Roldal – Saltvold Camping

Sunday 23rd April 2023

We have driven 146 miles today amongst stunning scenery, it’s difficult to put it into perspective or have enough superlatives to describe it. The roads are in very good condition and being a Sunday very little traffic perhaps one car every 5 miles, at first there were patches of snow then it became more widespread, deeper and deeper especially as we hit the plateau in the Telemark region where it covered everything metres deep. You could see roofs of cottages poking out of the snow and the roof would have a metre of snow on it.

As we drove along we found most lay-bys under snow, wild camping spaces inaccessible and the majority of campsites under snow and not open.

There are only a handful of LPG filling sites here in Norway and non within a hundred miles of us so we are trying to conserve what we have and not use it for heating if possible, so electric hook ups are desirable.We have descended a little from the height of the deepest snow and here in Roldal there are two campsites open, we are pitched on one with no owner in sight, we have hooked up to the power and will pay if he turns up.

We have done a lot of soul searching over the past few hours, our aim was to reach Trondheim before heading to Oslo but the weather forecast for the next two days is poor and if the conditions worsen then finding somewhere to stay will become even more difficult. We have therefore decided to descend from the mountains to the west coast and enjoy the scenery around the fjords. For once I’m going to follow the mantra “ it’s better to be safe than sorry”.