Norway!

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We no longer pack light, Kathryn and I. I’d like to pretend we do. We used to, back when we’d squeeze our belongings into the back of one of our aged fleet of classics. Even the 340 was somewhat restrictive, although it had a cavernous boot, the number of places you could sneak stuff in was far fewer than the older cars had. Of course, that meant that the Prius with its cavernous boot and its many many little places to hold, squeeze and stuff things, the poor car would be stuffed like a christmas turkey by the time we left.

We’d not had a day off together since the beginning of the week, so our seemingly endless list of ‘things we need’ had been collected together, heaped untidily on the dining table. The web said it’d be 20 degrees in the summer in Norway, but a quick check of the weather forecast said it’d be colder – around 13 degrees, and wet. So we packed for summer and for not-summer. Our bags bulging with jumpers and thermal tops to go under summer tees. The table was stacked with our usual collection, our ageing Eurohike tent, groundsheets, trangia and a camping-gaz-knockoff gas stove and given Norway’s expensive reputation a massive bag filled with foods that wouldn’t spoil. Despite the fact its never, ever proven to be useful we stuck our cooler in the back of the car – filling it with the last few veg from the fridge and random other items. It’d taken almost half a day for it to get cold, but stuffed with frozen ice packs, in it went.

The night before I’d been on a night shift, so I’d headed home in the morning, set a much later alarm than I normally would and drifted off to sleep, dreams of Norway, ferries and driving in my head. Kathryn in contrast had woken before the sun for an early start – a better option than a late finish since we planned to head out as soon as she got home and attempt to at least make it across the UK. When I coaxed myself out of the bed, and after a shower, I threw my clothes on and set to on packing the car. When Kathryn got home the less durable items were added, and the un-finished packing from the week was hastily completed, and it was all hurled into the car.

It was a long and unexciting drive; the monotony of the motorway giving way to a slightly different uninspiring surrounding, the large A-road. We slipped into the weirdly 1980s Tay Hotel under cover of darkness. Perhaps it’s just me, and it doesn’t help the place that it was clearly built in a different age, but you step through that 70s entry way and are cast back in time. But whilst the entryway feels totally 70s, the bedroom was a 1980s special. I’d call it a theme, because it popped up later, but given that we only stayed in two hotels – one night each – perhaps a theme is overstating it. Still, in this case, it didn’t matter because we got in at about 1am and were packing up to leave before the sun’d risen.

Day 2

We pulled up to the ferry nice and early, everything seemed just dandy. Having spent vast sums of money on ebay I was happy in the knowledge that we’d met all the European requirements. Two breathalisers (I have never understood the principle behind this, what are they for? It’s not like the police are going to use your breathaliser… so… why?), the warning triangle stolen from the back of the minor, a first aid kit, yellow reflective jackets stuffed inconsiderately in to the glove box, taking up precious free space, spare bulbs… All seemed hunky dory. In the queue I thought I’d take the opportunity to apply the beam-benders, so our lights would dip in the right direction. Actually, first I rang Toyota having realised that no-one else seemed to be doing it. Then I whinged about the simplicity of the DAF-44 which had switches to flick from Left to Right hand drive on the back of the headlamps. Finally, having got the answer that yes, they were required, and having got the required level of complaining about the modern world completed, I clicked the headlamps on and stepped out of the car. On went one. It turned out to be kind of guesswork in the bright sunlight, but still it was stuck where I thought it should go. The queue moved, I hopped back in and we shuffled forward. It looked like it might not be the moment for headlamp adjustment so I flicked them back off.

You know where this story is going, don’t you.

The moment presented itself and I clicked the lights back on. Only I didn’t. The driver’s side light declined to come on. Kathryn had commented the night before that while driving that it’d suddenly seemed to get brighter – the reason was altogether too clear at this moment. That headlamp was, for some reason, only working intermittently. Boarding started and I gave up the quest for illumination, sticking the beam bender on where I thought it was meant to go – and we chunk-a-chunk-bumped up into the ferry.

