Summer Holiday(Cliff Richard) - Kristiansund to Trondheim,Norway on a Beautiful Summer Day - 10th July 2016

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It is a pity that out house we have stayed in overnight in Kristiansund did not have its terrace with comfortable seating facing east rather than west.

If it had we could have enjoyed our breakfast in warm sunshine.

Instead we sat in the kitchen/dining room with the sun shining brightly through the windows making it so warm that we had to open the windows to let some air in. This has been the first occasion since we have been in Norway that the morning has started off with so much bright sunshine.

For the last few nights we have had singles beds or bunks but at least they have been in the same bedroom.

However last night was a bit different. We still had single beds but horrors they were in separate bedrooms!

We got the sightseeing underway for the day by taking a short stroll around the old town. There are a limited number of original buildings left as the city was bombed heavily during WW2.What remains though is very well preserved and presented.

We have decided to keep the coastal theme going for today’s drive, at least as far as we possibly can.

Whatever we did we were going to have to get across some water back to the mainland. We could have driven another subsea tunnel and then taken a ferry and get back to the E39.Or we could take a ferry from just outside Kristiansund and head up the D680.

We went for the second option and again arrived at the ferry terminal and only had a few minutes wait for the half hour ferry service to Tommervag.

This ferry crossing over Vinjefjord was as close as we had been to the open sea on a ferry and for the first time the gentle swell entering the fjord did actually give the ferry boat a bit of movement. It was a strange feeling sitting in the car for the 20 minute crossing and watch the horizon move up and down ever so slightly.

The D680 didn’t follow the coast closely enough to be able to have sea views as we drove north. Instead our view from the car was mostly pine or fir trees and scrubby land. We assume that the soil depth here must be like a lot of the coastal strip, very shallow, making the land rather unproductive.

Again these were small islands we were travelling over joined together by short bridges. We took a stop at one of these for photos and noticed a man coming back to his campervan with a very large fish he had caught while fishing from the bridge. His wife was busying herself in the campervan presumably getting the BBQ ready to cook the fish for lunch.

The road at one stage rose steadily to a pass which also gave us a lovely view back down the valley along the water that we had just driven. This view in its self made the drive along the D680 all worth it. And the air temperature had warmed to a very pleasant 22C with no wind.

We turned east and got ourselves back to the E39 before we came across another small fjord where there was no ferry to take us north to Trondheim.

Our impression of the area we had driven through so far today was just how unpopulated it was and that continued even more so when we turned onto the E39.

For a while the GPS lost us as there were significant roadwork’s going on and for a while we wondered whether we were going in the right direction until the GPS came back online and confirmed the road as the E39.

We drove beside the Ordalfjord for a short way before the road entered a couple of tunnels, this time just through the granite rock on land. One tunnel was 2.7km and the other 1.8km long.

Automatic tolls are a fact of live in Norway and you either drive the road or face generally a very long drive to get to where you want to be. Today for instance had we tried to avert the tolls we would have had to drive another 80km and about an extra 1 1/2hrs.

The tolls are relatively inexpensive and more of a nuisance value.

One thing we haven’t sorted out yet is how to register our French rego plate and leased car. Nothing we had tried to date had allowed us to open an account so we are not sure what the total damage in tolls has been or whether they will ever catch up with us.

We did avoid the last of the three automatic tolls that were in our path into Trondheim as the road we needed to take us to our apartment started before we got to the toll cameras.

Our Air BnB apartment is out in the suburbs about 6 km from the city and is located in one of several blocks. Our host arrived shortly after we got to the car park and she showed us in and up the 4 flights of steps! We haven’t had an apartment this far up without a lift recently!

It was a tidy enough area but a bit like a group housing or Housing Corporation village in New Zealand.

The apartment was very spacious with a combined lounge and kitchen and for once we were back to a queen size bed rather than being in single beds and separate rooms.

Keeping the light out when the sun doesn’t go down until after 11pm and rises again at just before 4am might be a problem in our two nights here.

We will take it easy tomorrow morning with a lie in and then take a walking tour of Trondheim, a city that was heavily bombed during WW2.



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