Viking Raid 2004
SNAFU - Situation Norway .....
Jon Brooke / 04.09.2004
Earlier today I arrived in Bergen, Norway's second city with a population of just 250,000 (after Oslo - 450,000), which is set amongst the islands, inlets and hills of a rocky, forested coastline. Bergen is around 100 km southwest of Voss where the Viking Raid starts and finishes but even here as the plane circled the airport the terrain looked outstanding in the late summer sun, incredibly rugged with masses of native conifers broken by rocky outcrops and cliffs and lots and lots of water.
On the way to the event centre the terrain got ever more impressive as we drove along the side of a massive fjord through tunnels blasted out of the rock stretching kilometres at a time. Finally on the run in to Voss, which stands on a beautiful lake we could see snowy patches on the mountains tops opposite.
Talking to Patrick he cannot help but enthuse about the country, particularly the fjordlands. He has only lived in Norway for around six years and says that people have the wrong idea, thinking that it is always cold, when in fact it benefits from the gulf stream and is warm and has very long days in the summer. He has also enlisted strong local support for the race with five local communities coming on board as sponsors including Voss, which he says has a particularly strong sporting pedigree. The rafting company that he is working with there has staged world championship races in the past, and the (small) town was responsible for a haul of 7 gold medals in the 2002 Winter Olympics.
More the pity then that the race has been curtailed at the last minute due to the lack of entries and a few late withdrawals. Although Patrick says he has had a lot of interest from major players on the world adventure racing scene, they have not turned up and with just three local teams here he has decided to shorten the race, using vehicles to move competitors around the course and just doing the best bits to demonstrate what might have been. Although he released his dates first, he puts some of the non-attendance down to clashes with Primal Quest and an X-Adventure, but he says that next time he will think more about timing.
In light of the changes to the race it may be that I won't be making daily postings but at the very least there will be some sort of overview after the four days and a gallery of images.
SleepMonsters
