Our day’s activity for Olden was the first that we booked, several months earlier. A day on a farm, being shown around – and fed – by the natives would surely present us with some of the most memorable experiences of our cruise.
And indeed it did.
This was a private tour, but we were invited to “bring a friend” to reduce the price per person. Kit posted on Cruise Critic and recruited a couple from Miami who we later learned had read no further than the words “farm experience” before signing up.
Our host for the day: a 34-year-old Nordik lad whose real name is Oddbjørn but who invited us to call him Oscar to save our blushes with awkward attempts at pronunciation. The farm we would be visiting is owned by Oscar’s brother, and Oscar lives in a neighbouring house during the summer, retreating to a second home in Oslo (with his wife and 3-month-old baby) at the end of the tourist season.
Oscar’s mother – who we would meet later in the day – lives two hours away – but often spends time in Olden, as well as making several trips each year to Wimbledon (the SW19 variety) where another of her offspring live. Over lunch, we learned that several members of the family live in Minnesota, and Oscar also has a sibling in Sydney, so “mum” has become quite an experienced international traveller in recent years.
The itinterary that we signed up for was not overly detailed: spend time on the farm, hike to a local waterfall, and eat a home-cooked lunch with our hosts. As it turned out, the “farm” component was quite short: we didn’t meet any of the livestock (they were out roaming the hillside and wouldn’t be brought down to the barn until September), and Oscar’s brother and his family mostly kept themselves to themselves.
So after a brief tour of one of the farm buildings, we were kitted up for our “hike” and began to walk.
It was at this point that our fellow guests’ failure to read the small print became apparent! To Juan and Christina – both of Cuban heritage, and with a lifetime subscription to the Miami beachfront way-of-life – the natural response to such a crazy suggestion as “shall we hike?” is “why? (can’t we take a helicopter?!)”.
But to Juan and Christina’s credit, they gave it a go. We made the 40-minute, often-steep ascent from the farm to a hillside pasture – where Oscar’s family built additional lodgings many decades ago – testing our axe-technique to fell a couple of trees en-route.
And it was when we arrived at the pasture that we met mum, who had hiked up the previous evening in order to prepare for our arrival. We were greeted by a very warm welcome (literally – since the tiny “house” had a large central fireplace), and were soon tucking into homemade soup.
Over lunch, we learned more about the family, the farm and the pasture. As well as being a rare “flat” space on which to build, the pasture is ideally located due to its proximity to the river – for bathing, and drinking water – and more blueberry bushes than the family could ever hope to harvest themselves. From this base, they could keep a closer eye on the sheep – who roam freely over the near-400 acre property – and, at one time (before the economics became unsustainable) tend to a small herd of cattle.
After lunch, an impromptu game of horseshoes out in the rain, and a short walk to the river to refill our water bottles, we were presented with three options: stick around at the pasture, hike a short distance further to see more of the river and perhaps some of the lowest-lying snow, or a more ambitious hike up to the so-called “big waterfall”.
Whilst they were more than happy to have been “dragged” as far as the pasture (and took many photos en-route to prove it – “the kids are never going to believe we’ve done this!”), Juan and Christina drew the line at hiking any further, and Kit offered to hang around with them so Oscar and I could motor and get further up the hillside in the time we had remaining.
So while the American contingent settled in for an afternoon of chatting and playing poker (with “mum” in close attendance), Oscar and I continued up the hill – and up the river – in search of snow, sheep and… salt.
Why salt?, I asked Oscar, but he said that we would need to defer to his brother’s greater farming wisdom, and by the time we got back to the farm several hours later, we were in too much of a hurry to ask. Suffice to say that sheep need salt for something, and don’t get it in sufficient quantities in their natural diet. So Oscar and his brother regularly drag 3kg blocks of salt up the hillside in backpacks and attach these to spikes in the ground for the sheep to lick. They have to be quick though… the rain will eventually dissolve the salt, and wild deer often tuck in.
As our path soon crossed the tree-line, and on account of the unseasonably wet weather over recent days, the additional ascent was very boggy, and our feet were soon drenched! Our perseverance paid off though, because not only did we find snow and reach the quite spectacular “big falls”, but we also had a close encounter with a sea eagle who quite obviously knew we were there and was keen for us to know that this mountain was his domain.
Over lunch earlier that afternoon, Oscar had told us that it is typical for Norwegians to eat five or more meals a day. Having known my friend Kris – who was born and raised in rural Norway – for many years, this is not something I was aware of, and I wonder whether it’s more of a regional thing. Anyway, I was certainly not about to complain when – on returning to the pasture with Oscar – “mum” served us our second lunch of the day: locally-made sausages with potato salad, and thin bread which rather similar to Indian chapatis.
Wisely, Oscar equipped Juan and Christine with walking sticks for our descent back to the farm. I am not sure we’d have made it back down if he hadn’t… or at least, not in time to make the Eclipse’s “all aboard” time. As it was, we had just a few minutes for a hasty farewell during which Oscar presented us with a memento of our visit: a copy of a book he had recently published on the subject of memory. Despite spending a whole day with him – and having taken the opportunity to pick his brains on writing and publishing after learning that he works at a publishing house during the winter – Oscar never once mentioned that he holds the world record for memorising random number sequences!