Thankfully, it turns out that they discount ferry cabins during the day. I say thankfully because both of us were feeling like warmed-over death and the prospect of driving for hours in the Netherlands, since the direct-to-Norway ferry disappeared years ago, seemed too much to bear. That cabin was a saviour – we slept for much of the 7 hour crossing, showered again, and rose in a state to face the continent.

The funny thing about continental Europe, when you compare it to the UK, is it is, for the most part, amazingly clean. People don’t seem to just chuck rubbish everywhere, which seems to be a thing people do in the UK*. Also, perhaps people take some pride in the place, because roads, buildings, infrastructure, it all seems remarkably clean. Not that we cared that much, we’d set a couple of hours driving into the GPS and just trundled until we could trundle no more, then pulled gratefully into a campsite. At no point on the trip did we ever actually unpack the car… Our cunning plan, which took us 1270 odd miles North did not allow for staying in any place more than a couple of days. So we lived from tent to car – scrabbling in the boot like some maniac squirrels each evening for food, and each morning for clothes, before cramming everything back in like travelling horders.

Anyhow, a bit of a poke revealed that the headlamp which had gone from intermittent to not working was actually not a dodgy bulb, nor a broken wire, but merely the cable working loose. A good shove and it was safely back in place and our headlamps blazed cheerfully whenever required. Which, given that I couldn’t remember which countries were ‘side lights on’ or ‘no lights unless dark’ or ‘headlamps on’ was… all the time.

Day 3
The plan called for Germany and Denmark to be crossed in one day – a long-ish day of driving. But one made phenomenally longer by the closure of a link road between two motorways. After 3 hours of traffic jam and redirection we managed to make it back onto our route, our spirits much lowered and pondering the sanity of our cunning plan. We reached Denmark but were not deeply positive about the day. But tomorrow we’d be in Norway. Well, sort of. Tomorrow we’d be on the ferry to Norway.

Day 4

As, I think, with every other day on the trip (but maybe 2), we awoke to the cheerful pitter-patter of rain. Neither of us had slept very well, but having laden the car with its massive load we knew that today was the day we’d be heading to Norway. With our very soggy tent. Which’d be sat mouldering for the 16 hour ferry journey. But as we pulled into Hirtshaals very, very early, Kathryn’s research revealed the presence of a beach. We meandered down to a startlingly lovely sandy beach, the sun cheerfully blazing down on us. After a bit of pondering we gave in, pulled the tent’s outer layer from the car, and let it flap around in the wind. It wasn’t perfectly dry – and it was well and truly coated in sand – but it was better. So much better. As in, it came out literally dripping with water and there was a pool of water in the tent bag. Afterwards it was dryish. Packed up and zipped away, we knew it was time to board the ferry for the long crossing.

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The Hirtshaals-Bergen ferry does not run every day. Nor does it have cabins for everyone despite having a 16 hour journey that runs through the night. We weren’t sure what we’d be getting as we drove up the ramps onto the Fjordlines ship, but hopped that we’d manage to upgrade to a cabin. It’d not offered us the option when booking and I at least had optimistically considered the possibility that ‘Sky Seats’ might be some kind of reclining super comfortable chairs in some kind of sleep area. I’d also, it turns out very optimistically, hoped that we could actually get a cabin.

Everyone is desperate for a cabin on the ferry because the Sky Seats have been designed by someone who’s been told about airplane seating, but who has never seen a seat or met a human being. I can draw this conclusion because the seats were insanely uncomfortable in every position. They failed to support your back, or provide sufficient leg-room (despite random enormous gaps in the seating), and only reclined to a position that was actually more uncomfortable than the upright one. Oh, and we were aided in our attempt to sleep by people slamming the large metal door into the cabin and having incredibly loud discussions in the middle of the night. So that was nice.

