oh yeah, cheeck this out

i learnt to snow board last weekend, here is a small video of my first day http://www.boreme.com/boreme/funny-2006/first-descent-p1.php Feb 17th & 18th. Deep snow at Roldal, but forgot my camera. doh.

Feb 10th - 11th: x-country ski virgin

My first ever x-country ski trip ! We set of at a leasirely 10.20 am, for a small taste of the national pasttime. Thinking i,d be back in time for late afternoon snooze befor edoing my Noggie homework and putting my feet up. ...

Here is me & The Cook still happy in our joyful naivety of our impending situation

Here is some well class dogs pulling a sledge

We stopped for luch in a DNT (Den Norske Tourist foreningen) cabin. Very well kitted out but the thermometer on the wall read -9 degc. we got the fire lit and had a good feed

except after lunch, we hadnt reckoned on Dougal springing a small 'extension' on us. theres a bit of a lack of photos after that, but the next one is just b4 it got dark. very pretty

Then it got dark.................temperature now -17 degc. route finding was following the line of twigs someone had helpfully stuck in the snow. andy got frozen fingers that never melted for a week.

and we eventaully got home at 8pm. GPS recorded 38 km travelled. Not bad for a 1st attempt.

Weather girls

In Norway, we get proper weather girls. Not your lager swilling, chip eating, british gulvlife. And Jackie Bird doesnt count cus she isnt a weather burd. This is the real deal. This post is dedicated to all Norwegian weather girls., and all the Viking marauders for their selective kidnapping poilicies. Watch out for new additions as they become available New addition!

27th -28th January: Sauda

2 ski days at Sauda. Awesome cabin. Jumping off cliffs, see video. Practiced on my tele's on Sunday.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKS40311Fpg

Here is our lovely cabin , plus andy and eva

and here is dougal and Eva, enjoying a bottle of vino for lunch. well ok, they didnt enjoy that much of it, because muggins swallied most of it. b4 they had a chance.

21st Jan Roldal

1 ski day at Roldal. Not much to report here, apart from the fact that i,m significantly better than Beaver at skiing, but that,d be stating the obvious.

January 14th : A sauna, a hotub, loads a Swedish birds, and a snowdrift.

What more could you ask for? We pitched up at 5pm after a hard days skiing. Got cracked into the beers, sauna, hotub, 3 couse meal, wine served by Swedish girls who prompty invited us back down to the sauna for party. Awoke in the morning to a 6 foot snow drift - what a bummer :-) Going back in March to go Kite Skiing and pick up another free STI. Bring it on. http://www.haukeliseter.no/

Feb 2nd - 4th: Hemsedal Epic

What Like? and welcome to edition 1 of Mchardy,s Nog Blog. Will be back-dating a few weekends so watch out for that. Last weekend was Hemsedal. A mere 14.5 hr drive to get there, might be a problem if your soft, but no problemo for the likes of me. My back was not broken in two by the end of that , no way. Wasnt meant to take that long of course, but we end ed up taking a small 7 hour detour, due to the road over the Hardangervidda being shut cos of drifting snow. Modley beat that. Oh yeah, and we also got to drive thru the worlds longest tunnel - 25 Km (see photos), and almost drove through Lillehammer, where they once had some Olympics. Anyways, here is a pretty picture of a fjord we drove around, and under, and through. Anyways, it all kicked off once we got there, Mia The kayak Instructor (more later), had us doing all sorts of adventures, see Mchardskis abortive 180 attempt above left. Below is Mia and some fat git lagging beehind, climbing up to the top of the mountain after the lifts shut cus of high winds. come an ava go if ya think yer ard enurff. Anyways, we got down just in time for the pub (see left), the highest mountain in the background is the one we justwalked up and skied down. 2hrs up, 20 minutes down. I ve always loved jugs. of beer. Who likes my swanky new jacket? does anybody need a ski jacket? i have about 5 going spare. i might have a jumble sale. We set off home at 4 pm Sunday, arriving in Stavanger 3am Monday, after losing 2.5 hrs 'cos of a small issue with 'head gaskets' in Dougal car. Apparently they are essential for proper functioning. The breakdown company gave us a Suzuki Grand Vitara loser cruiser, which i managed to drive 180 km in 2 hours, which on Noggie roads is quite an achievement. here is a piccy of Dougals car being dragged off to the scrappy. Anyways, thats enough off that, watch out for some videos once i figure out how to do that, to get a taste of the action. Also, go back to early january to find out about the Swedish girls, a hot tub and a snow drift. ps . new Year Ski team: i thought Hemsedal could be an option for next year: i can get the cabin which sleeps 10, for 15 quid a night for the whole cabin!, flights to Oslo are not too dear, and there is a bus from the airport. I could take my van as a set of wheels. So we have no car or accomodation costs - that would save us about 2 Grand compared to Morzine. The only downside is that the resort is smaller than what everyone is used too, its not ridiculsy small though. Not sure what the early season snow record is either. Could be one to consider though.