Travel Notes, Chapter#6, The Fjaerland fjord and Boyabreen glacier

Our tour started from Balestrand pier, it was a connected tour, we should catch our Bergen connection right after we arrive the Balestrand.  Our round-trip on the Fjaerland fjord package tour were including  visits of Norwegian Glacier Museum and the glacier Boyabreen.  It was a fantastic half day!

In a cloudy and cool day our tour started in time. We were a small group of people but from different places of the world such as;  Australia, Spain, USA, UK and  we were from Turkey among other local people.  

We passed through the amazing places, lonely fjords with wonderful colors, wonderful shades,  seagulls, little towns, little houses....

The weather conditions were  changeable even though it was first week of July. 

I wonder winter time in these fjords, how they provide their daily requirements? They must be so much isolated during winter time, indeed.

 We have noticed a tunnel construction, most probably they will connect two sides. 

They are familiar and experienced to drill the tunnel, and suspension bridges between islands, and sides of fjords, where the geography is suitable, we saw different applications during our round trip.

When we arrived to Fjaerland, the glacier bus  was waiting us. Our guide was a lovely young lady who is a student in Bergen. She told detailed information about the museum and glacier, including some other important stories related with the area.

We’ve visited  the Norwegian Glacier Museum. It is a small museum but visual exhibits are well organized, you get to see how the glaciers have influenced us and the climate throughout history. The museum's stated purpose is to "collect, create and disseminate knowledge about glaciers and climate".

It provides information about the glacier Jostedalsbreen and the Jostedalsbreen National Park and also houses the Ulltveit-Moe Climate Centre.

The Fjaerland fjord is a tributary of the Sognefjord and is also known as "The green fjord". Fjaerland is the village where fjords meet glaciers and you can get up close to Jostedalen glacier, the largest glacier in continental Europe.

By the way, let me define what is a glacier! A glacier is snow and ice in motion. Glaciers form at those localities where more snow falls in winter than melts in summer. An ice mass build up over time and will start to move gravity when it is more than 20 meters thick.  

It is so obvious that, the land shape has been shaped by glaciers. Towering mountains and U-shaped valleys surround large delta areas formed by the accumulation of sediment supplied by the glacier rivers. Several thousand years old of deltas formed at a time of higher sea level can now be seen as terraces in the valleys.

It will be better to give a short information for Jostedal Glacier has a total area of 487 square kilometers. The highest point is Høgste Breakulen at 1,957 meters above sea level. Branches of the glacier reach down into the valleys, for instance Bøyabreen in Fjærland and Nigardsbreen, both at 300 metres  above sea level. The thickest part of the glacier is 600 meters.

The glacier is maintained by the high snowfall rates in the region, not the cold temperatures. This means the glacier has high melting rates. The Jostedalsbreen has around 50 glacier arms such as the Nigardsbreen and Tunsbergdalsbreen in Jostedal, the Briksdalsbreennear Olden, the Bøyabreen by Fjærland. 

Boyabreen is one of about 25 glacier tongues branching off from the plateau of Jostedalsbreen. The main glacier feed Boyabreen. Whether Boyabreen grows or retracts depends on the surplus of snow and ice at the top of the plateau. The glaciers will grow if more snow is falling during winter than what is melting away in the summer. The response time from the main glacier down to Boyabreen is approximately 3 years!

Ice breaks loose from the front of Boyabreen all though summer. Chunks of ice falling into the glacier river may be carried into the lake below.  We were lucky to be able to see even though big pieces of ice floatings in the water. We’ve learned that a big ice block crashed down just before our arrival.  We couldn’t get a chance to see amazing crashing activity  but ice floatings were swimming on the surface.

This is “living” ice which is different from the kind of ice we produce by deep freezing water. From the outset, the glacier ice is composed of many snow crystals which have been fused and grown larger. For this reason, living ice contains air filled channels. 

Another important info is that in 2012, the glacier arm Briksdalsbreen lost 50 meters of ice in a few months. More recent measurements now show that Briksdalsbreen retreated 146 meters  in 2006, and could be in danger of breaking away from the upper ice field. Ice climbing has now been terminated because of this event. One of the serious remedy of global warming!

As I’ve  learned a sad story that something hiding in the glacier; in 1972 a small airplane crashed on Jostedalsbreen. The pilot was killed, and his body was removed from the aircraft. The plane was gradually covered by snow and became embedded in the glacier during winter. Since the glacier  moves slowly there is a possibility that the remnants of the aircraft will be transported downhill and reappear when the ice melts. Calculations based on available data indicate that the wreck will some day will appear near the top of Boyabreen!

After visiting this amazing places and learned much more details for the global warming causes and its effects, I realized once again that we have to protect our old world as much as we can. At least, there are lots of things  that we can do, individually!

So, we said good bye to this lovely small village to go back to Balestrand to catch our ferry for Bergen.

This photo reminds me a stanza I've read 

"Seagulls fly high overhead, 

Seagulls fly high as  if near the ocean"

I believe that these beautiful seagulls are always escort sailors!

Travel Notes,Norway, Chapher#3, Flam

We arrived Flam as the last destination of Flamsbana,

Flam  is a very small village and when I first saw it I thought, how it is a lovely place. It does have a lot of tourists from cruise ships, but mainly the crowds are around the pier and souvenir shops. After a long touring, visiting shops and small museum we had a some sneaks in pier area. Afterwords went to Fretheim Hotel to have coffee. It was a lovely day, hotel garden was so nice while sun was shining and drizzling time to time. I wondered how this hotel and its surroundings look like in the winter time, especially with Christmas decorations. 

When we are touring in pier area, I noticed a small private museum in a store, of 

course I loved all those oldies. I loved the decoration of small room, all those dusty, oldies were so pretty.

 

 This lovely small town must so quiet and lonely in winter time. It was so crowded and busy in this  sunny day.

 There are many things to do in Flam, one of them is fjord safari. Teams get ready and leave pier as scheduled.

When we started to plan our journey we also checked cruise tour programs. We checked cruises and their schedules and decided to make our own program to have more free time and visit places freely as we wish. One of them was cruise  Koninsdam. It was a surprice for us to see it there at Flam pier because we've totally forgotten it and its program.

We got a chance to review how are things works in these cruises, how passengers have to be acted according to program, etc.

 

We are sure once again that big cruise tours are not our kind, it is impossible to feel the nature, serenity in that big vessel with thousands of people. We like small scale, more independent tours.

We left Flam in the afternoon with our scheduled Norled express boat, “Vingtor”.

 In that cool and windy weather we were all on the board to take photos and breath that amazing freshness.

If you ask me describe fjords with a few words, I say, peaceful, magnificient, green, lonely, and blue. It gives you different feelings and rejuvenate with amazing nature.

Our destination will be Balestrand, I'll tell it later....