Sygno Hike - the easy hikes with beautiful views 🏞 ⛰

  

 A quick tour to one of my favourite hike spots - Sygno hilltop. This hill lies near a small lake, surrounded by grazing lands. Sheep and cows graze here on lazy summer days. Our trip this time was in late July, with no cattle grazing nearby. A quiet afternoon with no other hikers around is the best kind of hike; either for quiet self-contemplation or a lazy stroll, chatting along with old friends (as was the case here). 

The hiking path skirts around the farmlands and gradually slopes up to the foot of the rocky hill. The hill top now is quite near, with a few minutes of the last rocky climb. Each stretch of the hike gives amazing views of the countryside, some views with windmills on the horizon, some with lakes and some with the long winding road, or all those sprawling hills where ever the eye wanders.

The day was cloudy, with some areas lit with the peeking sun and some in the shadow. This is quite visible in the panoramic photo from top (panoramas at the end of the post). These cloudy days are ideal for such landscape photos, with the clouds adding an extra dimension to the sky. In fact such cloudy days are also ideal for a hike. 

No hike is complete without a sighting of little critters. Mostly these photos are intended for the other blog for macros, but need a mention, since they are an important part of the  landscape. Many of the critter macros were from local hikes in good weather - ants, beetles, flies, bees, insects, butterflies, and my favourite - the spider 🕷. This day, I found 3 - the wild butterfly, quite common around here; the little insects on the wild flowers; and finally the beetle, which I have found aplenty this year (2020).

Click in the photos for a larger view...

गणेश चतुर्थी (Ganesh Chaturthi)

The festival of गणेश चतुर्थी was my favourite as a child. We had a one and half day ceremony, commonly called as दिड दिवसाचा गणपती. An open area near my old school became an impromptu market for all the vendors - Ganesh statues, flowers, fruits, and also all the special offerings. The common tradition is to bring the statue the previous evening. The statue is kept covered till the pooja is performed. Another aspect of the festival are the decorations around the Murti. I have heard of special competitions in Mumbai and Pune (and probably other cities too). One of the recent ones I heard was of eco-friendly decorations, which should have been eco-friendly by default if using the age-old traditional methods of decoration.

Now the fun part, where you get to see the photos from last year of my trip to Mumbai. I have not normally traveled in festival time, and this little trip was such a happy coincidence.

The first few images are not so clear, I was in a taxi and the driver was more interested in getting a safe passage in the traffic. This is  the pre-festival day, when the Murti is brought with much fanfare.

The next few are from various pandals around the city (a few that I managed to snap). The elaborate decorations on each are just amazing.

Not really sure if the camera did justice to this designer set, but it was just "out-of-the-world"!

And a few permanent statues from malls and shops.

 

And from the Karekar Home:

And finally the विसर्जन. The visarjan ceremony is also as elaborate and with double the fanfare as bring-home ceremony. It is always a bit sad to see the Murti leave after the adoration at home. The most popular visarjan song sums it up perfectly...

"Ganpati Gele Gavala, Chain Padena Amhala!"  (roughly translated as - Ganpati has left for his village, and made us all restless/sad/uneasy)

And the final immersion in a lake at the local temple.

 

गणपती बाप्पा मोरया !!

A boat on the fjord

 An easy evening on a fjord north of Bergen.

Fotland Mølle (Fotlansfossen)

After a gap of 5 years, comes a post on a place I visited last weekend - Fotlands Mølle.

This was an old mill, closed now and re-opened as a tourist attraction. It was closed on the day we went, but the area was still open for access. 

The mill stands on a beautiful waterfall. Graced by nice farms on one end and a river skirting the other. At the front of the mill are 2 nice benches to sit for a snack with the sounds of the water gushing on the side.

And this is the beautiful waterfall that gets the name - Fotlandsfossen. A surprise for us was the salmon fishing going on here. Good water level and a cloudy weather made for ideal fishing conditions. We even saw a few fish jumping up the river (video at the end of the post).

This is one of the old buildings of the mill, sitting in a crevice. The crevice ends at the river, from where one can sit and fish for hours.

The same building viewed from the river end. The path leads to the river, and the nice sitting spot.

The waterfall can be viewed from an elevated area, which hides the crevice behind it. 

A nice panorama of the river as it leaves the mill and winds its way down the bend. Here is the good spot for fishing salmon. Fishing salmon is regulated, and one needs to buy a licence for it. There are limits to the number of fish we can catch. More info can be found at .

A view of the water fall at its peak from behind. This was taken from the road that leads to the mill. The old structures are visible here, which were probably used to direct the water for powering the old mill.

And finally the fish jumping up river. The fish can be seen at the end of the video, right at the foot of the lone fisherman.

Feeding time@Oslo Reptile Park

Feeding time at Oslo Reptile Park. This was one of the fun moments, where the various reptiles are fed. Apart from reptiles, there are a few types of spiders too.

Below are some clicks of snakes feeding.

Ants on a rose bush

The ants were on the rose bush that had been attacked by aphids.

Sunscapes