Scandanavian Journey Part 1 Forums

labbad

!0th to 13th June
Boarded the Irish Ferries ship the Isle of Inishmore in Rosslare heading for Pembroke in Wales at around 7:30 a.m.. It's about a four hour trip and the sea was calm so it was a very pleasant crossing.
I was surprised to discover that diesel is about one pound Stirling a litre which worked out at about €1.47 a litre compared to Ireland.
I picked out a campsite at Tuxford about halfway to the Port of South Shields in Newcastle upon Tyne, so on the Saturday morning I headed north. It was my first time working with coordinates on the sat nav and it worked out very well, I arrived at a lovely campsite. The campsite has wireless Internet access, my laptop I discovered is missing some software and I was unable to access the Internet. This was unfortunate as I had intended finding a campsite in Stavanger in Norway when I arrived there. This turned out not to be a problem at any rate as I had enough reading material to locate a campsite from the book supplied by Scandinavian camping company.
I got up on the Sunday morning at around 9 a.m. attempted to boil my small electric kettle with my new inverter which I bought from eBay it is supposedly a one thousand watt with two thousand watt peak, it nearly freaked out when I plugged in my little electric kettle. Made my cup of tea on the gas and had my breakfast.
At around 11 a.m. I headed for Newcastle and reached the docks at South Shields at about 2:40 p.m. miles ahead of time, I had a long day hanging around waiting for the boat, which I boarded at around 11 p.m.. The camper was searched by a very polite customs official whom I had a good chat with about diving in west Cork. His main concern was that I did not have anybody else hidden in the camper.
Having boarded the vessel I headed for my cabin, it was an internal cabin, that is there were no windows/ports the cabin itself was okay it had a bathroom with shower, it was functional. The biggest drawback I found was the heat, which I could not control. However despite this I eventually got to sleep and was in no hurry to get up the following day. Needless to say when I did get up and go for something to eat the food was outrageously expensive, but that was not unexpected.
In Stavanger having disembarked I headed for Stavanger camping to spend the night. It was in a lovely location but the campsite was a bit of a disaster. There were no marked stands everyone was higgledy-piggledy parked on wet grass, I couldn't get connected to electricity which was no great loss in the circumstances. But I was a bit worried about getting out of there in the morning so parked carefully and had no trouble.
I woke at the ungodly hour of 5:30 a.m. and decided to make an early start. The campsite while not quite in the middle of the city was surrounded by city and I decided that driving on the left as a beginner that the quiet of the early morning might be the best time to make a move after a quick cup of tea I headed out. I was quite nervous at the start but quickly got into the run of things. I headed north and got my first baptism of Norway's favourite pastime which seems to be "digging tunnels". There were two tunnels going under a fjord the first is the deepest underwater tunnel in the world it just seemed to go down forever my ears popped. They were not the longest tunnels I encountered but they certainly were an eye opener. Shortly after the second tunnel I had my first experience on another Norwegian standard transport method which is the car ferry, especially going up the west coast between all the little islands and head lands. A 25 minute crossing cost around €17.
Travelled through beautiful countryside not dissimilar to what you would find in West Cork, Kerry and up the west coast of Ireland.
Stopped at a supermarket and bought the makings of sandwiches. Bought a packet of cooked ham which had the delightful name of "skinke" and some rolls and had a grand lunch.
I had left Ireland with over euro 40 credit on my phone this was reduced to around 10 euro with very little effort in around a week of roaming with Meteor, with over a month in Norway still facing me I decided to try and buy a Norwegian SIM card for my phone. I had heard that Norwegian SIM cards have to be registered so you must have a local address. However this did not turn out to be totally correct, the sim card has to be registered, but you can register it with your passport as a visitor registration. I met two local girls who worked in a Shell filling station they both spoke perfect English and were extremely helpful. They translated the registration form for me and helped me fill it in, they then faxed the form to the relevant authority, and in about 20 minutes I had my new SIM card which cost me around €10. I also had 250 NK credit which is a little over 30 euro which lasted me right up to the week before I returned home five weeks later.
This brings up another point everyone in Norway from the youngest to eldest spoke English, when I asked the two girls about this they informed me that they start to learn English from the time they are four to five years of age, this made life very easy for me.
So having been fed with skinke sandwiches and with my new phone number I again headed north towards a town called Odda which I had decided would be my first stop on the road.
The second half of my first day in Norway set the scene for rest of the holiday I will never forget the journey to 0dda it was without doubt breathtakingly beautiful as snow-capped mountains, magnificent waterfalls and a fjord with the water so blue it was hard to believe, all unfolded before my eyes. I wrote earlier about how impressive the first two tunnels were but can now tell you they were puny compared to the tunnels I travelled through on the second-half of the day.
I reached 0dda at around three thirty and found the campsite Odda Camping without any bother thanks to the sat nav. It was a lovely site at the head of a fjord named Sarfjorden surrounded by mountains, right beside the sea. I discovered that my electric cable had the wrong connections for Norway which use the two pin system rather than the more usual three pin system. However the campsite owner most obliging lent to me a short lead with a two pin plug at one end and the three pin plug at the other end which allowed me to connect to the electricity outlet, he also before I left the following morning sold me the lead for around eight euro, this sorted my problem for the rest of the holiday.
Cooked up dinner spuds, pork chops and a turnip that my son Brian had put in the camper for a laugh. Got to bed early as I was knackered after my first day which I was delighted with.
The problem with going to bed early is one has the tendency of waking very early also, so after a cup of tea and a slice or two of bread I started on the road at 7:40 a.m.. The road wound along beside the fjord for about 40 miles it was absolutely beautiful. However the road was quite narrow and I met quite a few articulated lorries and tourist buses coming against me at speed I found this a little nerve wracking and the cause of a few skidmarks which were not necessarily on the road surface. Having reached the end of the road beside the fjord I hung a right at Vansbygd and headed towards Bjorkestolen which was my next choice of a campsite to spend the night, my journey for the day amounted to around 160 miles. Anyway I'm getting ahead of myself having turned right at Vansbygd the road started climbing up into the mountains. This was a total contrast to the earlier scenery it now started to become rugged and rough, raging torrents of rivers with massive volumes of water, waterfalls by the score and snow in all directions. There were 10 to 15 foot drifts of snow on both sides of the road, both sides of the road were also marked with 15 to 16 foot long bamboo sticks these were used to mark the sides of the road for the snowploughs. These mountains are not extraordinarily high I am talking about between 3000 and 4000 feet high at the most.
The campsite at Bjorkestolen was again very pretty beside a river, it was well packed with what seemed to be permanent accommodation there weren't too many of the mobile homes or caravans occupied.

autostratus · Moderator

FWIW I've already had the privilege of reading the full account of this journey.
I hope others get as much pleasure from the read as I did.

Thank you for sharing it with us Brendan,

StAubyns

Thank you, look forward to reading about the rest of your journey

Geoff

LPDrifter

Sounds like you are having a grand time.
I have been to Norway a few times on business and loved it every time.
It is a goal for me to travel there in the MH.

So looking forward to reading more about your trip Smile