18/08/2025
We had a bit of backtracking to do now. Our via ferrata experience had taken us slightly off course. It felt odd to be heading back south, and a little galling to be paying the tolls, but we didn’t have far to go before we turned off the E6 and started the Rondane Scenic Route.
Rondane Scenic Route
There are 18 designated scenic routes in Norway. Think NC500 and then multiply it. These ‘Nasjonale turistveger’ cover all sorts of landscapes and on the website you can find points of interest. This route was going to take us alongside the Rondane National Park, the oldest National Park in Norway. The park itself is traffic free so we would be skirting it’s eastern edge.
The start of the route took us uphill through agricultural land. This was quickly followed by what we have come to think of as typically Norwegian tourist infrastructure; complexes of grass roofed lodges and campsites where permanently sited caravans butt up against shed type extensions.
Sheep on the roads…but no reindeer
We watched out of the windows as the peaks of mountains slowly started to reveal themselves above the forest and lakes. The national park was a landscape of shapely ridges and summits, grassed but without other significant vegetation apart from vast patches of lichen interrupting the grasses. It’s one of the few areas in Norway where Wild Reindeer can be found (as opposed to the herds managed by the Sami people) but sadly we didn’t see any.
Our first stop was Sohlbergplassen where a sinuous viewing platform allowed us to get a well framed view of the mountains. This view was the inspiration for artist Harold Sohlberg’s painting ‘Winter night in the mountains’.
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- The concrete viewpoint of Sohlbergplassen
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- The inspiring view of the Rondane peaks
There was a quick stop at the Kjøllen mosaic which was a bit disappointing. It’s a modern mosaic which is in a parking area. It’s impressive but it’s setting could have been more sensitively managed and a viewing platform would have been nice.
Kjøllen mosaic – shame that cars and caravans can just park around, or even on, it
Then we made our main stop for the day at the National Park centre at Strømbu. There were plenty of visitors parked here and we took out place in their ranks. We didn’t have any specific plans but there were plenty of notice boards with suggestions for hikes from easy to challenging.
The Strømbu Ronden
We chose a fairly easy walk, we’d just had three days of fairly hard physical activity and didn’t feel up to a major mountain hike. This round trip took us across the road and slightly uphill where we could get good views over the valley to the mountains. Then we traversed through woodland until we dropped back down to the road by some lakes. Here we crossed the road near a fishing spot and crossed the river. The return path took us back along the river through varied terrain with rocky areas, lakes, bogs and streams.
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- The river Atna
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- Walking by the river
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- Pools in the woods
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- So much lichen
The pedestrian bridge back to the car park was undergoing maintenance work and made an interesting finish to the walk. People who were walking the route in the other direction were turned back, but fortunately for us we didn’t have to reverse our route. It required a little agility on our part as the steps up to the bridge had been removed and we had to use the workmen’s ladders to get up to the bridge and back down again.
We finished up by buying ice cream to cool down, we couldn’t believe how warm it still was, but we were bracing ourselves. The weather forecast was showing a different picture for the next few days.
