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Published: July 22nd 2009
Beasties
There are many, many of these aboutIf you never have enough hours in the day, always struggling to get the planned activities completed in the allocated timeframe and always pushing the hours out then 24 solid hours of sunshine repeated every day for a couple of months sounds like a godsend. Certainly sounded that way to us when we moved across the Arctic Circle into the land where the midnight sun was shining brightly - well actually it was pouring rain but you know what I mean.
And just a side note for the disbelievers, among which I might have been numbered until a few weeks ago. When we were in St Petersburg a few years ago we gleefully took a photo of a clock in full sunlight at 2100 to demonstrate that there really was sun shining at night, but there was still a period 'night' there with all the attendant darkness. I was obviously prepared to accept that it was still light at midnight but full sun? But I was completely wrong. 1200 midnight, sun sitting above the horizon, 1.00am still there but shifted along a bit, 3.00am up there in the firmament at about 8.00am (Darwin height). And this goes on right across
the Arctic and it does it every year.
We have been road tripping through Norway so endless hours of sunshine has been useful. Never a worry about having to stop because it gets dark and because the beasties might be moving about. The beasties up here are generally reindeer or elk. They would make a mess if you hit one and people are killed every year in accidents. They are relatively long legged so I suppose they would come up and through the windscreen, much like a horse. They seem to be relatively well behaved though, if rather stupid. Being nice and light all of the time, you can spot them pretty well.
It has also been handy having light to look for camping sites. We are out of the hotels and cabins most of the time now and into the tent. Not the most expensive or high quality tent around but it only had to serve for a few weeks. Its best feature is that it goes up in 20 seconds and keeps the rain off the inhabitants. At 2.8kg it is a little heavy to carry along when we leave the car behind. This will also
be the case for a couple of sleeping mats, a sleeping bag and a very light and cheap duvet. All up the cost of our total kit was significantly less than the price of one night's accommodation in a cheaper pub or hostel.
The value of camp sites is that you don't have to muck around booking. Of course, that can also be a problem. You just drive till you find a good one. This provides difficulties for us - some that have been there for the last 40 years and some new ones, specific to beautiful places. There is always the pull between the need to stop and camp and the desire to push on to see whether there is something better - just around the next corner. This causes some long drives on occasion.
Norway, though, is the real issue causing trouble here. Up around Nordkapp (North Cape) we were well above the tree line - that is in height up the world (so to speak) rather than height above sea level. There were more places to camp than you could possibly imagine - in wild and beautiful alpine valleys with picture book lakes, in alpine
meadows that still have a bit of last winter's snow fall in the upper reaches and, of course, along the fjords with the holiday houses dotted along the shores. As we worked our way down the west coast the scenery demonstrated that it could change, change and change again but still maintain the consistency of its spectacle. This is a special area of the world.
Camping gets us out of the towns and cities and, frankly, that is where you want to be in Norway. It is just a little unfortunate that the overwhelming majority of Norwegians seem to be of the same mind at this time of the year. They live in a country that seems to be well decentralised for a start. The three largest cities together carry under 25% of the population. Under the midnight sun though they really get out and about. In campers, in tents, bikes, walking and in boats they are spread all over the country. Add to the Norwegians squads of other Europeans, and the occasional Antipodean and you have intense competition for spots at which to camp.
Handily for all - except perhaps some farmers - Norway has a long
View from the Camp
At Skibotn. Noisy but well worth it tradition of free camping. You can camp for a night or two anywhere other than on cultivated land or within 150 meters of a dwelling. And people do. Getting late in the afternoon the hunt starts. The parking bays on the roads fill up, particularly if they are 'under' the road so that the sound of the traffic washes over them. For these ones you really need to be early. The camper vans are pretty quick and the grey nomads are sneaky (as they are everywhere). You will be very lucky if you find a good one with a toilet and a bit of grass for the tent after 1730. There is camping to be had in the bush but, with a car, it is a little difficult to get to and you really do need to know where you are going.
After you resort to the more formal camping areas you begin to appreciate why people go for the free camping as a first option - or perhaps it is all a vicious cycle. The formal camping areas are often in beautiful spots. They all have clean facilities that work and the people are always friendly. They just
Up the Creek
on the road to Tromso don't have much in the way of facilities. An average of 4 toilets for a camp of over 150 people and just 2 showers is normal. And you normally pay extra for the showers.
