It has been a quiet week as we travel around Oslo – We are flying out for 10 days on Saturday, so a down time for the blog.

A couple of firsts, though, in Norway: 1) We hit 100km/h for the first time in 2 months as we travelled towards Oslo. Bear in mind that on the routes up north we’ve averaged around 42km/h, while on the scenic routes we’ve been down to around 34km/h. Couldn’t believe how quickly we made progress. 2) Got a haircut. On the upside, happy to have hair, but having prices of NOK550 – NOK650 quoted (that’s €65 or Rand 1140, or NZD 117), I’m just not that precious. Anyway, stopped in Gjøvik on our way around an enormous fjord/lake and dived in to a Kurdish barber who cut for NOK180. I think he did a good job, and there’s only 2 weeks difference between a good cut and bad cut in any case 3) went shopping for groceries. Ouch. So glad we stocked to the brim before arriving here. There’s not many places that make you look back fondly on Swiss grocery prices. But there’s only 1 piece of salmon in the deep freeze (for a tom yum soup) and some cheese left for the week. I may make full use of the full British fried breakfast obsession next week!! 49 New found respect for positive assumptions. Everywhere we’ve been in Norway the assumption seems to be: Welcome, look after the place as if it were yours, and yes, we trust you. Look at this stuff next to the road. Great BBQ, fire starters, wood and charcoal provided, huge BBQ toolset … Wow. How many places do you know where this stuff would not be gone in the time you flipped your burger?

 

And the van – well, we went to our designated Fiat dealer to have the front bumper repaired – but they don’t do that. Sent off to a fairly nearby panel beater, yes, they do that sort of thing, but no bumpers in stock and these need to be ordered and painted. To end – we’ll have the bumper done on our return to Oslo week after next. As far as our very faulty Navi is concerned (different error messages weekly) a lot of muttering, head-shaking, and no, we can’t help. Will see what we can do in Germany.

So, plans for the next couple of days. Currently overnighting in a busy carpark next to a drained artificial lake in the middle of Gjøvik (hmm, I hope Norwegians rise later than the Swiss), dinner tomorrow at friends whom we’ve not seen for 12 years, then off towards Oslo with an overnight close to the airport so we can dump water etc etc – would hate to return to a week’s worth of fermentation.

That’s it for a while – I’ll get back to the blog on 3 October.

Sort of, but as explained to us today by a local in a kayak, we are nearing the end of autumn … hmmm, so when the sun moves behind a cloud and temperatures drop 8 degrees, we were warned.

We are moving around the southernmost bit of Norway, taking our time and getting off the main road so that we can see the smaller coastal towns. What a good move! It’s been so interesting, and today, with the weather playing along, we took a 60km cycle along two fjords (they really do abound) outside Risør. The town itself seems to consist of more marinas than houses, more boats than people, but a gorgeous place to enjoy an ice cream after a cycle. At one stage one of the 4 largest boatbuilders in Norway – the traditions clearly live on.

We stayed overnight outside Risør – Navigator on top form, finding us this spot:

Next up is a visit to Kragerø and another coastal peep before we start heading north to Oslo. The plan now is to drop in early to the Fiat workshop and see if they can fix our poor bruised van before we head off to the UK – leaving the van behind. I’ve got a week long accreditation visit to a school in London, Niki gets to see Chris & John in Windsor. Norway is drifting to a close …

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Clearly it’s not possible for our Norwegian weather app to be accurate all the time. It has been right on the button  – if rain is predicted at 4:00pm, it rains. Clear morning coming up? Don your shades. Except for today.

So, firstly a great big ‘Thanks’ to friends who donated a fantastic bottle of gin at the start of our trip. Don’t know the degree of sacrilege involved here, but it’s made a momentous hot toddy. Showered, clean, dry, very strong hot toddy in hand – who can remember belting rain and gusts that bent what little vegetation there was out of shape? A great morning’s cycle followed on from a good walk yesterday up to the Blåfjell (Blue Mountain) mines (closed) past Norway’s first protected geologic item (1923), the Rocking Stone (millimetres, but it does weigh 74 tons) …

The landscape has just continued to captivate us. The skyline is dominated by exposed domes, very little vegetation, and interspersed with a myriad of lakes fed by waterfalls coming in from every direction. The scale is immense, the sides sheer, and topping so many of the domes are erratics, there to remind you of the immense glaciation that has occurred.

