Motorhome News from Europe 37. Scotland 21st September 2005 A Royal Welcome to The Highlands The final leg of our journey through Europe There is a strange fascination with mountain-tops, places of legend and mystery and various ends of the earth that us Britons find difficult to resist. One such extremity is John O’Groats. Having arrived back on the Scottish mainland rather late in the evening, we chose to stop at the nearest and most convenient campsite, a mile or two from the ferry, and probably the worst campsite experienced since we left home on the 1st June. Welcome home [View Full Entry]

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Motorhome News from Europe 36 Orkney 13th September Orkney - Isles of History The morning sun shone in greeting as we approached the grey exterior of Kirkwall, Orkney’s capital. But once inside the town we were stunned by an unexpected air of affluence. The red sandstone Cathedral of St Magnus stands proudly above Broad Street, bright with hanging baskets on smart Victorian buildings and elegant modern shops. Shrubs, trees and flowers adorn the town’s gardens and mature sycamores surround the ruins of the Earl’s Palace behind the Cathedral. The shops portray immed [View Full Entry]

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Motorhome News from Europe 35. Shetland September 2005 The Vicar and Sweeney Todd Shetland enjoys weather. Not good or bad weather particularly, but mostly wet or windy, and, more often than not, both very wet and very windy. In our brief affair with these Islands we have experienced only the ‘very’ bits so far, curtailing much of our planned walking excursions somewhat. ‘It’s been a bad summer this year,’ they all cry! Where have we heard that before? The best way to find out about the weather is to listen the BBC forecasts. They don’t usuall [View Full Entry]

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Motorhome News from Europe 34. Norway to Shetland August 2005 Castaway nomads on Faroe - and onwards to Shetland Given the choice of staying in Norway or travelling on the ‘Norrona’ to Faroe and Iceland at the Ferry-Line’s expense, what would you do? When opportunity for adventure knocks we’re not known to be slow on the uptake! I had some idea where Faroe and Iceland were from hours of pouring over my World Atlas as a lad. Still being relatively young and up early to do the paper-round every morning, I also remembered the fascination of daily shipping forecas [View Full Entry]

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Motorhome News from Europe 33 Norway 23rd August 2005 Travels along the big fjords to Bergen It was ‘Turn up the Wow-Meter’ time as we pulled on to narrow winding roads edging steep mountains cascading dramatically into the fjords, with Janice at the wheel. We were entering the spectacular deep cut fjords for which this country is famous and its fruit growing centre where cherries, raspberries, strawberries, apples and plums abound, where roses grow around cottage doors and fresh trees carpet the hillsides; horse chestnut, ash, hazel, lime, sycamore, elm, rowan bright w [View Full Entry]

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Motorhome News from Europe 32. Norway 17th August 05 Around about the middle The school holidays have come to an end here and fields of buttercups have been sacrificed to the hay barns for the long winter ahead. Martins and swallows are heading south, and the sun now sets at night as we prepare to travel with them for our migration across the seas, from Bergen to Shetland on the 23rd August. But there is still much to see and do before we leave these shores. Our campsite host at Stjordal, the local farmer and entrepreneur, had many strings to his [View Full Entry]

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Motorhome News from Europe 31. Norway 10th August 2005 The beautiful Lofoten Islands - and back to the mainland The Viking Gods were against us as we arrived by ferry on the island of Lofoten. Our dreams of dazzling fjords and sunlit dramatic scenery vanished in a haze of damp mist and drizzle as soon as we landed at the dock in Fiskebol. But we have never let a small thing like rain spoil our day. The outline of grey mountains rising at 60 degrees from windswept fjords and dark clouds masking a determined sun were still dramatic and exciting. That [View Full Entry]

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Motorhome News from Europe 30. Sweden August 2005 Abisko in Sweden and west to Norway’s beautiful Lofoten Islands There is a chair lift in Sweden’s largest National Park at Abisko. Rising to about 3,000ft, the Linbana lift ferries skiers to the top in winter and walkers and tourists in the summer. We took the easy way up and hiked the five-hour trail across wild hill-bog rich with flowers, down to the dense birch forest and scrubby willow deep in the valley below. We went there for the walking and to see the birds of course; and we were not disappointed. Even [View Full Entry]

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Motorhome News from Europe 29. Norway July 2005 Europe - from the top down. Northern Norway Nordkapp. The most northerly point of Europe, on the island of Magoya. Picture a magnificent cliff, ragged peaks and tiny dark islands. Picture a knot of people bent into the wind at a lookout point high above a raging sea, gazing north to the distant horizon, dreaming of snow and ice, polar bears, brave explorers, and the North Pole, just 1,100Km distant. Then, dream on. As David, a young Polish hitch-hiker plucked from the roadside in the bitter arctic wind and rain described it, ‘Th [View Full Entry]

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Motorhome News from Europe 28. Finland July 2005. Out of Finland into the wastes of Norway’s Finmark There is not a lot in Inari at first glance. It’s one of those places you could just pass through on your way to somewhere else and there are, after all, few roads from Finland through to Norway in the north. For most people Inari is on the way to, or from, Nordkapp, (North Cape) on the island that claims to be the most northerly point in Europe. We were on our way there too, but first we wanted to visit the outstanding Sami [View Full Entry]

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