And the road trip starts

Bags packed and layered up ready for temperature drop to low teens, we bused back to ‘sentralstasjon’ and caught ‘ekspress tog’ to pick up the rental car at the airport. Sounds very efficient but we turned the wrong way getting off the bus and couldn’t find the railway station. We do get ourselves into some pickles but thank goodness Karen has at least some sense of direction and there is always someone around who tries to help - often laughing more than we think is warranted.
With 320k to travel on the wrong side of the road in our nifty Toyota CHR, speed limits mostly 80kph or below, and extensive road works that make Transmission Gully look like a pin prick, it took >6 hours to get to Rauma and our basement Airbnb. Yay we have a kettle this

time but no tap, so have to angle it under the bathroom tap to fill it and no cooking facilities so dinner out again - burgers @$30NZ a piece, eating out is really expensive so we’re planning more home cooking.
Back to the scenery of the day = spectacular and it just kept getting better and better. Think exotic places like Lillehammer where 1994 Winter Olympics were held (grabbed a snap as drove past with huge ski runs visible above) and moving onto to Milford Sound - then apply a massive dose of steroids. Add in countless waterfalls that you can’t see the top of, places like the Troll Wall in the Romsdalen Valley where we are staying tonight, along with weird things like 10cm long jet black slugs, and you’ll get the picture. Troll Wall is the tallest vertical rock wall in Europe, 1,100m from base to the top that overhangs the base by 50m. It’s directly above the tallest tree in picture on previous page with Karen standing next to our rental car at the bottom. Lillehammer below as we drove around Lake Mjosa.

So far Inga (GPS) has been a very good even tempered guide, she very politely reminds us of the speed limit when needed. She only loses her cool and starts shouting beeps when seatbelts aren’t done up or the centre or outer road lines are crossed.

Annnnd YEEESSS I did stand on the edge of the lookouts - just long enough for Karen to take photos.