#nedre

Kanal kanten har rasat jag n vid slussen Dufkullen nedre utanför Söderköping, Göta kanal. Nu riskeras premiären skjutas upp.

http://mobil.nt.se/nyheter/jordskred_pa_gota_kanal_hotade_gravmaskinist/9671536

After crossing the Norwegian border, the temperature gauge kept going up and before we decided to stop for the night, it was as warm as 7°C. I expect 3 factors—we were losing altitude, we were closer to the coast and it had been snowing (but actually, it is the other way round—an increase in temperature allows snow to fall). We stopped at a rest place at the side of the road—Norway is full of those. It was raining, we didn't want to build the tent and there was a building that provided relatively good shelter—the wind was blowing from the right direction.

The shelter was not perfect—I was lying further away and felt just too many droplets landing on my sleeping bag so I decided to move. Just 50m away, into the entrance to an underground hydro power plant—a big concrete structure, but providing better shelter. I slept very well, and then at 8 o'clock in the morning, I was woken up by car headlights.

At first I was a little frightened—it was a power plant employee who had come to work—but he was smiling, wished me a good morning and asked me, whether I had slept well. He opened the gate and disappeared in the tunnel.

Jáchym went to have a "shower" under one of the many waterfalls around (it is hard not to have a waterfall in sight in Norway).

We packed and just before we were ready to go, the power plant employee had finished his work and stopped by—he asked us, if we wanted to have a look at the power plant. "Of course!"

The hydro power system here is quite complicated—most of the power plants are underground and water is taken there by pipes to ensure the deepest drop in altitude possible. According to the map, the power plants in this valley produce 350MW, that is roughly 1/6 of the power produced by the Temelín nuclear power plant.

We went to see the Nedre Nea power plant. It was only built in 1989; the worker told us that everything is more or less automatic and that they only come here once in a month, so it was quite a coincidence. He went there today because they had dirty water—which could damage the turbine.

It is very warm inside, the power generator produces quite some heat. And this is the turbine:

Before we drove on to Trondheim, the sky cleared and we got sunshine once again.

So, in Trondheim they have these colourful old buildings (actually, most of them only look old):

A big cathedral:

Modern art:

A fish market /I tried a fish burger and it was very tasty/:

A fortress:

From which there is a very nice view over Trondheim:

And, most importantly, A BICYCLE LIFT!

There it is in action:

It was time to head back. As we entered the mountains, it started raining again, and there was thick fog, the kind that you drive really really slowly because you can't see a thing. We turned onto a minor road to find a place to sleep and the weather was very kind to us—it stopped raining and only started again after we were prepared to go to sleep.

That was my last can of Czech beer.

In the morning we could at least see the other side of the valley. With more than 650km to go, we headed on. As I mentioned before, not all roads have asphalt:

Okay, this was a shortcut, but still. It took us to the foot of the rainbow though—you can find it at Sennsjøen.