From Norway into Sweden and then Denmark.

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Monday.
Another day on the road for us, as we were about to set off Les saw a motorbike pass with a large flag attached to it followed by 27 other bikes, quite a convoy! The road takes us through pine clad mountains with lakes in the valley bottoms which open up into mountain pastures. We passed through .Seljord. Where there are many legends about trolls living in the mountains, Selma the serpent is said to live in the lake here, first spotted in 1745, she is said to have two heads and travel at 25 knots on the water's surface. Also one of my favourite children's stories was written here, The Three Billy Goats Gruff. To break our journey we had a planned stop at Heddal Stave Church, the largest of the 28 stave churches in Norway. The exterior was very impressive but the interior wasn't as ornate as the others we have visited. Included in the ticket price was the entry into the folk museum, a collection of farm buildings from the area. There were two farm houses both from wealthy farms with beautiful painted interior walls. Around the site notice boards told us about life in this rural area, one about child mortality, which was high mainly due to the belief that first breast milk was bad for babies and they were fed cows milk or beer instead, also the church ruled that babies had to be baptised within 8 days, during the winter babies would die from the cold as the churches weren't heated and the services were very long. Walking back to the carpark we had ice cream to cool us down and bought an ice pop for Logan. We found a lovely camping spot close to a lake, after taking a forest track. We walked Logan around the lake where there were plenty of people sunbathing and splashing about in the water. Tuesday. We're only about an hour from our friends Joe and Jeannette's house, so we called for coffee. Nothing much has changed here in the couple of months since our last visit except one Land Rover has come out of the workshop and another moved in for some preparation for their upcoming trip. Les and Joe altered the bracket for the stand that Doris sits on, it broke a few days ago, whilst Logan and I enjoyed the sunshine. After a couple of coffees and a good catch up we set off for the ferry from Horten to Moss, a 40 minute crossing on a busy route, we counted 5 ferries constantly taking the traffic across the water. Tomorrow will be our last day in Norway and we have a small amount of cash to spend, we stopped at a supermarket and bought brown cheese to take home. It was then time to find somewhere to camp, we tried a couple of forest tracks, one was gated the other had private parking signs, eventually we stopped at a firing range which we assumed was closed as the carpark was empty and there wasn't any bullets flying around. Wednesday. Les turned the key in the ignition, nothing happened! The light came on, but nobody was in. Oh no what now. Overalls on and under the bonnet he found that a wire had come off the starter solenoid. How can that happen when we're parked up? Back on the motorway the miles fly past, it's not long until we get to the border with Sweden, there are no checks and we sail through. By lunch time we have arrived at Tanumshede, we parked at the Vitlycke Museum where there are Bronze Age carvings in the rocks, similar to the ones we visited at Alta. The site covers 45sq kilometres, but the ones here on the the 3km circular route are excellent examples, a lot of them much larger than the others we have seen and incorporate stone burial cairns. The actual museum exhibits were very good, many aimed at children with a hands on feel and all free. After a couple of hours we set off again, when it was time to stop for the day we struggled once again to find a suitable place so we stayed at the motorway service area, it was set a bit back from the road and had plenty of shade under the trees. We spent much of the evening watching the exploits of a large group of Bulgarians who were either living here or passing through, we're not sure! They had their cars crammed full, some set up tents and others had mattresses in the back of their cars. They deep fat fryed something on camping stoves for their meal. One family of 6 had a small caravan that would probably normally sleep 2 people, that was parked here when we arrived, they came to it a bit later and after a couple of hours and working out how to hitch it up to their car which was packed full of kids, toys and carrier bags they left. The rest of the group retired to their 'beds' around 11. Thursday. Feeling frustrated this morning! Twice going over bumps in the road, the last two days rambles decided to delete themselves. So an hour and a half later I'm back on track. The monotony of motorway driving is back, the scenery is pretty flat and all agricultural. Around Gothenburg we got in the wrong lane in some road works and ended up on at least a 10 mile detour through the industrial area. Back on route and in the right lane we continued to blast through Sweden to Helsingborg where we caught the ferry to Helsingor In Denmark, only about 20 minutes. There was a duty free type shop in board, it had a nice malt at only £24 for a litre, it would have been daft not to get a bottle! Our planned parking place on the marina is only a couple of minutes drive from the ferry terminal. Helsingor has a beautiful castle Kronborg Slot, which is Unesco listed, and the place where Shakespeare based Hamlet on, much of the grounds are accessible to walk around. We took Logan for a walk around the perimeter, it's quite busy with plenty of tourists and school parties. Next we walked to a supermarket to stock up on affordable food, before doing some baking and a few maintenance jobs. On the way, we passed a house where Hans Christian Anderson had been at school for one year. Friday Before visiting the castle interior we walked Logan through the exterior grounds, entering through the gateway over a moat, inside there were information boards about the castles defences, some had sound effects of soldiers marching and officers giving commands. As we stood reading and listening, one such board made the noise of a cannon firing, poor Logan physically jumped about two inches off the ground. Once we had explored everything we returned to Dream Catcher, had coffee, left Logan and returned to the castle to visit inside. Kronborg Slot was built in the 1420's and extended by Frederik ll in 1585. It was burnt down in 1629 and rebuilt by Christian IV, after the Danish kings gave up using it as a palace it became a barracks. Although the rooms were sparsely furnished they were very ornate, the ball room is the most impressive, banquettes were held here and consisted of 65 courses, each guest was given their own vomit bucket! The room is filled with massive tapestries of kings of Denmark. The basement served as store rooms there is a long dark labyrinth of vaulted tunnels complete with bats and a statue of Viking chief Oginer the Dane, legend says 'he will wake and come to Denmark's aid in its hour of need'. After a late lunch we walked across the harbour to the lovely soft sandy beech, a small area allowed dogs on it and Logan had a brief paddle. We set Doris to take us to my Cousin Clare's in Copenhagen, about 40 minutes drive, we had arranged to arrive at 5.00pm, we were 6 minutes late. We enjoyed a lovely evening having a BBQ and chatting whilst Jacob cooked and the children Oliver and Isabel made friends with Logan.

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