Once Upon a Time...

...we had sun, and beautiful colors.

And I took a wonderful trail ride with my daughter.

Now everything is dark, wet and grey.

It is just a month ago, but right now it feels like ages.

Why don't you join us for the ride?

I apologize for the quality of some of the pictures. My cellphone was not quite cooperative that day.

After crossing the creek and some fields, we are taking a gravel road leading further up into the forest.

We are so lucky to have some houses serving food in the forest.

Norwegians are very fond of using their spare time for walking and bicycling in summer, and skiing in winter, so there is a market. the people who live there have part of their income serving food, mainly in the weekends.

We go horse riding, much more fun!

We have packed up food for the horses too.

After about three-quarters of an hour, we leave the gravel roads for a path through the forest.

I just love the way the sun is filtering through the trees.

A bit of the path is quite stony, with bare mountain sides.

We meet some people with bicycles.

I don't like to ride on bare mountain sides with a shod horse, the horse easily slides.
Most of the path is OK though.

Below you see one of the most popular places to stop and have a rest, and something to eat.

It is called Kobberhaugshytta (Copper Hill Cottage).

You can also spend the night there.

We are moving on to a less frequented place.

Calmer surroundings makes it easier to relax with the horses.

Below: We are closing in on the way up to our destination, Finnerud.

Fame has been here before, and is looking up to the houses.

Feed Place is in there, Mum! See??

Here we are, this is Finnerud.

They used to have a "parking place" for horses , but a horse ran off with the tree trunk to which you tied them and unfortunately it was never replaced.

But we don't mind, we have a special corner, with some trees and our own table in the sun!

They have the very best ciabatta, carrot cake and waffles.

I was very disappointed as they were out of my favourite, the carrot cake.

But the waffles were not bad either!

Charlie can't find his pellets on the ground in between all the leaves, and is getting impatient.

(read: being a nuisance. Have you seen a horse get entangled in a tree? Well, he did his best)

My daughter has to help him relocate his food.

He has it well hidden under the leaves after trodding around and scraping up leaves with his hooves, stupid.

My princess Fame is behaving well as always (hahem) and is calmly looking at the surroundings.

She has hoovered the ground free from food.

Been here, done that.

Charlie suddenly gets a visitor.

He stops being Very Bored (expressed by un-relaxing exercises in different postures), and checks out what's happening.

The entertainment climbs up a tree.

I am waiting for an explosion from a "frightened" horse.

As food now is scarce for both two- and fourlegs, we decide to get on our way home.

When coming home, we had been out and about for around three hours.

Horses were happy, we were happy.

A wonderful ride.

Thanks for accompanying us!