I didn't sleep all that well last night. Before I had got into a deep sleep we had docked at one of the overnight ports where the Hurtigruten vessels pull in to collect daily food supplies and make freight deliveries. Our cabin is very close to the gangways - both passenger and freight and for some reason, last night seemed noisier than previous nights. Still, little price to pay for being close to the excursion exit points - literally just outside our door.
When ships pass in the night (and in the day), there are three horns sounded from each vessel. Before you realise this, as the horns sound you start to count, waiting to hear for the evacuation alarm. Must admit, the first time was a bit alarming as we got to the sixth horn, until you realise that the second round of three blasts sounds different to the first three. Phew, no need to get wet!
The ship is in and out of open waters at the moment. You can immediately feel the change without even looking out the window. When we hit open waters, unprotected from islands, islets or rocks, the swell increase is quite noticeable.
We are back into the exploring today with two excursions. Firstly, we are headed for Bodø - the second largest town in northern Norway and home to 70,000 people.
Bodø lies just north of the Arctic Circle. It is also the end of the line for the Norwegian rail system.
Bodø was bombed in 1944 and assistance was provided by the Swedish government to rebuild parts of the ruined town. In return, the city now has a sector dubbed the Swedish quarter. Today, Bodø is a very fast growing town. There is very little manufacturing. Rather, it is a city of communications, access, tourism and learning. The 'high school' was granted university status a couple of years ago and is now home to 7,000 students.
There is a very noticeable amount of building and roadworks happening with new civic and private investment happening. Its a nice mix of traditional timber homes and modern high-rise apartments.
After our whirlwind drive through the streets of Bodø, we leave to drive 30 kms north to the point where we can observe the effects of the Saltstraumen current.
Our driver and guide Michael was obviously very proud of his home. As we boarded the bus, he handed out samples of Arctic Salt in rather unique little tins. This salt is harvested at Saltstraumen where the ocean currents rush into the fjord.
The Saltstraumen is the strongest tidal current in the world with water speeds reaching up to 22 knots. Up to 400,000,000 cubic metres of seawater forces its way through a 3 km wide strait every 6 hours! The Saltstraumen has existed for about 3,000 years. Depending on the conditions, there can be up to a 1 metre difference between the level of the seawater and that of the water inside the fjord. Today, we have arrived about halfway in to the turn of the tide and the Saltstraumen is just beginning to develop. If you look very closely, you can see eddies forming at the edge of the current. Too bad we are not 2 hours later when it would beat its peak. We are told of the maelstroms that can occur and the loss of life over the years. Michael was saying that only yesterday a small ship was pushed on to the rocks when it lost its engine. Both the crew and the ship were saved.
The scenery en-route is a little ho-hum - just kidding! Like the rest of the Norwegian coastline to now, it is a mix of towering mountains that plunge to the sea, small lakes and streams dotted with rocks and rocky outcrops and glacial plains that are farmed and settled.
The high mountains, like in other parts of the world are the cloud nurseries and we see clouds forming high in the mountain valleys. At times, they tumble over the ridges and cascade down the mountainside.
Out at sea,we can see squalls where it is raining in one view and in the next there is bright sunlight reflected so sharply that we need to squint while looking out the windows.
Back on board we have missed the lunch service. We could have had an early lunch, or
packed something to take with us, but all we seem to do is eat, so we chose not to have anything after a good breakfast this morning of eggs,sausage, pancake (pikelets) with jam and sweetened whipped butter, yoghurt and fruit. Instead, we head up to the cafe for a hot drink and the obligatory cake - today's afternoon delight! There are a number of points on board where you can have instant coffee or tea for nought, but personally, would prefer to pay and have the real deal!
We rug up a bit more for our next excursion - an evening journey for a taste of Viking life on the Lofoten Islands.
This trip we journeyed from Stamsund to Borg before continuing to the Lofotr Viking Museum. We are met at Stamsund by our guide Christian, dressed in Viking garb. He tells a good story in preparation for our visit to the local Chieftan's house - a fully restored full sized reconstruction of a traditional Viking home. Chieftan Olaf and his wife Olsen met us at the door. They then introduced us to some of the other members of the household including Olsen's sister - alive for 18 winters, and their slave who had been found by a local farmer as a baby and given to the chieftan when her own family came along. Picture a flamboyant Baldrick and you have him in one!
Into the banquet hall we file where we feasted on a traditional Viking meal of Lamb roasted on the fire, swedes, carrots, barley gruel, 'bread', sour cream and ligonberry conserve. The meat was cut with a knife, but the meal was eaten for the most part with your fingers - much to the chagrin of some of our fellow travellers! Served with goblets of mead and water. Every time something significant was said, it was time for a toast - a reverberating 'Skul' - and
then a hearty swig of the mead. They generously refilled the goblets of all those who partook a generous swig. True Aussies in style, we celebrated with the chieftan with gusto. Donna was one of the lucky ones who got to join in the dance at the end of the meal.
