Nowegian mountains and Medieval architecture

This stavkirke, Gol Church of Hallingdal, built around 1250 A.D. It houses an exhibit of Norse artifacts.
Norway is the only country in Northern Europe with wooden churches from the Middle Ages still intact. During the Middle Ages, when immense cathedrals were being built in stone in other places in Europe, a similar technique was developed in Norway for building in wood. Boat construction and home building in the Viking times had developed the technique and tradition of combining art with wood working. This culminated in the stave churches. The stave churches are a particularly valuable part of the Norwegian architectural heritage, and are considered to be of national and global importance. There are several types of stave churches but the common element to all of them is that they have corner-posts (“staves”) and a skeleton or framework of timber with wall planks standing on sills. These walls are known as stave walls, hence the name stave church.The decoration of stave churches feature an intriguing combination of Christian designs intermixed with what is often assumed to be pre-Christian Viking motifs, such as the interwoven dragon motifs. The wooden doors and finials are beutifully carved.

More spectacular views on the edge of Gol.

Hege and Ella.


Old Norwegian shepherds huts, back in the day when there were wolves and the shepherds needed to to guard their sheep. Apparently they still do it today in the summer, but not in these.

The view from the lookout.

Iggy and Quinn hit the peak of the lookout!

Cooking franckfurts in the mountains.


It's snowing at the cabin.

We were invited to the cabin which belongs to Hege's family. I was a bit worried as it belongs to Hege's grandparents and Quinn can be so easily excited; however, Quinn was fantastic and the cabin is still standing, which is great.
First day we were there it was cold, or so we thought. We settled in for the night and it was beautiful and crisp. The next day we went hiking up a lovely hill which has a great view, it was cold but special and then we found a sheltered space and made a fire, something we could never just do in the Australian bush without some serious fire potential. The kids were buzzing and poking sticks and anything flammable into the fire. It actually got a little annoying but we played the patient card and all was well in the land of family. We used the fire to cook frankfurts and then popped them into potato bread with mustard and tomato sauce.