Waterfalls, Tolls, and Trolls!

We’ve had a fantastic couple of weeks seeing the best of the Norwegian fjords between Stavanger and Trondheim. We’ve split this into two posts; the second of which is coming soon!

We were all pretty knackered after the long walks we’d done in the previous week....


...so we hopped on a ferry at Tau and headed to Stavanger. The town is perhaps most famous for two things; sardines and oil (that’s the thick black stuff, not the stuff you put on your salad!)


The story of deep sea oil and gas exploration in Norway is an intriguing one. Oil was first discovered under the North Sea in 1969 and, having used some of the profits to develop the country’s infrastructure and pay off the national debt, the government started saving up.

The fund will provide pensions and healthcare for future generations of Norwegians and it now stands at a whopping $450 billion!! Norway is one of the world’s richest nations, one of the biggest investors, and one of the biggest producers of fossil fuels.


The petroleum museum in Stavanger is very interesting but it’s a little ‘rose-tinted’. Some sections are sponsored by the likes of BP and Statoil (the government oil company) and want to tell you just how great oil is.

In quite a contrast to this, we really enjoyed the little Canning Museum. Based in an old sardine cannery in Gamle Stavanger (the old town), the museum takes you through the whole process of preparing, smoking and canning. With thousands of little rubber fish standing in for the real things, you don’t even have the smell to deal with!

We really enjoyed Stavanger with its busy little harbour and narrow cobbled streets of colourful wooden buildings.


Moving north we headed towards Sorfjord, one of the branches off Hardangerfjord, passing some quite spectacular waterfalls on the way - the first of many!

This is a picture of Langfossen, the 5th highest waterfall in Norway, where the water drops 612 metres. To get an idea of scale, look closely for the road bridge at the bottom of the waterfall.


Having passed the dual waterfalls of Latefossen....


..we took a slight detour to climb up to the Buerbreen glacier. It was a great walk with a number of steep sections that had ropes attached so you could haul yourself up!




We spent a couple of days exploring the tiny villages around Hardangerfjord.

Eidfjord was a pleasant but rather quiet place. The nearby Voringsfossen waterfalls were impressive, as was the view from Kjeasen Farm, a very isolated place perched high on the mountainside. It’s a shame it was a bit grey and rainy at that point so we couldn’t fully appreciate it.




After a quick stop at Steinsdalfossen near Norheimsund, a 50 metre-high waterfall that you can walk behind, we found ourselves in Bergen.


There are quite a few toll roads in Norway. In most cases you drive straight through and either pay at a petrol station, through an online account, or you receive an invoice in the post. We’re on a budget and although it’s impossible to completely avoid the toll roads (in most cases there are no other options), we are trying to minimise their use.

So it was a little... well, let’s say ‘frustrating’ to find ourselves a bit lost in Bergen; going round in circles and passing under the toll cameras several times!!

Our guide book says it rains, often relentlessly, 260 days a year in Bergen! So you can imagine our surprise to be there in glorious sunshine. We made the most of it and spent a good few hours wandering.

Bryggen is the most popular area of the city. The former dock, which was an important trading port of the Hanseatic League, is the quintessential Norwegian image. The buildings are lucky to still be around as the city council wanted to tear them down after a fire in 1955. It was only after important archaeological remains were found that the colourful wooden buildings were given a reprieve.



Later that day we took the funicular railway up the hill behind the city to see the amazing view.


Every country has its own particular line in tourist tat. It’s black cabs and double deckers in London, bulls and sombreros in Spain, and in Norway it’s mini moose and trolls! You see them everywhere. The best known mythical character from Norwegian traditional folk tales is the troll; known to live under bridges and harass billy goats. See if you can spot the troll in this particular picture...


Oh, and there’s a moose in this picture...


After a good night’s sleep in a little spot on the hillside behind Bergen, we headed north. But not before we'd passed under another of the city's bloody toll cameras!

One Church, One Pulpit, and The Fear Of God!!

God dag!

Greetings from Stavanger on Norway’s west coast. We can’t tell you a great deal about it as we’ve only just got here, but we wanted to share some photos with you from the last couple of days.


From Oslo we headed first to the wooden stave church at Heddal. Although this is the biggest of Norway’s 28 stave churches, it’s still very cute and not as big as you might imagine.


Driving north we then reached the town of Rjukan. We came here specifically to climb Gausta, a peak sold to us in our guidebook as one of the best in this part of the country. It certainly didn’t disappoint!


You can apparently see one sixth of Norway from the top of Gausta on a clear day. We didn’t hold out much hope of seeing anything at all when we first set out as the top was completely hidden by low cloud.


After stopping for lunch near the summit, the cloud suddenly lifted and we were greeted by the most amazing views.


To reach the true summit (which isn't where the antenna is on the photos) you have to clamber along a rocky ridge with steep drops on either side. Friends, family and regular readers may already know that Alex suffers from somewhat severe vertigo, so it made for an interesting hour!


We managed quite well to start with, lifting the dog over some of the more precarious bolders, and trying hard not to look down! But in the end it got just a bit too hairy for us and we decided to turn back about 100 metres from the top. Nevertheless, it was a great walk and one we won’t forget in a hurry!


The 3 hour drive south towards Jorpeland took us through some breathtaking scenery. It would be a major tourist draw in any other country, but it's par for the course in Norway.