All too soon our visit was at an end. The ship had sailed on and we drove for just under an hour to reach it, now docked in Svolvær.
Tonight we are promised something special on the outside deck just before midnight - we are sailing in through the Trollfjord and in this narrow channel, you can almost reach out and touch the cliff walls on either side of the ship! Coupled with a moon hanging high in the sky over open water, it certainly made sitting up worth it. Too dark for a photo,but forever in our mind's eyes!
Another memorable day in a very memorable part of this beautiful world.
Day one of the ' Oh my god's '
Sunday in Oslo is quiet. If we thought that the centre of town was quiet on other days/nights, this morning was dead. Literally. Until we got to the railway station about 5 blocks away, we saw the sum total of three people!
The day began with a little scare. Instead of adding a block to our (read my) walk, we chose to go down the back exit which meant that Donna had to carry the suitcases down a flight of stairs. So far, so good. Get to the bottom of the stairs and open the heavy exit door, Donna carries the cases out, she is now outside the building and then just before the door closes behind me, we realise that the heavy, huge iron gates - you know the massive ones that you see at the opening of many historic buildings in Europe, were closed and locked with a padlock. All of them. On both sides of the building. Its about 07:25 am and the train goes in an hour. So I jam my foot in the door while Donna checks out the exit. Little scare, not a big one - there is an exit release - phew!!! Disaster averted.
The road is damp underfoot - it must have rained during the night, but the morning is clear and cool. Lugging our (getting heavier) suitcases it takes us about 15 minutes to walk to the station and get our bearings. And, thanks to Murphy's Law, our carriage is the furthest one out. We finally make the door, lug the suitcases up the steps and find a spot to store them in the luggage vestibule. As we move in to the carriage, we find it filled with the passengers of an Indian tour group AND four of them are in our seats.
One of them wanted an argument, but man, that wasn't going to happen. We stayed firm and it was only a couple of moments before the tour guide came and insisted that the four of them return to their allotted seats. He took one of the last two and just as the train was due to depart, in rushed the last passenger - Kimberly, a nurse from Venice Beach in California. We hit it off straight away and have made a new friend!
Both Donna and I feel that today really starts the trip of adventure - even though we have now been travelling for a week and seen and experienced some wonderful things.
Today we are doing a self-guided tour called Norway in a Nutshell. It involves five legs:
- train Oslo to Myrdal
- scenic train Myrdal to Flam
- boat cruise Flam to Gudvangen
- tour bus Gudvangen to Voss
- train Voss to Bergen.
The train departs Oslo smack on time at 08:25 am. It is not long out of the City Sentrum before we begin to encounter the working day for some, with farmers harvesting cauliflowers in the morning dew. Its not long before we find ourselves in bucolic scenes from some European folksong. The streams and rivers are bubbling alongside us in every shade of glacial blue and the open meadows morph into valleys between towering mountains. And yes, we do mean mountains, not the hillmountains we have back home.
And still we have the reach the real Oh. My. God. Scenery.
We pass by the Geitanosi glacier, near Finse where the snow scenes from Star Wars was filmed - the things you never knew! Finse is the highest railway station on the entire Norwegian railway system at only 1222 m!
And pass through tunnels before reaching Myrdal and changing for the the Flåm Line is a 20.2 km long railway line between Myrdal and Flåm in Aurland, Norway. A branch line of the Bergen Line, it runs through the valley of Flåmsdalen and connects the mainline with Sognefjord. The line's elevation difference is 866 meters; it has ten stations, twenty tunnels and one bridge. The steepest incline is 1:18 - and without cogs!
Even though the journey to Myrdal takes 4 hours, the time flies. As we pass Finse we see little huts hunkered down hugging the earth as if to protect themselves from the cold winters. Many have moss and alpine plants including flowers growing on their roof, like a blanket keeping in the warmth. Kimberly is not travelling to Flåm today, but going direct to Bergen so before we leave the train, we exchange contact details and make loose plans to catch up tomorrow in Bergen.
Crossing the platform takes us to the departure point for the Flåm railway. The Flåm railway is considered to be the world's most beautiful train journey and provides a panorama of some of the wildest and most magnificent mountain scenery in Norway at any time of the year. There are rivers carving their way through deep gorges, waterfalls leaping off steep mountainsides with snow-covered mountain peaks, as well as mountain
farms clinging tenaciously to steep slopes. Down at the bottom, you can enjoy the scenic cultural landscape of the Flåm Valley and admire the beautiful Aurlandsfjord. On the way, the train makes a stop to allow everyone to get off the train to take photos at the Kjosfossen Falls where the Hulda sang to lure us into the waters of the waterfall. Thankfully no-one succumbed!
We continue our journey down the valleys into Flåm railway station. The scenery is jaw-breakingly beautiful and the camera and our two phones get a massive workout today. If you want to see more of the photos, then ask us to put on a slide show for you when we get back!
