Day 5 (June 26): Aurland.

Given how early the sun rises (around 3:30am in our current location), we are now sleeping with eye masks so we’re not up at zero dark thirty. 

This morning, we had some brekkie (side note: Norway has some great local cheese) and ventured off to go kayaking in Sognefjord, which is the largest and deepest fjord in Norway. This is a bucket list item for me! Marc has been to this fjord before, but I had not… up until today. We had a 5k bike ride from the farm to the kayak launch point - woah, yes, we rode real bikes and not just the Peloton!

The weather was perfect and we had a slight breeze, so we decided to head out a certain way to make it easier on the return. We paddled to a waterfall, learned about the fjord’s history as well as how the influx of big cruise ships is impacting the air quality in a neighboring town where they dock. The kayaking experience was definitely worth the wait. 

On the way back in, I definitely noticed that it was more effort coming in and I needed to paddle more on my left side than my right. A few minutes later, our guide told us the wind shifted a bit and also increased from 1 meter per second to 5 meters per second. FUN! Yay - push and pull resistance training!

After we pulled in our boats, we had some lunch at a local bakery. Marc identified some square thing but didn’t know what the ingredients were. The person behind the counter helped and Marc said, “yep!” Happy guy. We picked up a couple of things at the local market and then biked back to the farm.

Over the course of the afternoon, the wind continued to pick up and the clouds have rolled in. Rain is in the forecast but tomorrow’s activity isn’t as weather dependent. 

At the farm we are staying at, the tables are communal. Tonight we sat with a family from Jakarta, who were a lot of fun. Their 8-year old son kept us in stitches about his music tastes. Since he plays drums, Marc was educating him about Neil Peart, who was the drummer of Marc’s favorite band - RUSH. I thought it was hysterical that he was working on a show at home focused on various songs from Michael Jackson’s Thriller album.