By the end of 16 hours during which Kathryn gave up and tried to sleep on the floor (here’s a tip for chair designers; if people are given the option of sitting in your chair of sitting literally anywhere else and they pick the latter option then you’ve got something hideously wrong) we were both completely wrecked. But the ferry docked and on Day 5 of our holiday we were in Norway! (By the way, I’ve counted the post-night shift / post Kathryn’s day of work as Day 1 – which it really isn’t – but it is when we started travelling).

Day 5
Bergen is a really gorgeous city. Despite our tired, bedraggled state we managed to navigate its astonishingly quiet streets and crammed our overstuffed Prius into a car-park. Wandering blinking into the Norwegian sun we meandered around, failed dramatically to speak Norwegian (other than Hej and tak). Having lunched (soup – it’s cheap) and coffee’d up (the coffee on the ferry is spectacularly bad) we piled back into the car and set off on a quest to find our first campsite. Kathryn had done some research and located a delightful looking place a little way outside Bergen. They hadn’t replied to our e-mail asking if we could reserve a place, but they looked pretty small and remote and I’ve often struggled to get e-anything out of small remote places, so I wasn’t too concerned. We wound our way down little roads, littler lanes and finally to something that was really rather tight and steep and ended in a private complex. Confused, I asked a random lady who directed us back the way we’d come, and clearly suggested that it wasn’t far.

We turned around and headed back. There was a dirty great Private sign on the turning I thought she’d suggested, and we quested onwards. Eventually we asked another person – who thankfully had (as was seemingly the norm) amazing English and who knew the site we were aiming for – and was able to tell us it’d been sold and turned into private camping.

She thankfully was also able to direct us to an alternative…

…where a somewhat bored and clearly dissatisfied bloke informed us that he was just sitting in for the owner and couldn’t tell us if a pitch or a hut (given our phenomenal tiredness) was available, nor take payment for either. He suggested we ring the campsite owner – or wait an hour. We meandered off to look for another site but by this time were both fading fast and decided to wait it out.

Eventually we were directed to a tiny unmade track on a steep slope to some rather wet ground – but with an amazing view. The wind rolled in from the bay but we managed to locate a nice protected little spot.

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Then the 26 french teen campers arrived.

Thankfully despite scoping out our little plot of land they decided to camp elsewhere, as our brief run-ins with them through our brief stay were not… positive. But the scenery was stunning and we were both exhausted and happy to crawl into bed. Where we got a terrible night’s sleep because…

Day 6

See it turns out that both Kathryn and I are, in fact, not denying the passage of time by not ageing and whereas our thin foam camping mats used to be more than sufficient, when combined with our double sleeping bag, for a comfortable night. It turns out that’s no longer the case. Still, we were in Norway. Nearly 900 miles of driving and 2 ferry trips. Insanity it may be, but we packed up, I prayed a little that the car would make it through the mud that I’d declared firmly yesterday (before the overnight rain) that it would easily do. Oh, and up the vicious slope from the campsite. It did, although protested mightily at lugging our pile of stuff up the ridiculously steep track. And so we headed back in to Bergen. First point of order was a map of Norway, and a better phrase book. Our ‘nordic countries’ phrasebook lacked seemingly every useful word. Words like ‘tent’ and ‘camping’ and phrases like ‘help us we’re stupid foreigners’ seemed to be missing. One bookshop later and we had a touring map of the coast of Norway – up to Trondheim (somewhat north of our intended furthest point) and a phrasebook with at least some useful words in. Then the second, and perhaps more important issue – camping mats. Ideally inflatable camping bed type things.

We wandered around hopelessly, lots of running stores, but no camping ones. Finally defeated we asked at a random shop. A phenomenally nice woman in a sort of department store (reminiscent of a nicer gardiner-haskins, for Bristolians) revealed that they didn’t stock them, but then googled and found a store stocking them across the other side of Bergen. Then she gave us a set of idiot-tourist directions to enable us to find them. Still phased by the seeming absence of camping shops from such an outdoorsy-country’s bigger cities we trekked over and found some ace self-inflating (sort-of – they need a bit of extra inflation once they’ve expanded if you’re going to actually be comfortable) camping mats that were sort of within our price-range and that actually cured the sleeping issues. Hurrah!

