Week 15 - Campervan Adventures

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Day 98 27^th November 2013

30k south of Gothenburg – Gothenburg (drive by) – Marstrand – 10k south of Vanersborg

Today’s plan like the last two days plans was going to Gothenburg. We got much closer today, we made it to the city but we didn’t explore the city. We could not find parking suitable for Stan (our van), the weather was dark and drizzly, so we decided to drive on. The next place on our itinerary was Marstrand, an island about 30k North of Gothenburg. The island has a no car policy and you have to get there by the passenger ferry that runs back and forth all day. I was feeling a little disappointed that I did not get to see Gothenburg and with the dull weather I did not feel much like exploring an island, but I am glad we didn’t blow off the island as once we got to the island and parked up, the sun came out, the campervan Gods must of wanted us to go to Mastrand and I am glad we did as it was truly amazing, Steve was really impressed by it and while we were exploring he kept saying ‘this is amazeballs’. It’s hard to describe it, as your approaching the island you can see lots of little islands and you drive into a little town, with lots of car parks, we parked at the first one we came to, which was empty but with our luck and parking you have to take what you can get. Once parked we walked into the town/harbour, as we walked all we saw were empty car parks, guess it is a lot busier in summer than winter! At the harbour we brought our ticket to get on the ferry, and then took the shortest ferry ride we have had in our lives, it lasted about 3minutes. The island is about 5k long and 2k wide, it has a lot of houses on it but was not clear how many of them are occupied and how many are holiday houses, an art gallery/museum and a fort, many hotels and restaurants, an ice cream shop (all closed), swimming baths, which has a history relating to a King in the 19^th century who used to holiday on the island and have baths in the ocean, a town hall which was also the library and a local store. There were very view people on the island, we saw about 6 people and a school group who were visiting the island. The houses on the island where all wooden and very cute, the island reminded me of movie seen. Very nice place to visit but not somewhere that I would like to live. After the island we got back into Stan and started our journey up to Lake Vanern the biggest lake in Northern Europe. Due to the lack of daylight we pulled over for the night before we got to the lake, so that we can enjoy it in the day light. Tonight we are not in McDonalds services, we are at a road side car park, this means no free wifi, so it will be an early night.



Day 99 28^th November 2013

Vanserborg – Ekenas – 20k from Oslo (Norway)

Today was another day that did not go as planned. Our plan was to drive along the scenic road, with views of the biggest lake in Northern Europe and when we found a place we liked we would stop, have a run and some lunch. Well the scenic road did not have great views of the lake it just had little snippets of the lake, like a little tease really, ‘yes I am the lake but you can’t see all of me’. As we really wanted to see the lake we took a little detour to a place called Ekenas, I don’t know if you can even call this a village there was only the lake, a campsite and a few houses there. Still from here the lake just looked like any lake, rather small, but nice. We had lunch, Salami rolls and a coffee, and went for a walk to explore this lake, there was a path, so we started walking on this, we then ended up in the forest/bush, and could see no lake. Steve really was not impressed, he wanted to see this grand lake, we kept walking, me trying to point out the positives, ‘we didn’t get a run but we are having a nice walk’ and just when I thought he was going to give up, there it was the lake in all its glory, it was breath taking, the lake was massive it went as far as the eye could see, Steves mood soon changed, he was impressed and happy we had gone out of our way to find the lake. After our little walk around the lake we got back in Stan and hit the road, it was time to say goodbye to Sweden for a little while and we crossed into Norway. Once we have explored Norway we will go back through Sweden up to Finland as we still have to go and visit Santa in Lapland.