We stayed one night at Skibotn, a small village on a fjord south of Alta on a road that came off the E6. A picture perfect fjord. Waterfalls cascading hundreds of meters down sheer walls of the fjord. Green with patches of snow or ice in the higher areas of the fjord. Calm and serene. Our camp site was about 3 meters from the roadway. No problem. Nice quiet road. Not likely to be much traffic. The buses came past every hour or so. Stopped. Mucked about. People talking and laughing. Drove on the gravel and started off again. A lesson learnt.
I should say, before I go on, that Alta and indeed most of the towns above the Arctic Circle were a revelation to us. We were expecting, I suppose, something a lot tougher, more 'frontier' and certainly a lot colder. Grim. It was certainly cold at times but the shorts were often brought into service. When the sun settled behind some cloud
it became chilly quickly enough but never so much that a jacket couldn't handle the situation. The towns in the Arctic fell into much the same mould as other Norwegian towns - well organised, white houses with charcoal roofs, nicely tended gardens and clear care and attention to public amenity. There are obvious concessions made for the cold during that other part of the year when the sun doesn't shine - the roofs are steeply pitched and have no guttering, double glazing is probably compulsory and people live inside. Just for instance, shopping centers look different here. They are closed up, concrete bunkers. Inside they are just like shopping centres everywhere but it took us a while to spot them. Imagine that.
Tromso continued to make a mockery of the idea that towns above the Arctic Circle might be tough, hard and battened down. A place with a lot of history and, while the streets took a little getting used to, very easy to wander around. We hadn't intended to spend too much time here - the schedule is taking a bit of a pounding with the need to pull up so regularly to take a photo or simply
Peace at Narvik
statues are done well around here. This was part of the peace display at Narvik. Nice town gaze at a scene. There was, however, this very interesting museum - 'Perspectives' it was called - close-ish to the centre of the town. An excellent photographic exhibition that had been commissioned by the museum with photos of bureacrats from throughout the world together with brief details of their work and salary. Sound boring but it was great. Another exhibition that focused on the return of the Russian traders to Tromso, something that had been stopped during the communist times in the USSR. It seems that there have been some in the town who have not been completely happy with this and the exhibition was trying to humanise the visitors and create a sense of the history. It did both as far as we were concerned and was well worth our time.
Another camp in a beautiful fjord followed by a long and winding road. The place does fool you a little. Look at the map, just 300 km. No worries. A few hours drive. Not so. These fjords are very lumpy places with nooks and crannies you would really rather see if you could and the roads make sure that you have the opportunity.
We had intended
to make it as far as A - good name eh? Actually it is A with a little circle over the top. But, of course, that doesn't give it any more letters. What more do you need after all? We didn't make it for a camp but should have. Camped along a beach that was wild and lovely. A lot of other people had the same idea and the place filled up pretty well by the next morning. We had thought it might be quieter than A. It probably wasn't.
A is right on the point of a peninsular. You can camp on some ground that sits high on the cliffs looking out towards the remaining islands. There are a couple that you can get to but this is as far as you can come on ferries, roads and through tunnels. Very nice spot. We really should have kept going.
There is also another place called B and another called M but not as spectacular as A.
An interesting Viking museum - there are a few of these about. Scandinavians are proud of their raping and pillaging ancestors. Bit like Australians? We visited one that seemed pretty
good but didn't have time for the rest - held us up for a few hours while we soaked ourselves in Viking memorabilia and history and we continued to wend our way south.
Another benefit of the midnight sun - just to return to that theme for a moment - is the chance, clearly denied during the dark months - to have long parties and barbques outside. You don't have to go to bed. You just keep on partying until you eventually start to fall asleep. When you do sleep then you take your full 7 or 8 hours. Being creatures of habit we tend to be dropping off around or about 2300, but not the locals. They are just hitting their straps. Kids still playing, parents still enjoying that sun. But they don't get up early either. Campsites in the morning, 0600 or 0700 are deserted. Walking through on your way to the shower all you can hear is the sounds of contented sleep. This sleeping in is not unique to camping areas or holiday places either. Businesses open much later than you would expect. Bright sunshine and the day almost gone - as my Dad would say
A
Old fishing village. Still operates. Photos of the drying stockfish didn't make the cut but I can still smell them. - and the place is closed up tight.