Bergen is also home to an impressive four-building art museum, Kode, around which we spent several happy hours wandering. Kode contains some really amazing items – although building 1 was closed for renovation which was very, very sad, since I believe that’s got a design section – and I have a bit of a thing for design museums. We also hit up Bergen’s historic waterfront (UNESCO world heritage site – being as we were being proper tourists for this trip). Whilst the front is very pretty it’s down in a couple of the alleys where things get a bit more interesting – there’s some interesting and not-so-touristy artist’s shops and where we got my first really good coffee. Obviously, an important marker of the trip is that moment when I get a good coffee.

The woman behind the counter was clearly really, really into her coffee, and we had a little chat about the beans (from Brazil, with an interesting iron-y aftertaste, in a good way). One thing that delights me is when I ask a question and someone is clearly really enthused to talk about something they love. Anyhow, the coffee was exactly as described and the chocolate-ball-cake-thing who’s name I forget was delicious. And it was interesting to hear her take on the area. Yes, it’s a tourist site, but she strongly felt it is also for the people of Bergen and they should be taking advantage of it. Hence their position. We also spent a bit of time wandering which led us to robot butikken (Kathryn had found this online beforehand – and shown me – and you can guess how excited I was to visit a place filled with foreign vinyl, awesome teeshirts and small press magazines).

Despite loving Bergen (and getting really over excited about the sheer number of Electric cars there – I even saw (and snapped a photo of a Think City (then I saw another one later!)) I didn’t love being stared at. I don’t know if it’s the queer thing, the brown thing, or the looking like tourists thing. But we were getting far more interest than either of us expected. And some of it seemed not entirely friendly.

Day 7

It took us 6 hours to make the next day’s drive to the Briksdalsbreen / Melkevollbreen glaciers. But for the first time on the trip we’d not be striking camp in the morning, we’d not be driving the next day, and we’d found a campsite that Kathryn had scoped out before the trip. The scenery just seemed to be endlessly getting more impressive, and every corner and view was greeted with gasps or ‘Wow’. I don’t really know how to put in to words the experience. Emma had always said that I would adore Norway, and indeed that I should move there. I can now see why, it is just stunning. Just infinitely stunning. We slept and then the next day arranged a sauna after we’d clambered up to gaze at the glacier. The glacier has been somewhat denude by a mixture of cyclical weather and climate change, its reach into the valley below much reduced, but it remains completely awe-inspiring. The peaks surrounding the valley we were in were intermittently capped with snow or more of the glacier which, it turns out, is vast.

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I had had faint hopes that I might not be allergic to Norway. Sadly, as we decended through the wildflowers it became rapidly apparent that I am at least as allergic to Norway as to England. Distressing.

We made it back largely intact to the campsite before meandering up the other arm of the valley in the direction of the other prong of the glacier. The path though diverges rather dramatically and heads up over the mountain – a 3-4 hour hike for those used to mountain walking, and something we didn’t really feel equipped to attempt, although I’d love to come back to Norway when I’m better in shape and with more walking equipment than meandering equipment.

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The Sauna, as imagined, was fantastic. And we did the stereotypical Norwegian thing. Sauna – Glacial stream dip – [Repeat][Repeat]. Fantastic, just utterly fantastic.

Day 9
I’d always been led to believe that the peoples of northern europe were very polite. For some reason, that didn’t seem to hold true to our site – or maybe they’d not packed their good manners with their sporting equipment. As we’d sat down to dinner the night before, a large group of late teens/early 20s people had gradually attempted to annex our table. Which would have been less irritating if there hadn’t been several other large tables free elsewhere in the room. And if we’d not been quietly ensconced in our corner cooking dinner before they arrived at one of the smallest tables.

Then on day 9 we were in the midst of doing laundry when some random, on a wander around the camp, opened our drier – and then left it not running. Since it’s paid for by the minute – running or not – that seemed incredibly rude.

