First week in Norway (part 1)

Veiw from atop the mountain above Molde

 
MOLDE
A small town located on the west coast of Norway! Molde is a city and municipality in Møre og Romsdal county, Norway. It is part of the Romsdal region. Molde is the administrative center of Møre og Romsdal county, the commercial hub of Romsdal, and the host of the bishop of Møre. It started as an old settlement emerging as a trading post in the late Middle Ages. The city continued to grow throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, becoming a center for Norwegian textile and garment industry, as well as the administrative center for the region, and a major tourist destination. After World War II, a lot of the city was rebuilt after major bombing damage.
The city is named after the original settlement on the farmstead of Molde (Old Norse: Moldar). The name is either the plural form of mold which means "fertile soil" or moldr which means "skull" or "mold" (thus in reference to the rounded peaks in Moldemarka). Pronunciation varies between the standard Molde and the rural Molle. A person from Molde will refer to him/herself as a Moldenser

Vis større kart

the View from my Kayak Shed!

                                                                    

  My fleet of Kayaks!!

                                                                                              
I have an amazing area to work in and a big fleet of  12 double kayaks and 3 singles, we will look at what more gear DID needs to get to run Multi day trips and provide top notch trips for the sea kayak connoisseur!

DIDRICK AND KIN

Didrick Ose

 
Didrick is a big man full of laughs and energy, his boys Bendict and Jesper Helped me clean down there old sail boat so I can make repairs on it and hopefully get it out sailing this summer! we will see.

Jesper og Bendict scrapping the Keel

the little Laling sailboat

ADVENTURES
From the moment I landed it was straight to work, talking, walking, driving and seeing all the cool sights DID Adventure uses for trips. My jet lag did catch me out a bit and Didrick found me falling asleep on him as we drove around over the first 4 days as he explained his corporate trips and how he wants to expand into the commercial sea kayak guiding business.

work truck ready for adventure

coastal boat houses (Naust)

Old painting in Yelling Hill

YELLING HILL
This is  an amazing place that DID uses. it is an old stone mansion built into the hill along the coast of Hustadvika. very un assuming from the out side, it is full of awesome old paintings and furniture, it is literally like stepping into Frodo Baggins Hobbit house with tunnels and hidden rooms everywhere. very cool
DID uses it for corporate dinners and conferences, and we may use it for multi day lodge based kayak trips!

one of the buildings at Yelling Hill

Kitchen.

Thomas Berg Hestad is my colleague for the season is an avid base jumper and now wants to get into guiding. He is full of energy and a real Doer!
We where sent out to scout some sea kayaking trips for the coming corporate Millionaires club trip. Thomas had spent little time in a kayak so he was very uncertain about the swells and his back gave him trouble! but he enjoyed it! It was also the first time a got to get the Trak Kayak out on Norwegian waters. The water was cold at this time of year and i really was thankful for the cozy sea sock I got for the Trak.
Sea kayaking here is very awesome, it is not so much about the wildlife as it is about the wild civilisation, there are houses and little fishing villages in some of the most remote and exposed coastal areas out here, and some of the buildings are over 200 years old. The Coast line, though exposed to the Atlantic Ocean and beaten to a pulp in winter, is very mild in the summer season, with an average swell of what appears to be about half a meter. very nice for coastal sea kayak trips. There is also a lot of amazing and unique places to use as accommodation for lodge based trips along the coast, we should be able to make a great trip here for sure!

Thomas and I

My Trak on the road during Portage

Coastal Drizzel!

Stayed tuned for Week 1 part 2

New Support From Power Film

Power Film Solar has agreed to support "World Wild Adventures" and the "Yak About The World" Project.

I will soon be the proud owner of a couple of "R21 Roll-able Solar Chargers". I look forward to receiving these soon and giving a review on their performance in the feild.

for more info follow the link below
http://www.powerfilmsolar.com/rollable-solar-chargers/r21.php

My First Day in Norway

From the Plane

Norway is a purely spectacular and beautiful country and I have yet to find an ugly place here. The kayaking options for white water and sea are endless as well as the mountains to climb, ski and run on.
Ok so I have been a real slacker! 8 weeks in Norway and I am only just now getting a post up about it, Better late than never I guess!
Taking off from where the last post ended:
After a short 30 minute flight to Molde, the plane dropped towards the clouds that blanketed the coast entirely, except for the tall snow capped mountain peaks which reached to the sky like jagged teeth. The sun, which struck a wonderful light across the stark exaggerated view below the plane, disappeared with the sights as the plane dropped through the dark rain clouds. The sights through the window emerged into a wet and dark fjord and the plane landed, with a light bump, upon a damp airstrip next to the ocean. Stepping from the plane I was struck by the smell of ocean and fresh mountain air all mixed into one.



  
In the terminal, my boss Didrick and his two boys Jesper and Bendict where waiting for me. “Hei Hei Jaime, Velkommen to Molde!” stated Didrick with a big Smile and a strong Handshake. Didrick the Owner of DID Adventure is a big strong blonde chap who upon looking at you can’t help but think back to the Viking History of the people here. I am here, at Didrick’s insistence over the last 2 years, to work with him in trying to help develop sea kayaking in Molde and in Norway in general. Sea kayaking, though a popular sport here in Norway, appears to be underdeveloped commercially and is having trouble taking off. I hope I can help though with some ideas from my experiences working as a guide for allot of different companies in New Zealand, Canada, Belize, and Panama.
Loading my remaining stuff into the work truck we drive back to Didrick’s “Sports Farm” as he calls it, here I find my new accommodations in the upstairs of an Octagonal building, with kitchen, washroom and bedroom all for my use and conveniently a door away from the work office. The Farm is a beautiful old place (the main building almost 200 years old), is right near the ocean and conveniently close to the airport, so much so that you would walk across the airstrip to get to the sea, thankfully the airport is not that busy.

DID Sports Farm

That night I had dinner and meet Trine, Didrick’s wife and then Didrick and I sat down to a business meeting until 1 am when my jet lag wouldn’t let me stay awake any more. DID adventures does allot of corporate work and I have arrived just in time for the most busiest part of all that and will be helping out, thus I had allot to learn in 3 days, but for now it was to sleep for me.