At the end of the line, we have arrived at Flåm harbour. We have a chance to catch a breather here and meet three American sisters travelling together for the first time to visit their grandfather's birthplace near Bergen. We grabbed a coffee and an amazing Pistachio biscuits with chocolate and raisins. Crisp on the outside and chewy inside. It was the size of a bread and butter plate! Mmmmm.
Here we catch a Fjord cruise on Nærøyfjord with Fjord Norway. You know those times when you say that you couldn't get the whole vista in one photo? Well, up close this is what the scenery is like. Mountains tower over you and dwarf elfin little hamlets and villages with perfectly manicured lawns right to the water's edge, surrounded by untamed brutality of the mountains and thundering waterfalls (nice description Donna). Everywhere you look is another view down another finger of a gorge or a fjord. It really is an oh. my. god. day.
The two hour trip is done all too soon and we dash for a bus that will take us up and over the mountain into Voss. We head out the only road into the Gudvangen harbour and then the coach pauses before the driver turns off the perfectly good double lane road on to the old highway that was the only access until 1981 for traffic in both directions. This is a very steep mountain pass road with 11 switchbacks immediately one after the other. The bus creeps down most of it in low gear doing about 10 kph. Which is good for anybody wanting photos of the stunning mountain peaks or waterfalls (if you can get a clear view while staying seated in a seatbelt, and vying for window space with your seat partner. Behind us are the other two buses that met the cruise boat. If one goes,it is likely that we will all go!
Soon enough, we reach the bottom and rejoin the new highway for the remainder of the trip in to Voss where we clamber over makeshift steel and planking walkways to the train for our last leg of the day. Old Murphy obviously thought he had tortured us enough for one day as on the final train trip down to Bergen we are in the second car. We are travelling through increasing urban areas, although still manage to go through two ski resorts, one complete with Ski Jump. We pass through a multitude of tunnels and by the way our ears are popping, we are dropping in altitude rapidly. In 90 minutes we reach Bergen arriving right on 9 pm, 13 hours after we left Oslo this morning. A distance of 463.9 km in the most direct route and 7 hours by car. And do you know, I would not have changed a thing.
The hotel doesn't have a restaurant but we passed the fish markets about a block and a half back so Donna heads out to get some fish and chips. The prawns are tiny, frozen and $65 AUD per kilo. Crab claws were $100 kg and the king crab,well there wasn't even a price on them and you know the saying that if you have to ask the price you can't afford it.
Lovely fresh white fish (but quite bland) and chips that the seagulls back home would refuse, but washed down with a bottle of Italian Chardonnay, worked a treat. Was definitely a better $60 spend on the wine than the same cost for the takeaway meal! Meanwhile, Bergen by night looks lovely and everything we have read of the old port area sounds intriguing. Some exploring early tomorrow, perhaps a catch up with Kimberley before we board the Kong Harald to sail north later in the day. How exciting!
The ship is in and out of open waters at the moment. You can immediately feel the change without even looking out the window. When we hit open waters, unprotected from islands, islets or rocks, the swell increase is quite noticeable. 
We are back into the exploring today with two excursions. Firstly, we are headed for Bodø - the second largest town in northern Norway and home to 70,000 people. 
Bodø was bombed in 1944 and assistance was provided by the Swedish government to rebuild parts of the ruined town. In return, the city now has a sector dubbed the Swedish quarter. Today, Bodø is a very fast growing town. There is very little manufacturing. Rather, it is a city of communications, access, tourism and learning. The 'high school' was granted university status a couple of years ago and is now home to 7,000 students. 
The Saltstraumen is the strongest tidal current in the world with water speeds reaching up to 22 knots. Up to 400,000,000 cubic metres of seawater forces its way through a 3 km wide strait every 6 hours! The Saltstraumen has existed for about 3,000 years. Depending on the conditions, there can be up to a 1 metre difference between the level of the seawater and that of the water inside the fjord. Today, we have arrived about halfway in to the turn of the tide and the Saltstraumen is just beginning to develop. If you look very closely, you can see eddies forming at the edge of the current. Too bad we are not 2 hours later when it would beat its peak. We are told of the maelstroms that can occur and the loss of life over the years. Michael was saying that only yesterday a small ship was pushed on to the rocks when it lost its engine. Both the crew and the ship were saved.
The high mountains, like in other parts of the world are the cloud nurseries and we see clouds forming high in the mountain valleys. At times, they tumble over the ridges and cascade down the mountainside.
This trip we journeyed from Stamsund to Borg before continuing to the Lofotr Viking Museum. We are met at Stamsund by our guide Christian, dressed in Viking garb. He tells a good story in preparation for our visit to the local Chieftan's house - a fully restored full sized reconstruction of a traditional Viking home. Chieftan Olaf and his wife Olsen met us at the door. They then introduced us to some of the other members of the household including Olsen's sister - alive for 18 winters, and their slave who had been found by a local farmer as a baby and given to the chieftan when her own family came along. Picture a flamboyant Baldrick and you have him in one!