Day 100 29^th November 2013

Oslo – Hamar

Today was a perfect day, everything went just as planned. The campervan Gods where watching over us that’s for sure. Steve and I have made a packed, to get the most out of the daylight we have to get up early, this is something I do not find easy, Steve doesn’t have a problem with mornings but I hate them, and I hate them even more when it’s cold and dark, but I want to see as much as I can so I have agreed to this crazy idea/packed of setting the alarm every morning. Today was the first day of the packed and I would have to say it contributed to our perfect day, due to being up early and organised, even making a packed lunch. We were so organised that we had researched the night before where we were going to park, so that we did not have our normal dramas of finding a parking spot. So once ready to hit the road we followed the morning traffic into Oslo, and turned off just before getting to the city, and parked in an industrial area that looked like it had free parking. We then took a short walk to the train station, purchased our tickets and got on the train without any problems into central Oslo, where we spent the day wondering around the beautiful city. Our luck was so good that we ended up at the Grand Palace, to see changing of the guards. Which was nothing compared to changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace, Steve referred to is as ‘shabby and cadet like’, it was a little comical to watch, with two of the soldiers in guard booths talking to each other one radios while the other soldiers were doing the drill. The weather seemed rather mild today, but we took cover to have our lunch in a shopping centre. It was a late lunch as earlier in the day we visited the Christmas markets where went tried the free cheese and meats, we also got a chance to try dried reindeer, we both liked it but as most people know Norway is an expensive place and we could not afford to buy it. We went and had a look at the price of alcohol as this is what everyone says is the most expensive thing to buy in Scandinavia and they were not lying. A litre bottle of Vodka was about £40, beer and wine was triple what you would pay in the UK. What seemed to be a reasonable price was champagne, but I could not talk Steve into buying me any. After our lovely day of exploring Oslo, we hit the road and just as we got on the motorway it started to snow, the snow has not settled at this point, I am a little worried that tomorrow morning we may have to dig Stan out, if this snow settles, lucky we brought a snow shovel.

Day 101 30^th November 2013

Hamer – Geilo via Hunderfoessen and Lillehammer

We didn’t wake to a whiteout we just woke to a heavy frost, but I got up to the alarm like our packed and we went to explore the home of the winter Olympics 94’ which was a big disappointment. In the town of Hamer there is the Vikingshiphust sports arena, which on the outside looks like an upturned Viking ship as we did not go in I cannot say what it looks like inside, but it was not that impressive. Its where the speed skating and finger skating took place during the Olympics, today there were lots of kids and parents going in there for ice hockey. I was not impressed by this building but I was impressed by lake Mjosa which is the largest lake in Norway which was frozen over. It is alongside the arena and you can see it all the way to Lillehammer. After the arena in Hamer we went to take a look at the bobsled and luge track in Hunderfosse. Feel the rhythm! Feel the rhyme! Get on up, its bobsled time! COOL RUNNINGS! This was another disappointment we thought the place would be very busy, full of people tobogganing, but it was rather run down with very few people around. The people that where there were tourists paying extortionate prices to ride a rubber sledge down the track. We were not going to take any more disappointment, we did not even bother to look at the ski area or ski jumps in Lillehammer. I’m sure there would have been less people at these places as there was no snow to be seen. We decided that it was time to start driving to our next destination Bergen, via the scenic route and for once the map is right it is very scenic and there is lots of snow around, most of the roads are clear, but there has been little bits of road with snow on and I won’t lie the snowy roads scare me, but Stan with the drivers help has handled them very well. Once dark we pulled into a little layby, we thought about going running as we saw a road we could run on but decided it was too dark and cold so we did a little work out in Stan, we mainly concentrated on abs and arms, I hope I will be able to move tomorrow, as when the alarm goes off I will be going on that road for a run. We have still not seen the Northern lights, but we have seen some amazing sunsets, and tonight we can see a ski slope all lite up, seems like some lucky people are doing some night skiing, I wish that was us.

Day 102 1^st December 2013

Geilo – Haugastol

This morning we woke to a winter wonderland, overnight it had snowed, only very lightly. We got up and went running, Steve went off in front of me as per normal, but soon came back and aborted the run as he said it was blowing a gale and snow blizzards in your face once round the corner. I was a little disappointed by this as I had only been out for about 5minutes and was really enjoying the scenery and the snow. Once sorted we hit the road, our plan for today was to go and visit some waterfalls and fjords, we were unsure if we would see anything due to the snow but set out on our adventure, I call it an adventure as we didn’t know what we were going to find as from the time we went out for our run to the time we drove off the snow and wind had got worse. The roads were a little snowy but nothing that Stan could not handle. We drove for about 20k, when our adventure was stopped due to the road being closed. We spoke to a lovely Norwegian man, who works on the road as a snow clearer and he said the road is closed due to the wind and it would not be open today but may open tomorrow it depends on the weather. We could turn around and take another road, but we have decided to sit it out as to why we are a little unsure, we thought it would make a good story, but really I don’t have much to say. What do you do in a campervan when you can’t go any further? I suggested getting drunk, but Steve the wise man said that alcohol was too expensive, so then I suggested we eat ourselves silly. Which Steve agreed too, we went to the convenient store, where food was doubly expensive as normal. We tried to find the cheapest cake, but we worked out it would be cheaper for me to make one, with a cake mix. It all looked simple, other than what I had to add to the mix, we tried to guess but in the end Steve asked the shopkeeper, he was very nice and told us that all we had to add was water and oil, yes of course we knew that. After looking around the store a little bit more to check we hadn’t missed out on any bargains, we then left with our cake mix and a large bottle of coke. The most expensive bottle of coke we have ever bought. We are parked in a layby, from our parking place we can see the red lights that indicates the road is closed. We also have a nice view of a frozen lake covered in snow. The day has been spent making a large chocolate cake, eating some of the chocolate cake, putting up our Christmas tree and Christmas man called Igone, reading, playing cards, and watching cars drive up to the road block and then turn around. As the day has gone on the wind has got worse and we are a little scared of what the night may bring, but we will brave it out in hope the road will be open in the morning. It is a Monday tomorrow, they will have to open it for work and school traffic.

