2010-11-04 59 10

Location

Forest, close to Nesodden, Norway.

Participants

Plans

We are going by ferry from Lysaker to Nesodden at 4:45 PM, and will there borrow a car from Bønna‎'s father. The small hamlet of Svestad is a 15 minute drive from there, and the hashpoint seems to be in a wooded area about 500 meters from Svestad.

Blóðøx is bringing a camera, but as it will be dark by the time we get there, don't expect meaningful pictures.

Expedition

eiggen

We took the ferry from Lysaker to Nesodden, where we were supposed to borrow Bønna's parents' car, but soon discovered that its battery was empty: the car would not start. We were thinking of abandoning the quest when we saw a neighbor drive by and park his Toyota Prius nearby. We asked him if we could try to jumpstart the dead car using the Prius, but he was a bit uncertain about the idea, not really knowing if an hybrid car would be a good candidate to bless another car with a new life... would the advanced electronics of the Prius survive this?

True to the Norwegian spirit of 'we trust each other,' he instead proposed to lend us his car! Of course, he asked where we were heading, to which Bønna replied, 'Oh, we are going to reach a point in the forest near Svestad.' Surprisingly, no more questions were asked and we could proceed with the hybrid and reached Svestad. On the way, most of us kept staring at the dashboard console of the car in awe: it showed the flow of energy from the different engines and the recharging of the batteries from braking: sweet treat for engineering-types.

We parked near some sort of lumberjack house and walked straight in the wet forest, in the most complete darkness. Well, there were some stars in the sky, but they did not help much in terms of lighting under the treetops. We erred a few hundred meters and reached a tractor track which lead us a bit closer to the hashpoint. We chose to dive in the forest once more to try to reach the point. On the way, some of the headlights we carried went dead, so it became a bit challenging for everyone not to stumble on slippery rocks and fallen trees.

We managed to finally reach the hashpoint after changing heading a few times, only to discover that we forgot the celebration beer in the car! Noooooo!

We took a few pictures and walked back towards the car. We then realized that the tractor track was serpenting almost right next to the hashpoint. Why all the pain of walking through the forest?! We followed it all the way back to the house, making the return journey a piece of cake.

We celebrated with a few beers and greasy Swedish 'cheese balls' and head back to the ferry port. We took the ferry again, this time in the direction of Aker Brygge, downtown Oslo. With dirty pants and wet shoes, we parted ways in the cold night.

Tracklog

No tracklog is available, as it would be shameful to show all the detours we made through the dark and wet forest... only to find out later that there was a large tractor track passing really close to the hashpoint.