Norway

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The Books are Out!

Midnight in the Lofoten Islands, northern Norway

It’s been a long, painful process, but the two Taipei Escapes books finally came out a couple of days ago…! They’re only available at The Community Services Center (my publisher) at the moment, but, fingers crossed, will probably be in Caves and Eslite within a week or two.
Looking forward to exploring some new areas of Taipei County (lots of ideas already), plus a few trips down south and to offshore islands in the fall. Most will be open to all, so sign on at the Taipei Hikers site if you want to come!
In one of the world’s most beautiful spots at the moment (northern Norway) hopefully will get to write a bit about this amazing place when I get a bit of a breather.

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The Kjeragbolten (Stavanger, western Norway)

On the Kjeragbolten

No time to write much at the mo, but I couldn’t resist putting this photo up, since it nearly gave me a heart attack doing it, with my fear of heights…

The Kjeragbolten in western Norway has become one of Scandinavia’s most famed day hikes: it’s a fairly strenuous ramble, which is probably the only thing that prevents it becoming a tourist favorite, with lots of steep hauling up glacier-smoothed sheets of rock, but at the end is this amazing, and now very famous, boulder, wedged in a crack with a clear drop of 900 meters to a scree slope on the shore of the Lysefjorden below. Since so many people have their photo taken on the rock these days, I thought it would be easy getting on it – well actually it’s no harder than striding from one rock to another in a stream, but with a vast, vast drop below it’s incredibly intimidating. Well I did it (twice), and lived to tell the tale. I think the experience actually helped my fear of heights. I went to the even more famous, somewhat easier (and far more busy) Pulpit Rock nearby the following day and hardly batted an eyelid at the sheer, 600 meter drops from the rock!

For loads more photos of  the Kjeragbolten and other amazing places nearby see my Flickr album at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/29712358@N04/sets/72157627480871717/

The Pulpit Rock