6th August 2016. Oppdal, Norway to Tännäs Sweden.

It was cloudy and overcast when we woke up in the morning, Darren phoned three Musk Ox tour companies and we decided that although we really wanted to see a Musk Ox we didn’t want to be wandering around on a mountain for five hours in the pouring rain and (knowing our luck) not see any at all!  Instead we had a walk around the town.  There was a mountain bike race going on and people were just going through the finishing line when we walked along the road, they all looked extremely muddy but, without exception, each cyclist had a huge smile on their face.

After an expensive lunch in a cafeteria, (I had an egg salad with bread and butter and Darren had a thin burger and chips with a salad garnish 350Kr, nearly £35) it started to rain so we went back to the van.

We were having a downer on Norway again, because the weather was manky and we’d had enough of paying through the nose to eat out, so we decided we were changing our plans again and going back to Sweden to Tännäs to the Musk Ox Centrum.

I was really pleased that the journey back towards Røros gave us the opportunity to stop at the Stave church that we’d passed on the way to Oppdal.

It was an interesting structure, we initially thought the wood was such a dark colour because it had been burned but then we wondered whether the colour was actually produced by the bubbles of resin that had seeped out over time.  It had a lovely strong smell of pine as we walked round it.

We drove through the border between Norway and Sweden and within 10 minutes of arriving in Sweden we were stopping to photograph reindeer as they wandered around both in and next to the road.

We eventually dragged ourselves away from looking at the reindeer and drove to Tännäs and the Fishing Centre which is where the trip to the Musk Ox Centrum leaves from.

We were hoping to get on the first trip in the morning.  We stayed overnight in the peaceful car park, surrounded by pine woods.