And to follow on from the Geography of it all, today we drove past Jøssingfjord, which had a cameo role in WWII. It was here that the German support vessel, the Altmark, was boarded by a British destroyer in 1940, freeing a large number of captured British sailors, but also violating Norway’s neutral status. Norway was invaded by Germany shortly afterwards. To bookend this, Jøssingfjiord was also the scene of a somewhat unsuccessful air attack by an international assortment of British, New Zealand, Australian and Polish pilots in 1945. A wreath is laid in annual remembrance of 4 Kiwis who died in the raid.

A final bit for the day was stopping at Helleren, which has the meaning of an overhang providing protection. The area has been inhabited for thousands of years, and for the past few hundred years, until recently, by crofters who kept sheep, a few cows, and supplemented this by fishing.

I was told by a friend to do something useful today – I hope this is it!

We have now left the Magma Geopark, heading towards Kristiansand, Norway’s tropical beach paradise, or at least the most southerly part of the country. We travelled through the Geopark on a bit of a whim, urged by having a few extra days on hand. What a fantastic decision – everything has been just jaw-dropping beautiful, and I cannot overstate how many times each day we just stopped, and stared, and made weird noises – adjectives were not going to do! In part, I’m sure, this is made possible by having the time to just take the time … Contented campers indeed.

Sometimes you get lucky …

We woke up in the middle of the night, 6:00am, pitch dark, Niki making grumbling sounds while I put on tea – it’s a full-service campervan this one. We had a good night’s rest at the marina in Jørpeland, which cost us 150NOK, but well worth it, and with substantial savings to be had – read on.

A light breakfast, we got the bikes ready and set off towards Preikestolen, our outing for the day. Only 9km away, with a small climb of around 400m, but far better value than the 250NOK for parking, or an equally outrageous price for the 10 minute bus ride.

On the way up, still cool, with very dense fog, we were passed by a number of people coming down who had made even earlier starts in order to see the sunrise. General disappointment with this, as by now the visibility was down to no more than 20 meters. A 2 hour walk took us the Preikestolen, but so wreathed in mist that we might as well have been 3 feet off the ground. Not to be rushed, we enjoyed our time watching other tourists taking advantage of the absence of vertigo, and sitting with their legs over what we knew to be a 604 meters above sea level – and that’s the fjord directly below us (oh, that’s 1981 feet for those non-metricated Luddites).

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And then the clouds broke up. And then the mist lifted – I need adjectival help on the views along the Lysefjord, over the Preikestolen itself, the mixture of cloud and reflection in the waters below – all while rediscovering my own sense of vertigo!

The walk back was a little more crowded, given that busloads of school tours and others had been arriving – a bit of a China Yellow Mountain memory, for those who have experienced the mayhem of a million (yes, literally!) people on a single mountain.

My heart went out particularly to our German neighbours. The Germans may well have invented the current iteration of the walking stick – carbon, adjustable, soft grips, multi-colours, rock/sand/snow varieties etc etc. They use them with careless precision, a sort of Tetonic thoroughness in placement of tip, angle of incline, steady backward thrust, and all in silence. I can imagine their national pain when Spanish tourists come by, reaching down or up to their grips as no-one has explained that these are, indeed, the adjustable model. Click clack as the sticks are jabbed willy-nilly into cracks, onto rocks, spearing the occasional tree in passing. It’s like putting a choice lamb roast in the microwave – you can, but why would you?

And then there’s this: A couple in full wedding regalia (albeit with her in hiking boots rather than high heels – sensible Norwegians!) beginning married life on a high … or is it on the edge? Time will no doubt tell.

 

Oh, and a big shout out to this kid and his friend – diving in Jørpeland harbour and pulling out dumped tyres – Good on you! I was so inspired I’ve picked up empty plastic bottles at each stop today.

