Ok, so I have about 10 days worth of blog to finish, I don’t think that I will be able to finish them all today – we have arrived in Sweden after camping our way through Norway for 2 weeks. I will go back to the start to where I think I left it.
We had a lazy day at the hostel organising and booking things for later on at the hostel, (plus an AFL game or two) and also found a couch-surfer that would kindly accept us for the night. His name was Erland – he was just new into couchsurfing, and had lived in queensland for a year before that. Him and his family were so nice, and the crazy thing was that his dad spoke Indonesian… Of all my hunting around Holland searching for someone to speak indo to, I found someone by chance in Norway of all places! It was very interesting to note that he mispronounced some words also, but I could still understand him. He taught Indonesian to Norwegian students in SE Asian countries. Our plan was to meet the dutch guys at Erland’s house, then hopefully that we would be able to see a bit of Kristiansand in the morning with Erland. They arrived about 1:00am from the ferry and we all stayed up lateish talking to them. The very disappointing thing was that willy wanted to get driving asap, and didn’t really leave time to meet the family that we were staying with etc. So we had no tour of the town, it really felt like we just used them for 1 night free accommodation – not what couch surfing is about.
Day 1 – 25th july
But oh well, we took the coastal route heading to camp near a huge platform that has a drop of about 800m straight drop (called the preachers chair). Now in norway you can camp where ever you like as long as it is 100m from a house or road. You might think it would be easy to find somewhere to camp then.. Not the case really, we camped in a field that we thought was empty – only to be moved by a reasonably angry farmer. We moved towards a lake squeezed in between two other campers. Camper vans by the way are EVERYWHERE in Norway. They would outnumber tents 4:1 easily. So we had ourselves a fire to try and hold off the mosquitoes, but to no avail. They came pouring in and forced us to go into our tent to sleep. Note that it didn’t get dark till about 11.15! Day 2 - 26th july - The next morning we woke up at 6am to go to this preachers chair (preikestolen). It was not a hard walk, but it wasn’t easy – climbing up rocks and steep inclines for about 3kms one way. But the early morning and climb was well worth it. As you can see in the pictures, the drop is very very sheer and the view from the top is amazing, the fjords that we wanted to see will be stuck in my memory for a long time. The best thing was that we went at 6am we had it almost to ourselves. On the way back we passed literally busloads of tourists, some to our amusement wearing sandals, dress shoes, thongs etc. Steve’s top tip – go early, take a bottle of water and wear decent shoes!
After that I really wanted to go and see the boulder in the rock, stuck between 2 cliffs… But we weren’t heading in the direction of the rock…. Hold on… can’t you change the way you go based on what you want to see??? GRRR that was very annoying, it was the thing that made me want to come to Norway in the first place… and we missed it.. So, we continued to “drive north” and the next few days consisted of a lot of driving and not stopping to see a lot. That day we drove past and had lunch at a huge waterfall which was cool, and we drove over a mountain pass that reminded me very much of the Scottish highlands (not that I have been there though) and we found some snow for funky (his first experience with snow). We had a snow-fight for ten minutes on the top of the mountain (in july – middle of summer might I add) and continued driving. A strange fact that we saw on the way was that some of the houses had a thickish layer of dirt on their roof with grass (or weeds) growing on top of it.. We figured that it was for extra insulation in winter.. makes sense I guess. (not all houses had it though) We arrived at our next campsite after searching for a while. It happened to be next to an old woodshed.. Well… our fire was a little bigger than the last one J It did get dark – around about 11.30
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| This wasn't the glazier we tried to climb up, it is the 10 second stream |
Day 3 27th The next morning I had myself a “shower” in the stream.. my goodness in was cold, very very clear, but also so cold. That was the first of many cold showers in Norway. That day was another driving day, we were heading towards a glazier. Note that now we had gone from the south of Norway, to past Bergen in 3 days… I had planned for about 6… Anyway, we followed the dutchies across many expensive ferries, about 13 euro a time * 8 maybe) which you can’t avoid in Norway cause the whole country in the south is interconnected with islands. Today was our first real good weathered day at the glazier, and on approach we were in awe of the view that we were given. Green hills, glazier river, blue sky, and the contrast between the colours was perfect. We stopped for a photo shot, and mark and I walked down to the glazier fed river. My goodness the water was cold, the coldest I have ever felt I think, we put our feet in the water for ten seconds, and it was hurting. I can now understand why people just die when they fall off boats, they don’t drown – they die of hypothermia well before they drown.