Anyhow. Not to dwell. We packed up, struck camp, and made the trek up the E39 to Ålesund. Somewhat unfortunately as we trundled, I missed a turning for a ferry adding an hour (granted a very pretty hour, but an extra hour none-the-less) to the drive. Ålesund is meant to be truly stunning – and perhaps we just missed it. It’s very pretty and located in amazing scenery, and it does have some delightful art nouveau features. But it didn’t quite live up to the hype for us. Perhaps it didn’t help that we arrived after closing time on a somewhat grey day. And we failed to go up to the viewing point – which seems to be what most photographs of Ålesund show. We did find a nice organic restauraunt, as usual with very friendly staff, and free (and somewhat working) WiFi (something that we barely ever encountered). We debated plans. We’d been intending to spend the next day in Ålesund, but it seemed like overkill. We’d meandered around and seen the pretty streets**. We headed up to the campsite and… lordy no. The signs proclaimed that tents should have a minimum of 3m between them, but the site itself, where you were allowed to camp was so small that it was impossible. It was crammed with campers on a tiny little scabby bit of grass. Despite Kathryn feeling somewhat motion sick both she and I were phenomenally keen to go somewhere else.

We scratched the plan to return the next day and struck out to another site, instead heading for Geirangerfjorden and getting ourselves a hut as a treat. It was dinky, and miles from the washroom, but it was good to be not putting up the tent then striking camp the next morning…

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Day 10
We headed on to Tafjord, which is a tiny isolated village of around 100 people. They appear to do three things there, one of which is to grow strawberries, one of which is camping – I counted 3 campsites, and the other of which is to have a huge hydroelectric power plant. It’s one of these amazing little places, you pootle down miles (literally) of tunnel and pop out in this gorgeous little expanse of land hidden by the surrounding mountains.

We plunked the tent up in one of two rival campsites that actually abut each other – right next to the fence – as if to taunt them. This place had free showers. Oh lord be praised.

Everywhere else had showers that cost 10 or so Kroner for 5 minutes. Apart from the place yesterday which was 20 Kroner for 6 minutes. Insanity. We actually just took hot water from the sinks in to the shower in a bowl and washed in the shower cubicle that way. One woman stripped half-off at the sink and washed in the washroom. Anyhow. That was yesterday. Today we had a place that had really nice hot showers and no charge. Wheee.

Anyhow, we wandered around Tafjord, a process that takes about 10 minutes, then went to what we thought was the only cafe – a process supported by the random actor we met while wandering who invited us to come and see the play he was in at the hydropower museum. Unfortunately, the play was on in about 20 minutes, and we’d not eaten lunch. So we disappointed him and set out to the local cafe. He’d told us the food was good, which surprised us as we’d seen it on our way past and it was not the most inspiring looking place. Indeed, it looked like a men’s social club from the 1970s. But in we went and had… well, Kathryn had a tuna-fat salad. I don’t know if this is just how people in Norway like their tuna salads, but it did seem to consist mostly of tuna fat. And I had a hot-dog-sausage and oven-chips. I assumed it would be a hot dog sausage because it was described as ‘sausage and chips’. But briefly flirted with optimism that it might be a full-on hot dog with bread when he called it a hot-dog.

But it arrived, and we ate, paid and left. I wouldn’t say it was exactly disappointing, as such, because my hopes were not high. But the oven chips were a bit of sadness. When we left to head off on our wander we found a sign that had been popped out – a local guest house did lunches and waffles, starting at 1300. They clearly put the sign out when they’re serving. We decided to treat ourselves to waffles after our walk. I mean, if you’re in Norway and not having waffles, clearly something is amiss.

We headed out up into the hills, with the intention of finding a nice walk – which we did. Tafjord is home to the 300 year old hut that was the basis of a piece of conceptual art by Marianne Heske. She moved it to Paris, I believe, and then back later…

The walk promised loads of Biodiversity and allowed us to follow the path of what had once been the farm road – impassible to cars and prone to rock slides.