And to end the day … a lovely carpark right on the Lysefjord. Look at those views to our left & right, and all for free. Great job, Norway, on providing outstanding dumping/water facilities – UK listening??

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We are camped at a lovely little tarred area off the E39 on the way to Stavanger, outside Rommetveit, after leaving a verrrry busy Bergen behind. A tale to be told, though!

We were all ready to leave our delightful parking place from Gudvangen early in the morning in order to maximise our stay in Bergen. Early light breakfast and off we set. Turned right in Voss to head towards Bergen … road closed due to mudslides. OK, no real disaster, we’ll head further south and then catch a smaller parallel road up the Hardanger fjord. Missed the turnoff at Gravin and then immediately entered a long tunnel, complete with roundabouts!! Ignored the GPS voice of doom insisting that we ‘take the third exit on the next roundabout, kept going, eventually bursting into glorious sunshine. For about 6 seconds. Back into a tunnel with no opportunity to exit. Left said tunnel after another dwarf-like sojourn underground that went on for miles before exiting onto a bridge. Cost us €15 to cross the bridge to find a place to turn around, then another €15 to return back to the tunnel. Any chance Norwegian Tollroad operators are going to be merciful? Back underground for our two very long tunnels, then eventually turned off in Gravin, heading in the right direction towards Bergen.

Hmm, not that simple! Road narrows, then reduces to single lanes at every corner with no opportunity to see oncoming cars, buses, trucks – all that was missing was a caravan of camels.  OK, only 120km of this, we’re doing OK. Except that, far off on one of the promontories, I see traffic starting to back up. Found a place to turn at a ferry stop and headed back the way we came. Clearly every form of transport that was heading towards Bergen is now on this single lane – with interesting results.

And so we found ourselves in Voss. The town is much larger than expected, with a town centre almost 100m long and running down the better part of two streets, the whole lot carefully hidden behind roadworks and construction of a new gondola line that ends in the middle of town. On the upside, a quiet night at a carpark for €3, next to a huge park and lake made up for a day spent mostly underground, retracing routes and going, for the most part, nowhere.

We did eventually make it to Bergen on Friday when the road opened. Hmmm, how to describe? A very pretty town that tries hard to live up to the overweening pretentiousness of colourful houses photographed in great light, and in the absence of 5 cruise ships that, combined, literally quadrupled the town’s population. Add to that the expense of absolutely everything, and the day took a little more effort than it could have. We eventually had a beer (€18) in gorgeous sunlight in front of the old town (15 houses on one street) and Subways (€12) at the docks. This seemed a better option than local crayfish (lobster) at €130 per kg. That’s going to cost you around €200 a crayfish, or NZ$350, £180 or ZAR 3200. And that excludes the fried chips!! In perspective, last year we bought 30 crayfish in South Africa at $2 each …

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One other thing that is noticeable in Norway is that every place has a plethora of museums. Bergen must have 12. And they are pretty awful – sorry about that. For example, we took a tour to the Rosencrantz tower (captain from Denmark, in charge of Norway, friend of Hamlet etc etc) – We might well have looked in 12 or 16 rooms, all but three were bare! Even those three seemed to have some afterthought stuff trucked in. One room had large posters explaining a sea battle between the British and Dutch involving the Rosencrantz tower. Apart from the posters … two cannons. That’s it! Another two rooms had a cannon each – neither of which, by the way, were used in land battles. The tour cost €12. To get into the next building – part of the same complex – was going to cost another €9, for more empty rooms. This is a pattern throughout Norway, and inclusive of the various Viking exhibitions – large rooms with 8 items. I get the idea of creating alluring tourist attractions – but then they should be alluring. I feel the next time a cultural exhibition catches my eye I may well enquire as to the number of items on exhibit before forking out another €15 or so. Hmm, I did say early on that I’m sure to offend each country as we meander across Europe …

Apart from all the above, Niki loved Bergen.

Today we did have a rare opportunity – a free event! We had a great morning at the composer Edvard Greig’s home. They host an annual international pianist competition in an amazing recital hall built at his villa. We spent a couple of hours listening to gifted young pianists who just brought the venue alive -and what a setting!