Fjords, Friends and Fjords

Look harder Simba!

Hoping you can see what we were trying to do there…

When discussing how to introduce Norway to this blog post, Shelley started listing experiences such as hiking, camping, fantastic scenery and water… then Marty asked "What about $25 bridge tolls, $6 cans of beer from the supermarket and petrol for $2.50/L?"

Norway is an expensive country to travel in but we both agree that the experiences more than pay it back.  Before visiting Norway we popped into London to catch up with some good friends.

London

We stayed at an Airbnb in Fulham, conveniently close to Brooke and Matt's house. We caught up with Brooke, Matt and Bec for dinner and drinks and then again on the weekend for what was clearly a 'boys' day and a 'girls' day.  Marty and Matt watched Oxford vs Cambridge at Lords before heading to the pub for pints, while Shelley and the girls hit the shops for a day of retail therapy.

Oxford vs. Cambridge at Lords

Dessert at the Cereal Killer Cafe in Shoreditch - delicious!

Marty was reunited with his uni friends, which resulted in some solid chemistry discussions at the Euston Tap (Shelley was well out of her league)… We started with a couple of pints at the Doric Arms which was also where our 'Escape Room' started.  This one was a bit different in that clues were hidden in the pub and then a park - in full view of the public meaning we were unable hide our nerdiness.  Happily, the bomb was disarmed with 10 minutes to spare and London was saved!

Bomb successfully disarmed

One of the more appropriate photos from the evening…

Norway

It's going to be tough to convey just how beautiful/inspiring/fantastic our Norway trip was.  We feel our photos don't do it justice and Marty has now started an online digital photography course and is looking into DSLR cameras so we don't have this problem again!

We began in Oslo with beautiful sunny days of ~25 degrees.  We took full advantage of this by borrowing our Airbnb hosts' bikes and riding to the Bygdoy Peninsula and the Vigeland statue park as well as going for a run along the nearby river.

On our way to the peninsula

Viking Ship at the Viking Museum on the peninsular

Vigeland Statue Park

Oslo's Opera House (the architecture is meant to be on par with  Sydney Opera House)

From Oslo we took one the world's most scenic train rides to Bergen - it did not disappoint!  Our Bergen Airbnb hosts, Linn and Tom, were fantastic!  They invited us to a BBQ (called a 'Grill' in Norway) on their deck and we enjoyed a game of Ludo, along with many gin and tonics.

Ludo on the balcony at Tom and Linn's

We learnt a favourite Norwegian saying;

"It's not the fart that kills, it's the smell..."

- it works on two levels because in Norwegian 'fart' means 'speed' and 'smell' means 'crash/impact.'

Bryggen

Linn took us, her 9yo nephew, Nicholas, and their King Charles Cavalier, Sarah, for a hike up the mountain closest to their home.  We were impressed to see Nicholas snacking on caviar and brown cheese (Norwegian cheese) with crackers... we haven't even tried caviar!  Tom and Linn even let us stay an extra night (free of charge!) while they were away at Pulpit Rock.  We look forward to returning the favour when they visit Australia in the future...

Hiking with Linn

Views from the Vidden hike (~8hr hike)

We hired an Audi A1 from Bergen and headed to Ulvik to stay on a family run organic farm.  Another beautiful location!!  The house had a great view of Hardangerfjord and this was where Marty spotted someone wake boarding on the fjord! What excitement! He had all but given up on wake boarding in a fjord and we rushed to the visitor centre to see if it could be done.  Alas! It was 30 minutes away from finishing up and we missed out.  Despite our best efforts, no more wake boarding opportunities were identified for the rest of the trip.

Spotted! Wakeboarding on the fjord

The Airbnb owners, Katinka, Grzegorz and their 4 month old daughter, Solei, are passionate about organic farming and we enjoyed learning the effects of politics and weather on farming in Norway.  They prepared us delicious vegetarian dinners using some of their produce, and meals were shared with the two volunteer farm hands; one from Kent and one from Sweden.  

Homemade organic dinner with a view!

Playing a Norwegian game with wooden blocks.  Soon to come to BBQs around Australia!

So many hugs from Eric (the Swede) - a hug (sometimes two hugs) for every block knocked over

Eric is studying to be a woodwind teacher and performed for us on his clarinet

We used Ulvik as our base for the Troltunga hike…  We had read on TripAdvisor reviews that this hike was HARD!!!  It was quite steep at the beginning but the hardest thing for us Aussies was the snow!  Many people we had overtaken while walking up the hill practically flew past us once we hit the snow.

