Gold Key Goals

As always, there were plenty of geese and seagulls around to welcome us to the island. The area around the ferry terminal was a bit boring. Mostly flat open areas. But once we walked a bit further we come to a playground, beach, and what is clearly a very popular camping area (note to potential campers: it didn't look like you'd have much privacy there).


The DNT cabin is just past the beach (if you look really closely you can see a few tents on the other side of the bay there). You need a special key to get in and the windows on the main floor were boarded shut so it was impossible for us to get a good look in. There's a waffle stand about 50 metres from the cabin but to my disappointment it was closed when we were there. Thankfully we brought our own snacks. It's a nice spot for a picnic and definitely less popular than Hovedøya, though there is also less to see on the island.

It's possible to rent kayaks from DNT and I think that'd make for an awesome weekend trip. But even though the cabin is a bit removed from the beach and the camping areas, I think I'd want a spot with a little more privacy for a weekend trip. A++ for ease of access from downtown though!

Myrseter was the last of three cabins visited for my birthday trip. The building is part of a farm built in the 1700's. The main farmhouse is no longer standing but what is now the DNT cabin used to be a working building on Østre Rud farm. The old building consisted of two rooms: a working room and a second cold and dark room to store the milk, butter, and cheese that was made. (More info here in Norwegian.)



The building itself is right beside Drømmen but we were so tired that we didn't get down to see it until our second day there. Some of the wood on the front patio behind the gate had rotted out but hopefully that has been fixed by now! All the beds are in an open area on the second floor and there is no way to get from the second floor to the first without going outside, which I imagine is not ideal in the winter.


We opted to take the gravel road on our way home because it had rained so much that 10km in the woods was not going to be fun. It poured rain for part of our walk out but eventually the sky cleared and the sun came out long enough for us to take a break to pick some wild strawberries.

All in all, we had a great weekend. We need to do two night trips more often!

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I've mentioned Olav Thon on this blog a few times before. I first heard of the Thon name from seeing Thon hotels around Oslo and during a visit to Tømtehytta, I happened to find a book about Olav Thon and his contributions to the trekking association. What I came to learn was that he is a very, very wealthy 93 year old man who loves hats, colour blocking, and DNT. Olav's contributions to DNT cabin life have taken a few of my cabin stays to the next level. And I too love cabin trips, hats, and power clashing, so it was only natural to dress up as him for Hallowe'en.

© EvenFoto.no (CC BY 3.0) - http://www.mynewsdesk.com/se/thonproperty/images/olav-thon-453727

The costume itself was pretty simple to put together: blazer, baggy collared shirt, necktie, and toque. I also wore wool socks pulled up over my pants and opted for hiking boots when we went out. Props included an issue of Fjell og Vidde, DNT's member publication, and some play money.

Most people were able to guess who I was when given a hint, so I'd say the costume was a success! Happy Hallowe'en!

The hike into Øvresaga was lovely. That is, after we got past the first few kilometres where we just walked alongside the road. The fall colours in the forest were beautiful and we made ourselves at home atop of a hill overlooking the lake for lunch. There was a cabin nearby so we may have technically been eating in their backyard but we didn't mind and they didn't seem to either.


On our hike into the Øvresaga I was extremely pleased to see that there were still (small) blueberries to be found! Whoever said you can't pick blueberries in October wasn't trying hard enough. Østmarka is a blueberry gold mine. (And a beautiful place to hike in the fall.)


We didn't stay at the cabin for very long in order to catch the bus home at a reasonable hour. At a glance it seemed like an average cabin with a two bedrooms and a canoe that can be borrowed if you're staying overnight. The water was super calm that day -- great conditions for a paddle if we had had time! We hiked back along the roads instead of the trail to cut back on travel time. But to our dismay, we didn't stand far enough out of the shelter and the bus drove right by us. The next bus didn't come for another hour and we weren't exactly dressed for standing around.


To add insult to injury, there was nothing to do around the bus stop. No cafes, no points of interest, just a bunch of houses and a lake. Walking to the nearest station was a bit of a crap shoot. Some of the stops on the way in seemed basically as good as getting dropped off in the forest. At least here we could get away from the main road and still be near civilization. We managed to catch the next bus and have been vigilant about being very visible at bus stops since!

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To the best of my knowledge, that statement is true. Or at least it was true on July 1, 2016 when we finally made it to Presthytta and crushed all former records with documented evidence. Not that it was a competition.



Luckily a sign to Presthytta caught out attention: only 1 km to go! Surely it couldn't be up the dirt road to the left? That road looked like it had been recently dug up. Skeptical, we followed the trail. It was mostly a bulldozed path of mud and fallen trees in an otherwise relatively clear area. We stopped when we came to a very steep hill that had effectively turned into a river/waterfall of sorts with all the runoff. We caught our breath and climbed up thinking surely the cabin was at the top. Nope. The runoff stopped but the bulldozed path continued.


We went higher, and higher, thinking it would be over every hill and it wasn't. And, where were the blazes? After following the bulldozed path through the woods, we hit blue blazes again. What path had we been following? Should we follow the blazes left (up another hill) or right (into the forest)? 1 km? How inaccurate was the sign we passed? We decided it wasn't worth it to go up any more hills and took a right. We followed the path until we found ourselves back at the abandoned barn and the sign for Presthytta that said 1km to go. Then we had an important decision to make: should we try again?


We did. We followed the blazes very carefully and came once more to the waterfall. But we weren't going up that hill again until we found a blue blaze. Finally we found what we were looking for, in the forest along a small path through the grass beside our muddy "trail". Soon we were at Presthytta and the rain poured down. We took shelter in the cabin and played Yahtzee while we waited for it to ease up. I won against all other recorded games by a pretty respectable margin while eating a Kvikk Lunsj. My spirits were completely restored. The rain stopped and we went back to Drømmen.

Presthytta had been hard to find but it had an amazing fireplace inside and the outhouse was less buggy than the one at Drømmen. It was a bit bigger than I prefer and even though there is a living room, all the beds are in the same room as the kitchen. But there were tons of raspberry bushes outside. Too bad for me they weren't ripe for the picking!

For the record, looking at the map with less tired eyes, the bulldozed path was a municipal boundary clearing between Hole and Ringerike. That's a mistake I won't be making twice!

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