Nurhan's take:
Our hunt for a cabin continues... this has the positive side that we end up in some locations where we've never been before. Kin's four paw drive is finally coming into it's own, as on this occasion at this altitude the skis stayed in the car's roof box, and he's faster than me. The orange lead in the picture is a plastic lead that's 16 m in length and in this kind of terrain you just let it run behind him, then if you need to grab him it's possible, but otherwise he's free to roam, as there's still snow up here there are no sheep yet. Picture is taken at about 690 m, had to go up to about 750 m for skiable snow... oh and this is (according to the cabin prospectus) one hour's drive from my house (it was 1 hr 15 mins, which was fairly close).
The week before Kin and I had taken a walk from the house down into town and back, on the way back some kids wanted to meet him. He was fairly warm and had some slobber around his muzzle. Now Kin has become somewhat reserved when meeting kids, if they 'charge' him. If the kids stand still and he goes to them, all well and good, but he's not happy when they swarm him. They tried to swarm him, and he backed away. They then decided that as he had 'foam at the mouth' he obviously had rabies, which is why he didn't want to meet them!
Now back to four paw drive. Kin is no better when I am on paws than when I am on skis, he still tries to go in front and seems to enjoy 'T-boning', and generally getting in the way. For a Newfie, he's wonderfully agile, but still need to be very careful about picking routes. Was trying to steer him down a safe gully, across a stream bed, when I slipped and did a wonderful glassade, on my arse, into the aforementioned stream bed... as Kin gave me a surprised look and saunted by - after this I became somewhat less focused on steering him!
We were having a wonder around the area where there is a cabin plot available. We bush wacked on one side, from the car at 500 m up to 740 m, then spoke to some locals who pointed out that the road to the secret military installation (at least that's what the sign says), unlike on the map, it actually goes on for another five km, up to 906 m, on the other side of the hills, so up Kin & I went to explore.
We got up to ~ 869 m before the snow became too heavy going and we turned back.
Great area to visit; place is a little gem, but because of geometry, would run out of ski areas to explore quite quickly.
Area is the south side of Ørsdalsvatnet, in Bjerkreim, road that goes into Lauperak. Incidentally for those who are in the Stavanger area, the hill that we wondered up is the one with the large radio mast on the summit (Gaupelemfjellet), that can be seen covered in snow when you drive on the E39 towards Vikeså.
On driving out we had to follow the three dead end roads to their ends. One of which goes through a farm and then you wonder if you are on the farm's private road as it goes to a gravel road, through fields... This brings you here:
With a stunning view along Ørsdalsvatnet, and this vessel:
Which at first inspection appears to be a shelter deck trawler (on a completely land locked lake, with no access to the sea), but on closer inspection is a tourist boat:
Which leads me to the Norsk Information Gene, as proposed by Pete McAulay, this is a gene that Norwegian's are born with so for instance they know that down this unlikely looking road there will be a boat that travels the length of the lake once a week between these times, this is why no advertising of this service is required!
Meantime the search for a cabin continues...
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