Stones to Ocean

Last weekend J and I were invited to join a Lithuanian couple from our Norwegian class (and their teenage son) on a trip to 'the ocean'. It was wonderful to get out of the city and to explore some of the surrounding landscape. We began by hiking out to one of their favourite spots on the rocks...

It was a really strangely rocky and barren landscape but also really really beautiful, with little villages and snow covered mountains visible off in the distance.

We settled down on a perch overlooking the water, chatted in our broken english and norwegian, watched the rock climbers and began some lunch preparations. The Norwegians are big on these things called 'one time grills'. They are basically small aluminium trays filled with heat beads and a grill cover. The idea is that you take them out to a picnic spot, have a little BBQ and then throw them away. As our Lithuanian friends (Ramundas, Auschra & Motiejus) have been in Norway for years rather than months like us, they are integrated enough to use these things. So we had a small BBQ overlooking the North Sea, which was all very lovely. Across a stretch of water from us we could see a tall rock tower. Ramundas told us that it was a viking version of a lighthouse, that they used to light a fire on top of it to help guide ships in. Of course we then had to work our way over to it to check it out!

It was a really amazing area with inlets and islands everywhere.

The tower was basically just a pile of rocks but we certainly felt the weight of history upon us as we stood beside it!

After hiking around, BBQing on the rocks and checking out Viking towers, Motiejus decided it was time to do some fishing, and what do you know, he actually caught something.

So all in all, you could say it was a truly wonderful day! XXX