I’ve been driving roads I seldom drive this weekend. On Friday I drove to Larvik, a town I’ve never been to before, and yesterday we came back via another route. So, lots of roads. I’m late posting as we were still on the road at midnight, but it’s still Sunday some places in the world, so I should qualify.

The first batch of pictures are from Friday, driving from Bergen to Larvik via Røldal and Haukeli. Most pictures are taken on the move, through the car windows, so the quality is fairly varied. So here we go….a road trip Bergen/Larvik/Bergen.

Ferries are still an important part of the road system in Norway. Cars are coming off the ferry in Gjermundhamn before taking us across to Årsnes. This was my second ferry on this trip.

Driving through Odda, and finally starting to head for the mountains. So far I’ve been driving along fjords and through mountains.

Heading south from Odda you drive through a valley filled with waterfalls. Lots of rain and quite a bit of snow left in the mountains keeps feeding them.

Up towards one of the many tunnels. And I’m starting to see some snow.

In some steep hillsides they’ve built these half-tunnels to protect the cars from snow and dirt avalanches. Both can occur. This one is just before Røldal.

One of the tunnels up from Røldal was closed and we had to detour via the old road. We were waiting for our turn and I took this shot of the cars coming down the old road. Can you see the truck taking the turn all the way up on the top? It’s white and sort of blends in with the clouds behind it, but it’s there.

There’s still some snow left on Haukelifjellet (Haukeli mountain) and a little ice on the lakes.

And then we’re heading back into the green surroundings on the east side of the mountain. Down the long valleys towards the coast.

Saturday was spent in Larvik, playing golf and walking in the beech forest. Pictures are in my post from Saturday.

Then, yesterday, it was time to head back home. This time we decided to head north through Lardal (Lar valley) and Numedal (Nume valley) towards Geilo. At Geilo we turned west to drive across Hardangervidda to the west coast.

Driving through green and fertile Lardal.

Lågen goes through three waterfalls in Kongsberg, this is one of them.

Sometimes you encounter really slow drivers. This one kept going 20kph below the speed limit, and the roads were too winding for us to pass him. Aaaargh! He turned off in the end. And it was raining, do you notice?

The road from Numedal to Geilo takes you across three mountains, so we had a bit of up and down for a while. On top of one of the mountains. Lots of cabins.

Skiers also need bridges. You can also see the ski slopes above Geilo in the background.

We made a stop at Geilo before heading up to Hardangervidda.
Hardangervidda (The Hardanger plateau) is the largest peneplain (eroded plain) and the largest mountain plateau in Europe. It has an average elevation of 1100m (ca.3500 feet) and when we drove across the temperature went down to 4C (around 39F).  So, it’s cold up there. People still camp there though.

It took us 5 hours of driving to get from the sea to the highest parts of the road, but less than 1 hour to get back down to the sea. The west coast of Norway doesn’t have any of those long valleys that they have in the east. The road down Måbødalen (Måbø valley) is steep.

The old road down Måbødalen was twisting, narrow and dangerous. These days we mostly drive through tunnels. Norway has thousands of tunnels, and here’s one of them.

Then we were back to the fjord and were waiting for the ferry from Brimnes to Bruravik. By this time next year the ferry will have been replaced by the bridge being built across the fjord. As you can see the towers are already in place and work seem to be progressing as planned.

We’re finally driving past Vangsvatnet (Vangs lake) and Bulken. Just over an hour left before we’re home.