Day 103 2^nd December 2013

Haugastol – Bjorkheim

As soon as I woke this morning I checked out the window to see if we were in luck, and we were, the windscreen was clear and there was no flashing red lights, the road had been open. We got organised in record time and hit the road, we didn’t want to chance the weather changing and the road being closed again. Some of the road was clear but some of it was very icy and snowy, I was sitting with white knuckles as I did not know what to expect, but there was no issues, Stan and the driver handled the road like pros, we had some amazing views of frozen lakes covered in snow and on parts of the road where there was big snow walls we could see why the road had been closed. After a long, scary but safe journey over the mountain, we continued on the scenic road, which may have been very lovely but we could not see due to fog. We were really hoping we would see the waterfalls and fjords we had planned to see yesterday, but this did not happen, first Mother Nature was stopping us with the fog, the first waterfall we wanted to see, we could only guess where it may have been as the fog and mist was so bad, this was the same for the rivers and mountains along the scenic road. The fog had lifted a little by the time we got to the next waterfall on our list, so we thought our luck was starting to change, we had read in the travel guide that there was a path from the car park to the waterfall and you could walk behind the waterfall and not get wet. As we parked it was raining lightly but we said we would take a walk and stretch our legs, but then we noticed there were workmen doing something around the waterfall and it was all blocked off so there was no walking around for us. We got back in Stan and decided that the weather was against us so we would drive till dark and then park up for the night. This is when our luck really did change, Steve pulled into an information layby to see if there would be anywhere good to park for the night and as we looked left, there was a massive waterfall in all its glory, it had a footpath to the top and one to the bottom so we went exploring. By the time we finished exploring it was nearly dark at 4pm, so we drove for a bit and then pulled into a services for the night. We have spent the evening making a plan for the rest of our time in Scandinavia and doing some research about the Northern Lights, I feel excited about what is coming and am going to pray to the campervan gods every night that we get good enough weather so we can see the Northern Lights.

Day 104 3^rd December 2013

Bjorkeim – Laerdalsoyri via Bergen

This morning we woke to what can only be described as ‘dog shit’ weather. It rained heavily all night, I know this not because I stayed awake all night, I know this because I was woken by the heavy rain numerous times during the night, beating down on Stan. The poor van has experienced some weather this week and he has handled it well, but just as we were approaching Bergen the driver’s side widescreen wiper flipped off the window. The first thing my husband said was ‘Why does my father always buy vehicles with f####d wipers’. His father had a vehicle that the wipers were dodgy in, once we were driving from Austria to England in a snow storm and we had no wipers because they just refused to work. Lucky today Steve was able to fix ours and we were soon in wet Bergen. As we arrived the rain stop bucketing cats and dogs and just drizzled, we wandered around the very pretty port city, visiting the church, the main square and the fish market. Another very posh fish market where we could afford nothing, but a kind shop assistant let us try some of her caviar in a bid to sell us some(how wrong was she), we were not lucky enough to try any of the smoked salmon think she had given up on us. After Bergen went on our way to Fodnes as we are going to catch a ferry from there to Mannheller. Along the way the weather improved and we were lucky enough to see some amazing fjords, cliffs towering 1000m up from the water with waterfalls running down them into the lakes below. The cliffs are so big they are rather intimidating, but beautiful at the same time. It is also amazing one minute the scenery will be green and lush and around the corner there will be snow. The road we took was also full of tunnels, there was one 25k long, I have to say it was rather boring in there. I look forward to catching our ferry tomorrow and seeing Europe’s largest inland glacier and fjords. Let’s hope the weather improves, saying that there is a positive to the rain, it’s not so cold.

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Photos

Marstrand (2)
The ocean baths.

Morning coffee @ Oslo Museum
In the warm with our packed flask of coffee with biscuits.

Oslo Royal Palace
Changing of the guards - ‘shabby and cadet like’

Oh Christmas Tree
Hot coffee after putting the tree up.