Trolltunga, meaning ‘whales vagina‘ meaning ‘the troll’s tongue’. This is the reason we ever heard about Odda in the first place. It was planned as a hub but it offered so much more.
If there was any point in the Scallywags’ trip that was going to go ass over tits, it was this. With the variables of missing local buses, the possibility of backfire on what felt like a lack of research with the biggest worry being weather conditions. Up in the mountains, who the hell knew what was going to happen. The Scallywags had only one day to complete this little expedition. Wearing only Skins, a free pair of shorts from the Thredbo Alpine Hotel I was given last year because I bought two hot ciders, a tee shirt and a pair of Nike Free Runs, no wet weather gear meant we’d be up shit fjord without a camera if the weather cracked a tanty.
Arriving into Odda, everything was going to plan. On a bus with 40 American college girls, the Scallywags walked up to their AirBNB booked apartment a few hilly streets away from the town centre. The place to themselves, Odda put on a g’day guys welcome to the most beautiful part of the world you’ve ever been to . Instead of trying to paint a picture to show you, it was a thousand times easier to just take a picture.
Thousands of crappy wooden ‘steps’ on the side of an abandoned funicular track began the 22km return hike to a rock with a view.
Hiking along a muddy path, to the right was glassy turquoise snowmelt surrounded by sheer snow-capped mountains with the picture on a Mount Franklin water bottle pouring off the side. The left hand side was more of a Kosciusko National Park vibe with boulders and rocks sharing the suns burn with the Scallywags.
After four hours of hiking, we reached nature’s best pornography. Sitting on the edge of the troll’s tongue, a couple of thousand feet drop confirmed the death of a fall. This adrenaline mixed with the knowledge, that unless we ever came back, nobody who was there will ever experience anything as majestic.
And it was at this point I decided to become one with nature. Walking away from the edge of awe, I pulled down my pants and cupped my hands around little Perksy. Before I knew it, I was standing with my arms in the air and breathing in the freshest oxygen the environment has to offer. I figured that if I were to fall, what better way to exit the world wearing the same suit I entered wearing; my birthday suit.
PHOTO NOT AVAILABLE BECAUSE I DON’T WANT TO POST CONTENT THAT MAY JEOPARDISE MY FUTURE – SORRY FOR THE DISAPPOINTMENT!
The nakedness didn’t end there. Reapplying my pants like I failed to do with sunscreen, a few hundred metres away was a freshwater lake. Before anybody knew what was going on, I was wading into the snowmelt for a skinny dip. The contrast of the esky cold water against my sunburnt boiling hot body made the water feel even more freezing. One of the most refreshing swims I had ever encountered, it was time to leave as some tourists on the other side of the lake began to fill their water bottles.
Three hours return back to where the bus would return us to Odda, the Scallywags were hurting. Shaky legs, chronic sunburn, aching ankles and just plain exhausted. It was not an easy feat to accomplish what we did but I would not trade any of it for anything else in the world. It was expensive to get ourselves here but the money spent doesn’t even compare to the value the Scallywags got from experiencing this part of nature. It’s moments like these that I remember why I spend so damn long on a plane and why I work to save coins.
I’ve been fortunate enough to see 6/7 of the worlds continents and what nature has offered in all of them. Every single time I have visited a vista that relies on perfect weather, I have been lucky enough to get it. The same went with Trolltunga. Our biggest fear was not being able to conquer the hike but that nature would shut the curtains, an action we obviously couldn’t control.
I count my blessings every day for the hand life has dealt. It makes it much easier to follow my dreams and live life ‘on the edge’