The views were amazing, the scenery is just universally stunning and beautiful. And the biodiversity was phenomenal. Even to my very untrained eye there were clearly lots of different plants, and lots of plants I’d not seen before. We walked up the path and spent a fruitless few minutes looking for the hut (there’s a plaque which says you can see the hut, but gives you no indication of direction and the area is wildly green). Although in the end we didn’t see it, it was still an amazing place to be.

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And when we got back to Tafjord – Waffles! In a 1900s house that the owner’s trying to sympathetically return to a more original condition. The waffles were excellent and accompanied by something she called sour cream that was more like Cremé Fraiche and delicious local strawberry goop. Oh so good. So good. Wish we’d known about that place for lunch…

Day 11
And we struck camp (theme, anyone?) and headed over the pass to Geirangerfjord (and to the tourist hot-spot of Geiranger). We’d planned to head to the Fjord centre (I should get used to saying center) which sounded interesting, and also there’s a ‘Troll Free’ gallery in Geiranger which we’d read was meant to be really interesting.

So we fought the traffic and the many tour coaches and made our way in. Geiranger is, it turns out, very touristy. But the gallery is wonderful and I totally fell in love with these angelic-woman statues produced by one of the local artists. I’ve no idea who as they were way out of our price range, but there was something utterly serene about her. We also skittered up the many stairs to the Fjord centre which is oddly…local. From the outside it’s all angular exciting buildings – and there’s a really interesting project they do with schools around the area to create art from the pieces of wood that used to be used to make hayricks. But inside it feels weirdly like a little local museum with random items from various local spots…

It was interesting, don’t get me wrong, and I enjoyed it a lot, but… it wasn’t what I was expecting.

Also in Geiranger, in total tourist nonsense, there’s a chain store in Norway called ‘Moods of Norway’ who sell some terribly entertaining tractor-based tee-shirts. Really sadly I can’t find any of them on their website. But they also use the tractor logo a lot and in Geiranger had this:

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Which was *ace*.

Geiranger ‘visited’ we headed out via the ferry from Geiranger to Hellesylt. This is one of those weird hybrids between an outright tourist ferry and something for the locals to use. It comes with a commentary, but also saves an enormous amount of time if you need to go from one place to the other.

The ferry runs down part of Geirangerfjord and carries you past some of the most breathtaking scenery. You pass by the Seven Sisters waterfall (or De Syv Søstrene) which has a 250 meter drop. Words and pictures do nothing for this kind of place, you just have to be there to experience it. Amusingly, opposite it lies a fall known as The Suitor (Friaren) which clearly outlines the shape of a wine bottle, and legend says it’s turned to drink after being turned down by the seven sisters…

You can also see the amazingly remote mountain farms, including the one famed for being only reachable by ladder, at which the farmer allegedly would remove the ladder on the arrival of the tax inspector.

The insanity of farms that are only reachable using a ladder does not escape me.

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We trundled off the ferry and headed off to our campsite which was under another arm of the glacier…

Day 12
Day 12 was mainly taken up with a visit to a Folk Museum where they’re rescued houses from the 1500s up until the 1980s and moved them to an amazing museum. It’s the kind of place where you can spend a day. So we did. Sadly, the 1980s house was having some work done, and you can only go in around 14 of the many houses. But they’ve got some amazing, amazing stuff. Like the difference between the Baliff and a farmer from the same period. Like a house that was lived in until the 1970s, and is dressed as it was left by its last owner, but with the exception of a lightbulb and two radios (one 1940s and one 1950s, I think, from my memory) the place could have existed at any point from around 1700s onward. The furniture was mainly dated at early to mid 1800s, but was of a style that existed both before and since.

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Also cool was that they grow and cut grass to make hay using the hayricks that they have for the farm area. It’s just the kind of thing I find fascinating. They also have a museum area that they’re currently reorganising in to a more modern layout – which as it is, is interesting but a little dry. I wish them much luck with it, because it’s a fascinating place.

We also saw…the outside of a 12th Century Stave Church. Yes, we visited Norway and never actually made it inside a stave church. Would have gone in, but it closed about half an hour before we got there.

