Denmark and Rainy Norway

We arrived home late (early) in the morning from france after a long long trip. Straight to bed after a two hour wind down. The next day we had a busy day, seeing some of the guys for maybe the last time before we go home, and also met up with Bongo (We are meeting him in Norway) and then we headed to Wouters for dinner (fondue – Swiss style) Dinner was excellent, I don’t know if I want fondue again, but catching up with Wouter again was good. We were pretty tired from the night before, but we learnt a bit about chicken virus mutations, and the possibility of a super bug hitting us at some point… lol – doomsdayers. Anyway, we went home late and straight to sleep, with the excitement of starting our real road trip the next day. We won’t be back in boxmeer for a good 4 months I would presume. So the next morning, a little organising and off to Denmark it was, through Germany, a little bit of traffic through hamburg but mostly good. We arrived at Kim’s house – our next couchsurfer. He was very nice, he made us dinner for our first night, beef and vegies on a very nice dining table, helped us out with what to see etc, and we chatted with him and amhed until about 3am. Nice evening. One thing that I have found is that enthusiasm can be a good thing, but it also can be a bad thing. I’ll leave it at that. The next day we went to a “theme” park in Denmark, after a wrong turn….. we found it, and after our initial reactions of seeing children’s rides (such as deca miniature, and lots of assorted merrygorounds for kids) we found the real rollercoasters – not as big as I wanted it to be, but fast enough – to think “Wow, that was a bit quicker than I expected) but the disappointing thing was that none of the rides felt like the “oh my goodness I am going to die/be sick/etc).See the video on my youtube account...
 

http://www.youtube.com/user/pearsey09

But it was still fun. The best ride we went on was a corkscrew rollercoaster which accelerated from 0-80kmph in 1.9 secs. That is pretty quick… As we came out of the tunnel into the lineup for the queue, we heard this roar – and finding it POURING with rain outside. With nowhere to go but onto the ride, we got soaked, and Andrews normal crying with wind in his eyes was hidden (well for that ride anyway haha).

After a few more rides, we ventured over to the water park area, fun fun fun, back to little kid playtime again but on big kid slides, bumps and slides etc and 3 of us pushing each other down slides, having speed contests over unauthorised slide jumpes and pushing the line of getting hurt and fun – gladly we didn’t reach it.   Good day that ended with a lightning storm on the way home. We arrived back to Kim’s house to find the house empty, watched a movie (from his 400 strong collection), and bed. The next day was Norway day.

We took off to go to a viking museuem in Aalbourg. Not bad. Very historic obviously. The town contained a burial ground of old Vikings, which they had recently dug up.Alot of reading which was fine, but there is only so much history you can read before you start to tune out. So feeling the bumps of the day before, we took off to an art museum. Now, I did say that I liked the Louvre very much, but these paintings were trying to shock you by painting weird things, such as a guy eating a baby… meh. If I want to be shocked I’ll watch a movie and then turn it off… anyway, the main exhibit that we went to see was a room full of mirrors with a swing in the middle. Crazy… I took a video of it, but I don’t think it will tell the full story.  Anyway, we left in a hurry (cause of time restraints really) and headed back home. Kim had to work, but ahmed was there – he cooked us lunch (thankyou!!) and we headed off the ferry. We arrived in the ferry dock town, stocked up with supplies made it onto the ferry after a bit of a wait found our seats and sat down for the ride. The ferry ride from Hertshalls to Kristiansan was quick. No Indonesian ferry rides here thankyou. The ferry hooked big time, huge water spray out the back,

and it visibly moved against the waves, and the land – which is weird seeing we were so far away. A stop in duty free, and through customs – no passport checks, just a curious man asking about what we were doing and on our way to our next destination.   

I got a message from our next couchsurfing person, Suzanne, saying that we couldn't stay there. I wasn't that annoyed, but it put our plans out a fair bit, considering that I had asked to stay with her back in may!!! (lets put this down to first negative experience) but trooping on. - Lucky that we had a massive abundance of sulight to find our camp site. Now we didn't have a camp site ready, we just drove along the side of the road until we found something. We eventually did, and set up camp, got a fire going, and basked in Norway's 'foresty rivered glow' Dinner consisted of pasta with tomato sauce and a few juices to wash it down. The next day we were trying to find out things to do - this consisted of finding a internet cafe in macca's, getting a parking fine for parking in a electric parking spot!!(we even bought a ticket!!!) good luck them getting the money back on that one haha) and going to the tourist office. It is amazing how plans change during a trip, some people do well, some people don't. We had a plan to go on a trip to an island, and go swimming, see the scenery that is there, and then camp somewhere on a nearby island that had access by a bridge. That all got thrown out the window when the heavens opened on our poor tent that night. We awoke to a wet tent, and the car fridge that we had bought the day before to keep things cold(powered by the car) had been left on overnight so our battery was dead flat. Asking around to the many vans did not provide any jumper leads, so we pushed in the rain trying to roll start the car. I was not overly fussed. We weren't going on a rain tour of an island anymore, plus we weren't going to pack up and move a tent in the rain anyway, but grumpy funky was back in force, and hating it. Experiences are experiences, and it what you make of them that determines how good - or bad that your time is. (listening mum?) So we eventually found a guy who had them, and we jump started the car, and took off again. Now things were wet, dirty the car was a mess, we were cold, and didn't have a place to stay really, but is that I reason to abandon everything and ship off somewhere else... I didn't think so, but there was no arguing. That being said, the norway guy said that where we were sleeping was going to flood in 2 days, so we had to go sooner or later. Still attitudes are infectious...   

We are now in a hostel in the town of Froland. It is nice here I guess, more comfy here with the cooking facilities and the no rain on us, and the internet and tv... but.... I would toughed it out in the tent. Not just abandoned ship when it got a bit tough. But tomorrow I will get to watch cadel in the tour. Hopefully get enough time off Andy Schleck and win the yellow jersey. First aussie to do it ever... lets hope so.

What I haven't talked about much is when the weather was good, the scenery was pretty good. Vast amounts of water connected together surrounded by forest looks amazing in the sunlight - not so good through mist and rain though. Sitting around a fire chatting and eating food and drinks was pretty cool, so norway hasn't been a disaster at any stretch. I will pop some photos up later tomorrow.

Takk.