Fresh water everywhere!

Snow on the hike to Troltunga

The trail was quite muddy and we were doing well to keep our feet dry… until about 10 minutes from the end Marty (after recently telling Shelley to tread lightly) jumped off rocks onto the snow and ended up knee deep in freezing cold water… luckily he had come prepared with a spare pair of socks (we learnt that from you Phil Sharman!).

Troltunga (Troll's Tongue) - totally worth the hike and the $70 in tolls and parking

From Ulvik we made our way to Lom which is near Jotunheimen National Park, home to the famous Besseggen hike.  We stayed in a gorgeous hytte, which was the size of a cubby house and came with many warnings from previous guests about hitting your head on the entrance.

Our hytte - so cute, with traditional grass on the roof

We were extra careful and thought we'd be the first not to bump our heads! Unfortunately Marty knocked his noggin' on the morning of our last day 

Climbing down the Besseggen Ridge (top) and the ridge from below (bottom)

Made it down the ridge and the view is fantastic

The main hike finished - time for a sweet treat!

We added another 3 hours of hiking to our day by taking this trail back to town instead of the ferry

That water though!! Cannot get enough of it!

From Lom we headed north for the popular tourist drive: the Atlantic Ocean Road.  We stayed at a farm in Farstad and Monika (the owner) worked as a chiropractor and physiotherapist for horses.  She was kind enough to take (a very excited) Shelley out for a ride on one of her Lipizzans.

Happy to be back in the saddle!

Riding along the beach

Geirangerfjord - the 'most grand' although they are all spectacular in their own way.

Atlantic Ocean Road

We met up with Mike and Matt in Voss and prepared ourselves (over a bottle of Captain Morgans) for the three day kayaking/hiking/camping adventure that we had booked from Gudvangen.

Drinks on the deck

Gear on and ready to paddle

Survived the first day

Collecting wood for the fire

Nice camp site

So good to have a campfire! (this is as dark as it got)

This tour was oarsome (we crack ourselves up). The tour was made especially for our group of 4 and our guide, Shannen, was from New Zealand and had actually been in Norway less time than us!  Norwegian guides are hard to come by as everyone takes the summer off for their own adventures.

Have we mentioned the water?

Marty setting the record breaking pace for the hike on day two.

The sheep were quite curious and friendly

More snow!

View from the top...

Luckily the cloud lifted a little and we had a glimpse of how it could look

The boys testing the water… Marty quickly understood why wake boarding is not so popular in Norway and has decided not to pursue the business plan

Our group broke a number of records, namely; 

• the fastest hike,
• the first to have their tent put in a tree (a practical 'joke' from the American couple  from the 'other group')
• the most bottles of wine drunk in one night (9 after we scored 6 from the other group for the 'tent in a tree' incident) and finally…
• the first to have someone capsize their kayak (this was a special effort by Matt, proving his ongoing commitment to breaking records)

S'mores!

Kelfie!

Matt breaking records for the team...

Executing the 'rescue'

A short note on Norwegian roads…

• 100km does not mean a 1hr drive… it will take at least 2 hours.  We had planned to go as far as Tromso, but this was 1600km from Bergen and we quickly learnt this would not make for an enjoyable trip
• Their tunnels are impressive.  When saw our first 7km we fairly impressed… when saw an 11km tunnel there were more exclamations… and when we saw a 25km tunnel we were lost for words.  Driving through a 25km tunnel however does get boring.
• Not only are the tunnels long, they have fancy neon-blue roundabouts with up to four exits!
• Mountain passes and fjord-side roads are windy and skinny.  We were caught in a 2 hour traffic jam in the mountains because buses were unable to pass each other (and tourists unknowingly stopping where there is no room to pass).  It required some serious co-ordination between bus drivers and tourists to make everyone reverse back up the mountain so the buses could drive to a section of road with enough room to pass each other.
• Often the best way to get around a fjord is to take the ferry across - this saves many hours of driving!

Impressive roundabouts and tunnels

Traffic jam in the mountains

We have safely arrived in Colombia and are adjusting to the change in culture and cost.  It looks like we will spend almost two months here, so, rather than waiting until the end we will post a Colombian update (prepared by Marty!) in a few weeks.  Hasta luego amigos!