Wednesday 23/6 – part two
Tired
I changed into the sandals at once and then looked inside – it seemed both cozy and spacious enough, despite outside appearances. Examining the LPG connections I found that the gaskets were heavily frayed, so I needed to find replacements before turning the gas on. The warden's cottage lies just out of view from the guest cottage, at the foot of a small hill, and walking up this hill I saw that the door to the woodshed was open. Apparently it had broken at some point, for there was a gap even when closed, and I had to make use of a larger log to keep it shut. I rummaged through the storage compartment at the back, and at long last I found what I was looking for in a very illogical place, so I could finally get the gas going.
I had some trouble getting the heater to ignite, but eventually I was successful, and while it did its thing I went to get my stuff'n'food from storage and put the fresh items into the small earth cellar in the hill. It was still windy, but there was also a bit of weak sun from time to time, and the weather appeared to be on the path to improvement; some of the fjelds on the Norwegian side of the border were starting to show as well. Immediately before arriving I had passed a tiny brook in which a pipe had been placed to improve flow, and I settled on that for my water source for the time being. I turned on the radio and searched through the frequency range, happily noting that I could get better reception of the Swedish channels than expected, and then dug out a first dinner from the boxes.
My place
Signs on the hill
After the meal, during which I listened to a Norwegian broadcast of a World Cup football game, I started moving stuff about and unpacking my supplies; there was not too much room for storage, but since I only had myself to consider I managed just fine anyway. I caught the last episode of a language program I like to follow on the radio, and then went down to the nearest tarn for a wash. A cold wind was blowing, but it still felt nice, and the weather was still slowly getting better.
Feeling clean I went up to check out the guest cottage; it looked rather worn on the outside, but the inside looked nice enough, save for some disarray that I would have to take care of. As I walked around to the back to inspect the LPG canisters I caught sight of a hare hopping past the woodshed, which was the first living creature I had seen since the last reindeer earlier in the day. I then walked round the premises and found a small campsite that looked rather artificial with its suspiciously flat grass right among all the bumpy heath, and I also saw a number of traces from campfires as well as left-behind garbage, but I was too tired to do anything about the latter there and then. Instead I returned inside and finished unpacking, and then set about arranging and sorting out various new and old papers until it was time for the weather forecast and a snack. It was still cloudy mainly in Norway when I finally lay down to sleep before 22:45.