Later that day we set out on the two hour walk up to one of Norway’s most photographed sights; Pulpit Rock. This square lump of rock protrudes from the side of a mountain. It has a flat top, but on three sides there’s nothing but a 604 metre drop straight down to the waters of Lysefjord.




Alex nearly had a heart attack watching people sit with their legs dangling over the edge. David peering over the edge didn’t help matters either (sorry Linda – there was no stopping him!)


Again, the views from the top are stunning and if you ever get the chance to visit, it’s worth going in the late afternoon when most of the hoards have gone.


And that brings you right up to date, with us enjoying a bright sunny evening by the sea near Stavanger.

Incidentally, we’re no longer aiming for the Arctic Circle by the 21st June. There’s just too much we want to see and there’s no point in rushing through it.

Next stop - Odda and Hardangerfjord.

Oh and by the way, that wine box that cost us about £1.50 in Spain; £30 here. Yes you did read that right - £30!!

Ha det!


View Oslo to Stavanger, Norway in a larger map

Speed Bumps, Ski Jumps, and Bird Dumps!

We will be exploring Denmark on our journey south towards the end of the summer, so we whizzed straight through on our march north. We didn’t even have time to pick up a pastry! It’s all about national stereotypes here I’m afraid!


We spent a lovely night by Frederiksborg Slot in Hillerod (‘slot’ is Danish for castle), and pressed on to Helsingor to catch the 20 minute ferry over to Helsingborg in Sweden.


Our first major destination was Gothenburg. Unfortunately the thing we’ll remember most about Sweden’s second city is the UNBELIEVABLY expensive campsite we stayed at; £42 for one night! And they kicked you out by 11am the next morning – grrr! Of course we should have done an about turn as soon as we were told the price but it was late, raining, and we needed to do the laundry!


If the bicycle reigns supreme in the Netherlands then the estate car is king in Sweden. Every third vehicle we passed was either a Saab or a Volvo. It’s great to see the national car manufacturers so well supported at home. How many of us bought a Rover?!!


The Bohuslän coast north of Gothenburg is famous for the tiny granite islands and little traditional fishing villages that pepper the coast right up to the Norwegian border.


We kicked off by walking around Marstrand, the prettiest of the islands and made even more so by the fantastic weather we had.




There are literally thousands of islands along this stretch of coast. Some are connected to the mainland by bridges, but many are only reached by ferry. In one hour long journey we had to catch three ferries, one of which only travelled around 100 metres!



We spent a few days exploring and fell in love with the area which is full of little brown fishing huts, racks of cod hanging out to dry, and beautiful public swimming areas (the water was still just a bit too chilly for us!)




As we got towards the Norwegian border we had a slight issue with a speed bump.

Warning signs in most places are red, but for some reason in Sweden they use their national colours of blue and yellow. This might explain why David didn’t see the speed bump and took it at about 30 miles an hour! All the books flew off the shelf, the bathroom cupboard emptied onto the floor, and the bag of charcoal that’s normally kept on the bike rack landed in the middle of the road. We only know this last part because we found it 10 minutes later when we drove back up the same way!!

You’re not supposed to bring any fresh food into Norway, so we held our breath at customs hoping not to be stripped of our contraband cucumber and bananas!

Safely through, and after a couple of quick stops at Halden and Fredrikstad, we headed to the little town of Drobak which sits on the shores of Oslofjord (the fjord that stretches up to Oslo funnily enough!)

At Drobak we caught the passenger ferry out to Oscarsborg fortress which lies on a couple of little islands in the middle of Oslofjord. It’s famous in Norway as the fortress that sank the German battleship Blucher as it headed for the capital in April 1940. Delaying the advancing German army gave the royal family and government time to flee abroad, and the commander in charge that day is now a national hero.


Having only been the capital city since 1905, Oslo doesn’t really have the great number of historical buildings found in other major capitals. However, the new Opera house on the waterfront is outstanding– a stunning building that’s supposed to resemble a giant iceberg.



One thing the city does very well is museums. We’re not ones to spend a lot of time in museums, but when a good slice of them are free – why not!

The National Gallery houses one of the 6 versions of the Scream painted by Munch (another national hero), and the Museum of Modern Art has some quite... well, bizarre but interesting installations.


The Viking Ship Museum houses three impressive 9th century boats which were discovered buried in the Oslofjord region. They were used as tombs for rich Vikings which explains why they are so well preserved despite their age. It’s amazing to think just how far the Vikings travelled in these boats; from the Mediterranean to North America.


The Vigeland Sculpture Park is crammed full of 212 works by Gustav Vigeland. He was still working on the park when he died, 20 years after he started. The bronze human figures are amazing, but the monolith in the centre is quite spectacular, a writhing mass of naked human bodies.


The Nobel Peace Prize is awarded in Oslo every year, and the Nobel Peace Centre provides a huge amount of information on previous winners. It’s a thought provoking museum that has a number of good interactive elements.

Our final stop before leaving Oslo was the Holmenkollen Ski Jump and Ski Museum in the hills a few kilometres from the city centre. You can take a lift to the top of the ski jump for some fantastic views of the city and the fjord beyond.



We liked it so much we stayed the night!!


We had a great time in Oslo, but we did have a couple of less positive moments. Our bike lights were stolen one night while we were in the pub, and the next day Alex took a direct hit from a passing.... well, it must have been an albatross!