Picture Gallery - images of trip - NORWAY
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NORWAY : Images from left to right:
We landed in Stavanger after a 19 hour ferry trip from Newcastle in the UK. Stavanger is an historic port off the southwest coast of Norway and is quite a pleasant place to wander around, even though now days it owes much of its prosperity to the oil fields offshore; Heading from Stavanger to Burgen, we passed plenty of beautiful lakes, such as this near Voss, as well as spectacular fjords and used a number of ferrys.
BERGEN - the Fliobanen Funicular Railway to the top of Mt Floyen – about 2500' above the city and its fiord - for a great view over the area; The fish market down by the harbour sold not only fish, but souveniers, skins and hides; Viv picked out the dearest cap, of mink, at about Kr3500 (A$700)! she didn't get it; At the fish stalls you could buy anything from king crab ($66/kilo), crayfish, live fish, conger eels and big beautiful whole salmon to whale, which is a dark soft red meat almost like liver; Reindeer soft toys – very cute!!
We had a good stroll around the old heritage listed part of town – Bryggen – which sits close to the wharves. The buildings of the old town are all of timber as are the walkways amongst them; however the warped and twisted angles of the buildings supposedly only date back to the 1940s when an munitions ship blew up in the harbour lifting the roofs off the buildings and twisting the pylons; Neil & Ron pose beside a leather shop in the old town beside a very tatty old Moose.
GLACIERS & ICECAPS - Typical scenery of lakes and snow capped mountains; a lovely camp site; the Boyabreen glacier and its moraine lake, which is fed from the melting water from the glacier and the icecap. This glacier is part of the Jostedalsbreen Icecap which is the largest icecap in mainland Europe covering 487sqkm and up to 400metres thick in places.
A morning brew stop – not a bad backdrop; while having our cuppa, we were inundated with a large group of goats, who were obviously very used to humans and showed no hesitation in trying to see what they could find and eat; Just north of Hornindal we stopped at a wayside stop beside a river: Stoverstein, with a great view up the valley to a high ‘Matterhorn' type peak.
High Road to Trondheim
Driving through a high pass in the Reinheimen National Park - as we pushed higher up the road the snow was still two metres deep on the edge of the road; Norway is home to Trolls, and you can buy lots of them; we drove the road known as Trollstigveien or the ‘ Trolls Ladder' . There are 11 switchback in all, the road being built back in the 1930s and taking 8 years to build. It was truly awe inspiring; some say it is the most spectacular road in all of Europe – a fantastic drive!
On to Trondheim and visited the Nidaros Cathedral which was built in the late 11th Century and features a very impressive western wall that is adorned with life-size biblical characters along with Norwegian bishops and kings;
Crossing the Artic Circle - The Artic Circle at 66°33'N – what more would you expect but cold and raining; out little group with our vehicles beside the monument to the Artic Circle.
North of the Artic Circle we found a magic spot to bush camp. The bay was about 100 metres wide hemmed in by low granite rock headlands on each side where the white sands of the bay were washed by clear blue, near ice cold water; set up camp for a couple of nights and enjoyed a game of bochie on the beach in the evening.
TROMSO - the pretty city of Tromso . Headed off to the cable car – the Storsteinen Fjellheis up Mt Storsteinen which climbs 420 metre peak up to near the crest of the mountain just outside the city of Tromso. Our merry group at the top of Mt Storsteinen; Ron & Viv with the view of the city in the background.
Fish drying is a common sight along the shoreline; here the racks were full of fish hung out to dry; stopped at a Sami Village where Viv brought a reindeer skin from Risten Lango – a lovely lady who spoke very good English and was happy to tell you of her family's way of life and reindeer farming.
North Cape – we camped just a few kms from North Cape itself at the northernmost camp ground in the world in the small fishing village of Skarsvag; the final few kms to North Cape through the hills, with lots of reindeers around.
Once at North Cape, or NordKap as it is more properly known we headed for the final cliff and monument. We could only see about 50 metres at most but once at the cliff that is the spot, we poured our water that we had collected at Cape Agulhus in Africa (it was rotten and stunk!) over the 1000' cliffs – job completed, now for the next stage of our trip. Today there are over 200,000 visitors a year that come to this seemingly remote spot on the planet – we shared the car park with at least 50 motorhomes and at one point there were 16 tourist buses.
Rod & Kate did the long, ardous 18km round walk in mist and fog to the actual northernmost point.
Finland next for a week or so, and then Russian here we come!!
FINLAND - as ???.
