windy and have lots and lots of toll roads on them. We had the pleasure of paying 60 NOK TWICE for travelling 2km on the one road. Spaz thought that I knew the way there, since I had previously driven the route twice, so he didn't look at a map before we set off. This was clearly HIS mistake!!!! We missed one turn off so we drove down a toll road for 2km to pay the toll when we got off to then pay the toll again when we got back on to go back to the correct exit (less than 60 sec after paying to get off). Expensive lesson learnt. I now know the way :-)

The snow conditions in Haukeli were excellent considering it was the last weekend of the season, over 1.5m of cover and a fresh 20cm overnight. Fridays skiing was just Spaz and I and we got reacquainted with the skills required for cross country skiing.... read I fell down a lot and he was a little more cautious than usual. Saturday was amazing :-) we skied ALL day in the sun and had some lovely company. We managed to combined some skiing with some rest in the sun. Sunday was the complete opposite, minus 5 and snowing! It was snowing so much I decided to not go out, I couldn't afford any more bruises. We left for home on the Monday morning and found that finding the road after all of that snowfall was tricky.

Stunning

Beautiful

Lunch stop 1

Lunch stop 2

Enjoying the sun

Icicles everwhere :-)

Where is the road?

The 1st of May in Sweden is the annual kosläpp (or release of the cows from their barns out into the paddocks for the first time in the year). This event announces that Spring has arrived. Over 9000 people headed out to the farm on the edge of town to drink some free milk and see some happy cows. It was a great day, blue sky and sun. We got to walk through the barn and see the cows before their release. They looked happy enough. Watching the automated poo remover was interesting. They also had 1 plain normal brown cow in the barn and she/he was addicted to the back scratching machine. Yes, you did read correctly, the cows have a back and side scratching machine :-) At 11.30 there was a parade of tractors in the paddock, the oldest being from 1952 and it was a whole 1 horsepower machine. At 12 o'clock the cows were released into the paddock. Oh my Oh my, was there some happy cows :-) they were mooing, frolicking, dancing jumping and generally looking and sounding like some very very happy cows :-) We managed to get the car bogged in the paddock turned carpark but we weren't the only ones. 

In the barn

A little too old?

Freedom of the paddock

Since Spring has finally sprung in Gothenburg (in late May, very very late) we headed out to the southern archipelago for a little relaxation, coffee drinking, book reading and bird spotting. The original plan was to be away for around an hour, but, 5 hours later we returned very very relaxed :-)

Spring

Spring

Coffee done, now on with my book :-)