Lonely Planet informed us that there was a great local / traditional food place in railway carriages in Flåm. It’s closed. But we splurged and had a dinner at a fantastic restaurant that serves local food – fresh Mountain Trout with (in my case kale and potatoes, in Kathryn’s, cucumber salad and potatoes). Gods that was some delicious fish.

Day 13
There was no way to avoid it, we were now definitely on our way back as we returned to Bergen making the next day’s ferry journey a bit easier. We found a great little bookshop and then headed back to robot butikken where the woman gave me some local music recommendations and I left with a nice 12″ round piece of vinyl***. Yay! It’s in Norwegian which I enjoy but don’t understand at all :)

We also hit up the Bergen museum, which has some really incredibly preserved bits of the waterfront and had a temporary exhibit about the papercut artist ‘Bit’. These were seriously amazing, particularly given she creates them using scissors, not a knife…

Day 14
We ran around Bergen attempting to find a post office – and failed. Apparently it’s in the shopping center – this was slightly saddening because we’d written the postcards. They had stamps on them. We were just singularly unsuccessful at finding either a postbox or a post office. However, I did manage to get a shrimp baguette as instructed by my friend Emma…

We boarded the ferry prepared for another painful and long night of discomfort. We brought our camping semi-inflatable rollmats planning to sleep on the floor rather than on those agonising seats. But amazingly, Kathryn scored a cabin! An hour into our trip we were treated to a cabin with a window where we could relax on our sofa and watch the fjords go by. A pretty awesome way to end the Norway bit of our trip…

Day 15
We drove forever. We disembarked in Denmark, paused at Hirtshaals for food from a supermarket, then drove and drove. Lunch was bread and cheese in the car at a service station. Finally we trundled through the section that’d worried us the most, the diversion/closed bit in Germany. Thankfully, it was only closed in one direction so we made it to the hotel we’d booked in the Netherlands, the Het Ros Van Twente at a reasonable time. We had some traditional savoury pancakes for dinner – in a family (chain) restaurant – apparently they’re popular with children… Then we headed back and slept in 80’s splendour.

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Day 16
Oh my god how many hours awake. We got on the ferry, we thought early, but must actually have been one of the last few people on – we were one of the last few off. 7 hours later we crept off into over an hour’s queue for customs. Then we drove, drove and drove. At just after 1:30 we slid the key into our door lock, very tired and sad to be home, but glad to be in the comfort of our own bed.

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Despite the expense of Norway we brought back Austmann kaffe-porter (from Trondheim, apparently, and very nice), flatbrød (saving it at the moment) and, of course, Cloudberry jam (which is delish).

And y’know what, the whole experience was bloody amazing. My wife is so utterly awesome for organising it and tolerating my desire to visit a country 1000 miles away. More photos, as usual, here.

* As if to prove my point, on the way back on the ferry on one side of us were a couple of groups of English people, on the other side of a barrier, a number of groups of people from the Netherlands. When we went to get off the ferry I’ll leave it to your imagination to work out which side looked more or less like when we got on, and which side looked like a shit tip.
** Although I do vaguely wonder if we should have given it a bit more of a chance because people say its one of the world’s most beautiful cities. That said, I’ve looked at some of the photos and they are of places were were, and thought “that’s very pretty” – but I think it’s more of a we should have gone up to the viewing point thing, than perhaps needed to spend lots more time there.
*** Recommendations from them were: Silja sol (which I like but don’t adore), Aurora (not yet out), Highaskite (Excellent, wish I’d bought it), Razika – what I actually bought – ace indie/feminist all woman group. Well, dunno what they’re actually saying, but the woman recommended them and they sound cool.

KateWE

Kate's allegedly a human (although increasingly right-wing bigots would say otherwise). She's definitely not a vampire, despite what some other people claim. She's also mostly built out of spite and overcoming oppositional-sexism, racism, and other random bullshit. So she's either a human or a lizard in disguise sent to destroy all of humanity. Either way, she's here to reassure that it's all fine.