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| The magic lake.... |
We continued on to the other side of the glazier – 3 hours’ drive to the most amazing lake I have ever seen, this I would say pipped the Slovenian lake except that it didn’t have a running track around it haha. The whole time we were driving to the glazier past the lake was just magic. We regrettably didn’t camp next to it, but it was pretty cool. We arrived at the glazier with a short walk to the bottom to view it, and you could walk up the bottom. We wanted to walk on the glazier so we tried to climb up the side of the rocks (there was a raging river below so that path was out). It was very slippery and the drop into the river was well… a little hairy.. We made it a bit further than we probably should of, with bongo (the dutchy) following thinking we were crazy. We turned back when I thought that risk vs reward was too great. A wrong footing and a misplaced boulder would have sent us 5 meters into a nice and cold river that would have taken us quite quickly back to the start of the track… We left the glazier pretty tired, and left looking for a campsite. Again it was hard to find, the questions kept on coming “Can we camp here?” Are we allowed to camp here?” etc. We ended up finding a place on a helipad next to a large river. Just enough space for 3 tents, no fire could be lit. Mark caught a smallish fish with willy’s rod which we cooked on the fire – I know I said we didn’t have a fire, but we made one away from our tents, but there was no room to sit around it, or anything like that. I had a plan to get up and run in the morning for the last two mornings, but I have been so tired, that just getting up in time to get going is enough.
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| This was the "path" that we tried to take to the glazier... it's much steeper than it looks! |
Day 4 – 28th The next morning, we packed up our tents and headed towards Trondheim with the view of seeing a few things in Trondheim. We drove a long way. – Saw some very cool scenery on the way though. What had happened is that the dutchies had bought/brought a book and a map, and wanted to go north and see things on the way. Fine with us, we had made the mistake of not knowing what we wanted to see before we headed out. With my lonely planet only on my computer which was flat, we were driving blind, through awesome countryside – not stopping a lot. So I finally got my computer charged and transferred (With difficultly) my pdf lonely planet onto my ipod (as we have chargers in our car for the ipod it was no trouble) so now we could know what we wanted to see as we arrived. I think that the trip got a little bit more enjoyable after that point, as we could discuss what we wanted to see the night before, and plan accordingly. We arrived a little bit too late to the outskirts of Trondheim to see what we wanted to see, (the largest wooden palace in Scandinavia, and the cathedral of Trondheim. Our camping spot was on the edge of the sea (very windy) but after a few nice ‘Woodruns’ we were warm enough.
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| When woodruns need to be done.. we improvise |
Day 5 29th We had an amusing start to the morning, while trying to rinse some glasses in the sea, Funky slipped and went swimming – fully clothed. Mark went to help him and almost ended up with him!.. We arrived in Trondheim in the morning to see the palace – disappointing. Enough said. But there happened to be a festival on there, so we had some free samples of weird raw fish and cheese and dips, also a pig was being roasted and they had music going on. It was the place that I thought we could have stayed a while, but the Dutch north roller coaster must not be stopped. They cathedral was very impressive, even for a short stopoff in Trondheim to see that. We also went up to an old fort for views over Trondheim – that was not as impressive. We stopped off for Mcdonalds – charging my laptop for 20 mins – ducked over the border to Sweden for some much cheaper supplies, then headed north as far as we could…  |
| This was taken from our campsite - there is a waterfall to the right about 15m |
Day 6 – 30th
Today we went to a town called Namsos. Our destination being a couple of german bunkers built into the solid rock, and the second being a bike pedalled rain trolley. (see picture) It was about a 2 hour drive to Namsos which we found the tourist info center, and then walked up the hill (well we drove) to see a view of namsos and then a walk down to see the german bunkers. The engineering was impressive, but a little puzzling as there was no memorial or anything there. We then found the ‘bike train’ which was pretty cool, but it was a fair chunk of exercise. 13kms one way along a disused trainline, with a stop with some wild berries at the turnaround point. We had reached the end of the line, and then these stupid other tourists wanted to get past, even when we pointed towards the big red sign and boom gate saying that they couldn’t go any further. So when we arrived back we were well and truly stuffed, lunch at the camping place that the train left from, and off we went towards Mo I rana. We felt good after today, maybe because of the endorphins released from exercise, but also because we had actually done and seen something in Norway. We arrive at a place near a river – a glazier coloured (that kind of aqua colour that has silt in it I think) and set up camp – two awesome camping sites in 2 nights! It wasn’t even that difficult to find this time too. We had wood everywhere, made a huge fire, and I had a bath/shower in the glazier river…. My goodness it was cold, like ridiculously cold, 20-30 seconds maximum I was in the water, when I slid in it was so cold the water takes your breath away… Tired so bed was near - I set my alarm for 8 – with the intention of going for a run along the river the next morning. That day was excellent, the train ride wasn’t magnificent, but it got us out of the car and doing things.
