Telemark Part 4: We Will Go Through the Mines

This is the fourth in a four part series on my trip to Telemark this past weekend. These posts will be a little on the long side, since so much has happened, but in an effort to hold everyone's attention, I've split the trip up into four smaller posts. If you would like to start at the beginning, you can find the first post here:
http://kristofergoestonorway.blogspot.no/2012/07/telemark-part-1-boats-and-things.html

Thank goodness for that helmet. I must have hit my head
 on the ceiling at least 5 times down in the mine.

As the last stop on our Telemark trip, we visited Blaafærverket (literally 'the Blue Color Works'), a cobalt mine. Cobalt is a mineral that, when refined, has a brilliant blue color and has been used for many years to make blue glass and to provide the blue in fine china. This was one of three cobalt mines in Norway, but now has been closed and is used primarily as a museum.

In case you were wondering, it is quite dark inside a cobalt mine. In addition, it is quite cold. Due partially to my imprecise math skills, but mostly to my ignorance of the Celsius temperature scale, I didn't realize just how cold five degrees Celsius is and wore shorts on the tour (if you're wondering, five degrees Celsius is just a touch above 40 degrees Fahrenheit). Luckily they provided us with nice warm ponchos and the tour was only an hour long. The tunnels are cut straight into solid rock, and we wandered around them while our guide explained all about how terrible it is to work down in a cobalt mine, with dangers ranging from poisonous gases to cave-ins to dynamite, etc. The mine is also exceptionally wet; the walls are dripping with condensation, and I must confess that down there in the dark, wet tunnels, I was more concerned with accidentally running into Gollum, than any other danger. 

One final note on the mine. Aside from a large children's camp that they run, the biggest industry that the mine now supports is cheese. Evidently the cool, dark tunnels are perfect for the storing and aging of expensive Norwegian cheeses. Who'd a thunk it?

Well, that's all from Telemark for me. I'm off to Bergen today, and so in a little while, I'll have a little bit to report on Vestlandet and the Tvedt's ancestral home.