The sun is what it is all about for Norwegians and they glory in it. On these more rainy days it surprised us at first when we spotted people start to shed clothes as soon as the sun made any appearance. Now, as experienced travellers in the north, we just smile when we see a couple stop their campervan, jump out with the chairs and sunbake in the middle of a carpark or on the side of a road, a bloke sunbaking on a chair in a store display by the roadside, mature ladies baking in their bras on the front porch. Wherever you are when the sun comes out then you make the most of it.
There was sun on our run down the west coast but there was also rain. Down from Trondheim through Flam - where all accommodation had been taken up everywhere. You can see why the cruise ships come in here but they are rather large in a relatively small fjord. We gave the tent a miss on that occasion and went for a cabin along the road a bit. On down through Bergen and
Vikings
Reconstructed long house. They like their brigands here. to another impossibly beautiful place where we camped at a place called Rulestad. Not even a village here, just a lake, mountains, waterfalls, etc.
It seems here to be one more beautiful fjord after another, and it is, but there is another side to this run down the coast. The apline meadows that the road winds through are also a sight worth seeing. These places invite you to get out and walk. You can see for miles without the impediment of trees and the horizon looks invitingly close. Not of course. And the walk will often be marshy but beautiful nevertheless.
Out of the midnight sun having crossed back over the Arctic Circle - and the marker was, yet again, in the wrong place. The thing is that, if you are really used to sleeping when it is actually dark, or even just going to sleep when it is dark, and it stays light all of the time then you obviously have a bit of a problem. It was very nice to come back to some dark again, even if only for a few hours. No blinds or curtains in our tent, you see. But at least it
Wrong Again!
The real point is in a marshy bit of land near the second car park keeps the water out.
Around the south-west we are in much busier country. Stavanger is the port for much of the North Sea oil that has done so much for the Norwegian economy. Busy with roads that are gradually getting better. A tunnel around here that ran for 24 km. Complete with fake 'sunlight' areas every 5 km or so. Interesting.
We did go to Oslo but we didn't stay. Raining and accomodation that would suit us was hard to find. I have to admit that reading up on the place we didn't find a lot that we were desperate to see and we rolled on into Sweden - with one last desperate attempt to shed our Norwegian kroner.
Sweden, well I have talked about it before. This time it was down the west coast through Goteburg and on to Helsingoborg before taking the ferry to Helsingor in Denmark.
Scandinavia is well worth the time, more time in fact than we allocated. Initially, the cost of everything was a bit of a surprise but we worked out ways to deal with that and were, largely, able to ignore it. You are really here for the scenery.
We did visit museums and exhibitions but they were just there to enhance the experience. The mountains, fjords, alpine areas and even the farmland makes a road trip an unforgettable experience in this part of the world.
We are actually working now on the list of places that we will come back to another time. Parts of Norway have made it to the list.
The countries are all different. Finland is flatter than the others and seems to be more marshy in the northern regions that we visited. Sweden and Denmark have the farming country and Norway has the spectacle of the fjords. The people in each of the places seem to be a little different too but, in keeping with the Swedish maxim we read somewhere - you shouldn't generalise about any group of people, except Norwegians - we wont.
On now down through Germany to Frankfurt to catch a plane back to Australia. This journey was not one we had originally planned although we knew that it could be required. We will fly into Brisbane and then, fairly smartly, make a run up to Darwin and back. After getting things organised we should be able
to get back to Europe in early September to continue our travels. Might add a few posts on the travelling in Australia just to keep those who are interested informed.
But just a word on the Renault. Really couldn't let this go by without comment. We hired a Renault through a firm that leases out new cars under a deal that avoids sales tax and doesn't cost as much as a normal hire - not quite as much that is. The Grand Scenic fitted the 4 of us in well and, while a little large for the 2, has gone well. Once you get past the very sloppy gear box - and I still miss a few after over 15,000km - the car handles well, gets good economy at between 5.3 and 6.4/100km depending on the type of driving, and for a small diesel, can keep up with most on the motorway. We will dream of black Audis screaming up the outside but I have now joined them for the most part and find they aren't really all that bad after all. Not sure how the old Mazda ute will go after all of this luxury.
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Susie
non-member comment
Amazing!
Guys, I just have to say that I love your commentary and your photos - can't wait to see the rest of them one day. Norway looks breathtaking. Thanks for taking us along with you through this Blog.