Ferries from Eidfjord båtkai

Eidfjord is the end of the line. One sailing a day arrives at 11:45 and one leaves at 15:20, covering the 7.5 nautical miles to Ulvik in 30 to 35 minutes, seven days a week until 30 September.

Three and a half hours ashore is what the timetable offers anyone coming this far up the fjord — long enough to see the village and get back on the boat.

What most people come for is above it. The road inland climbs to Vøringsfossen, where the water drops 182 metres off the edge of Hardangervidda, and continues onto the plateau itself — the largest in northern Europe, with wild reindeer on it. The village at the bottom of that climb is the point where a fjord that begins at the open sea, 100 kilometres west, finally runs out.