Darnkess – I went to bed at 12:00 – still light. I think it was dark about 1am.
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| This is the bike train going through a tunnel. |
Darnkess – I went to bed at 12:00 – still light. I think it was dark about 1am.
Day 7 31st July
The glazier day. The real glazier. I overslept my alarm, but the guys were still asleep so I quickly got up and went for a run along the river, it was nice, there was mini rapids along the way –it was pretty difficult to get going as I haven’t ran for 5 weeks almost.. 20 minutes was enough. Another crazy bathe in the river, and we set off for some underground caves. A charging station was setup in the café there, and we waited around about 30 minutes till tour time. The Gronligotta caves were.. well mediocre at best, they were cool (temperature wise) but after seeing the caves in Slovenia – these were like watching a Traf Vs Yarragon AFL game after watching the grand final of the AFL the week before. We then went off to see the glazier The Svartisan Glazier – care of the lonely planet’s kind directions. We had to take a ferry across the lake to get there, so glad we did. It was amazing, it left the other glazier for dead. Multiple times.
This glazier was nothing to be sneezed at – literally, it looked like at any moment it would tumble down into the lake and into the lake below. We walked across into the “Danger Zone” and took the time to look in awe of the sheer size of the glazier. I didn’t feel too safe going any closer, but eventually I walked up to it and broke off a bit – about 20 seconds was enough next to the thing, I didn’t intend on being the unlucky tourist that was too close when it slipped! The glazier looks like snow ice, but on a much closer look it is very very clear ice blocks. Tarks and I walked up for a better look, and ended up having a run back across the rocks to catch the ferry, making it just in time. We passed through the polar circle that night as we were making our way to Bodo. We had a lost in translation point where the dutchies drove past where we wanted to camp but we found a camp site which took us a fair while to find, - very windy even though we sheltered by a big mountain. A fire of course, and a waking up in the morning to a stinking hot tent. Weird – yes.Sun went down, but it was still light at 3am when I woke up during the night.
Day 8 – 1st august.We had a gayung style bath in the tiny river that morning, then headed off to catch a ferry to Loften. Bodo to Mosksins (spelt wrong) is more expensive, but if you are going to Lofeten, then the best place to start is A – pronounced ORE. We arrived to the ferry a little late (30 mins! Before it left and the line was huge, we kicked the footy for a while to the bemusement of some of the other travellers. Our wait was approximately 3 hours. Before we went to the ferry we went to see the Maelstrom. Which is where the tide comes in on a fjord, and creates a whirling, fast, crazy current where whirlpools form and get carried along by the current and then dissipate away. We got there in time to see the current at its highest speed, one you would not want to jump into. We threw a long in the water, only to see it become a tumbling mess being thrown around and being sucked into a whirlpool. Highly recommended. On the way into Lofeten, (it was very cold on the deck) we saw the huge mountains and craggy cliffs as we were on approach. Amazing scenery again – such is Norway.
So we arrived and camped on a ledge in A. It was maybe a 3 minute walk up a pretty steep hill (grass) to camp, but the guys wanted to cook in the car park, and not eat on the ledge with the view… Grrr.. So I said that I would carry the cooking and food gear up the hill – took 2 trips… And now looking back, I would have done it for 3 or 4 trips.. 10 minutes work for a few hours of views… which is why you come to a place like Norway…
Anyway, no fire that night as there was no wood, and sleep came easily.
No was still light. But no sun.
No was still light. But no sun.
