Gausta 1884m

The weather was dry and sunny, after breakfast and a chat with Brian the cyclist, we drove up the hill to the Gaustabanen car park. It’s a v popular peak, Gausta, with the reputation of being able to see one quarter of Norway from the top on a nice day. The path was steep at the start, then leveled out a bit, then we had a few short snow fields to cross. The forecast was possible v heavy showers so, we had a hot chocolate and waffle at the top, then got going. We took the Gaustabanen down, a funicular railway that is inside the mountain, followed by a cute little train running inside. This was all built by NATO so they could always access the antenna on top the whole year around. Inside was a NATO spy station.
We headed straight to the Vemork, workers museum in Rjukan. First we went around the heavy water museum and learned more about the allies efforts to destroy the German stock of D2O or heavy water in WW2. The rest of the museum was about the hydropower station, former hydrogen and chemical production in the town. It was very interesting, and v informative.
When we got back to the car, it was raining extremely heavily and was also hot and sunny, the roads were suddenly rivers. We decided to eat at the Chinese restaurant, instead of cooking at the campsite. Funnily enough, back at the campsite there hadn’t been a drop of rain, 3km west!