Day 9 – 2nd august.The day our first stop was the tourist office, we went to a whale museum. Now Norway is still a current whaling nation. I read into some bias that the museum had. There was a lot of information regarding the new killing techniques that they have – eg: They strap TNT to the harpoon so that it dies instantly. (they also have a gun on board if they go wrong…) they also went on to give various stats on current numbers as well as numbers of whales caught etc etc. I’m not going to take a stand either way on the issue, but it was interesting to see a whale museum take a stand that was not quite impartial. But it was interesting and worth a visit I think.
We organised a fishing charter. Now – for those who are uptodate with my fishing level – it is 0 or nill, or whatever the level is. My record of catching fish currently stands at 1. That day a guy next to me caught 11. So we went looking for a camp site – got nothing, so raced back to the fishing charter. It was cool, we met a crazy Norwegian fishing captain, and sailed of to do some fishing. Like normal, everyone was catching fish except me, until finally…. I caught 1. Small but it was a fish. Another larger one soon followed, and the day was complete. The only downer to the day was tarks’s hatred of fish smell not letting us take all the fish to eat that night. – We had enough, but what is caught should be kept. (On the way we saw some dolphins in the bay feeding)
We camped on a road, small fire, and darkness did not come.
We organised a fishing charter. Now – for those who are uptodate with my fishing level – it is 0 or nill, or whatever the level is. My record of catching fish currently stands at 1. That day a guy next to me caught 11. So we went looking for a camp site – got nothing, so raced back to the fishing charter. It was cool, we met a crazy Norwegian fishing captain, and sailed of to do some fishing. Like normal, everyone was catching fish except me, until finally…. I caught 1. Small but it was a fish. Another larger one soon followed, and the day was complete. The only downer to the day was tarks’s hatred of fish smell not letting us take all the fish to eat that night. – We had enough, but what is caught should be kept. (On the way we saw some dolphins in the bay feeding)
We camped on a road, small fire, and darkness did not come.
Day 10 3rd of august. Daylight became sun and we headed off to a viking museum. It had a festival there, and we were hoping to see fighting action. I was pretty tired, so I couldn’t concentrate on all the history that they had there, so not much was read. We did some axe throwing, some archery but all in all the festival and Viking museum was poor, the fighting scene we were waiting for was changed from 1 till 3, and we couldn’t burn 2 hours there after waiting 30 mins for the fighting, so we cut our losses, and aborted to bleik – the place of the puffins. We went to find a tour that night, got a phone number and a time, and headed back to our camp place – very good, sheltered by mountains, lots of firewood, and enough space for us easily. Near the village there was huge amount of aerials or transmitting devices – also a huge sattilite that said “nasa” on the side… wonder what is going on up here Norway…
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| The orange dot down there is our tent - |
We camped nearby – on a military base oddly enough, and it took us AGEES to find a spot to camp. It ended up being a great spot, big area, fireplace, enough wood, etc. It did not get dark. Not even for a bit, and it was cold – really cold. 0 degrees at 3.30 in the morning with a stiff breeze.. Ice on the tent etc. We went on a drive to find the midnight sun at midnight, but unfortunately it was covered by a mountain… stupid Norway and it’s mountains.
Day 12 – 5th of august.
We were then on a bee line for Sweden. Leaving the dutchies near narvik, and a brief stop at the northenmost golf course we found a place to stay alongside a lake – although we didn’t have pole postion. The drive past Kiruna through the mountains was amazing. Lakes were doing the mirror thing again, and the mountains on the other side were covered in Swedish or Canadian style pine trees. We had ran out of gas for our BBQ, but a trench fire and hot coals allowed us to cook our dinner easily.
Day 13 6th of august.Today was a big driving day, we first stopped off at a Sami museum in Jokkmokk – sami being the culture that lived off the land back in the day. It was interesting, and had notes in English, but would have been better if we could read swedish – I took some photos of some of the boards for tus – lets see how much she has learnt haha. We then moved on to a huge set of rapids nearby, a delta at the bottom – impressive enough. In the park they had these tables with fireplaces on them… people had a fire on the table that they were sitting around – it was awesome. It was a pity that we didn’t have a lot of time to spend there. Our last stop was kinda amusing. It was an old train museum, with nothing but swedish notes. We took some pictures and tried on some hats – but that was about it. We then drove 6-7 hours through northern to central Sweden to meet the duck farmer. (we found it after a bit of stuffing around looking for his house.
That is where we are now
That is where we are now
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