Day 8 – Stockholm to Olso, Norway
Rather long bus day. Google says it is over 500km.
We arrived fairly late. One of the girls had a painting she wanted to see at an art gallery. It wasn’t open on Day 9 and was closing pretty soon after we arrived so when we arrived she went straight to the gallery.
Tour manager put all the people continuing on from Oslo in one lot of rooms and people finishing in Oslo, plus me as there wasn’t room with the continuing people, together in another lot, more or less.
Bit of time to settle in etc then we walked to a restaurant for tea. Pretty good food and restaurant. Bit of a walking tour to the opera house afterwards to see the sun set from its roof. If you are going to do one of those jumping photos off the roof wall be very careful how you land. You don’t want to stuff your foot and spend the next few weeks limping (no it wasn’t me).
Day 9 – Olso
Included breakfast at the hotel next door. Then off in the bus to the Holmenkollbakken Ski Jump and The Vigeland Sculpture Park (competition for the best recreation of the sculptures). Then on to the optional Viking Ship Museum. Then to the, again optionals, Fram Polarship and Kon Tiki Museums. I did the Viking and Fram Polarship museums, skipping the Kon Tiki one.
We had the rest of the day free to explore. Lots of walking around.
For tea one of the group found a restaurant to check out. After the fairly long walk to it (although since we were in a group it didn’t seem that long) they didn’t really like the look of it or something like that. I just went back to the Burger King we’d past and got a burger etc that I ate on the walk back to the hostel.
In Oslo about half of our group was replaced (people finishing in Oslo left and people starting in Oslo joined).
That night we walked to organised hello/goodbye drinks to say goodbye to the people leaving in Oslo and hello to the people joining.
Day 10 – Oslo to Andalsnes
Breakfast in the hotel next door again and then the last lot of goodbyes before heading off to Ã…ndalsnes via Lillehammer township and then its bobsled.
All but two of us did the optional bobsled ride. I did it last time and once was enough for me. Our tour manger couldn’t wait to ride it again and most people got out of the bobsled at the end with huge smiles on their faces.
We had lunch at the bobsled track, hotdogs. Lots of choices of stuff to add in. Yummy.
Then off to our campsite via a stave church.
At the campsite we got a lesson in setting up the cook tent. It was set up on a grassy patch behind a small amenities (toilets etc) block. Earlier we divided up into groups. The tasks of helping with breakfast and tea were rotated through the groups. When it was your group’s turn the group was further divided into helping with the preparation or helping with the clean up. As my preparation skills are basically zero I always helped with the clean up. Clean up was only for the preparation etc stuff. Everybody washed, rinsed and dried their own plates and utensils etc. The air dry method of just flapping everything around with great vigour until it was dry was used.
The cabins had a small living room/kitchen with a bedroom out the back with 2 (I think) bunks (so 4 people per cabin). They had power, heat and water. Bedding (no towels) was provided, I got the impression it wasn’t always. Toilets and showers were in the amenity blocks. There was a small one near reception where we set up the cook tent (just toilets and a kitchen wash room (and a dump station so when cleaning up the cook tent use the kitchen wash room NOT the dump station 🙂 ) I think and the main one was in the other direction. Hot water for the showers was by tokens where each token was 5min which were purchasable with cash or card from reception. Reception wasn’t open 24/7 so if you are going to shower when it isn’t open make sure you get the tokens while it is open.
Day 11 – Ã…ndalsnes/Geirangerfjord
Big day of scenery. I have the timings noted down as 6:45 for breakfast and 07:30 departure. Via the Trolls Pass to a cruise on Geirangerfjord. 2 small ferries plus the one long one on the fjord.
After the cruise we had a stop for lunch, jacket/baked potato with numerous options to mix/put in with the spud (and some little yummy muffins afterwards).
We had a good long stop at the top of Trolls Pass on the way back. My understanding on the timings for the day depends on which ferries the group gets booked on. The way we got worked quite well.
My notes say we were expected back at camp around 16:30. Not sure what I did between then and tea (at 19:30 apparently). I think some people went for a walk up a nearby hill. Some got a ride in the bus to the start of the walk (I think he was doing a fuel run). One person didn’t and was very, very late back. We were pretty sure he had a working cellphone with him, but nobody knew how to contact him on it. He did turn up eventually, but, yeah useful if you (or at least somebody in the group) can be contacted if you are out and might be late back.
Sunrise at 03:40, sunset 23:15.
Day 12 – Andalsnes to Steinkjer
Off to the next place. Couple of stops along the way. This was the first stop that didn’t have bedding so we used our sleeping bags. The cabins had power, heating, and water. They were up the top of a hill, toilets and showers where at the bottom of the hill under the reception. I don’t remember what the showers cost, they might have been free. There was a laundry but it was closed while we were there.
Had a small bonfire on the beach.
Day 13 – Steinkjer to Bjerka
No cook tent set up at this site as they had an undercover area we could use. Supermarket short walk away. Not really anything else around. Two quite different types of cabins. One fully self contained with toilet, shower and TV. The other had power and heating and that was about it (that we would use anyway). I had one of the basic ones. There was a laundry, machines took local coins if I remember correctly. Showers in the amenities block, if like me you were in one of the basic cabins, also took local coins. And only local coins. One of the guys showers was out of action as one of our group tried to put a different country’s coin in (by accident) and it jammed. Each coin gave you a pretty short time of hot water, 10NOK = 2 minutes. We used a lot of hot water cleaning up after tea, but the showers were pretty stingy on the hot water. I don’t really use cash so didn’t really have much in the way of coins but thankfully other people did and were usually fairly generous about sharing out coins for things like showers etc. I guess it was kinda off season as we seemed to be about the only people there. Even the camp manager only seemed to be there for a short while some time after we arrived and then was gone. Obviously used my sleeping bag again.
Day 14 – Bjerka to Tysfjor
Very early departure, 06:30. So we collected our breakfast to eat on the bus later. Off to walk to the Svartisen glacier. Bus to boat. Boat to beginning of walk. Walk to glacier. The walk starts off on fairly formed track but as you get closer to the glacier you start having to just pick your way over rocky terrain. If you don’t do the walk (like one in our group) then you basically just wait at the bus where we caught the boat and there isn’t really anything there. If you didn’t feel comfortable walking over the rocky part you could just stop at that point. The glacier was pretty visible from there.
After the walk we continued on, passing into the Arctic Circle. Had a stop at the Arctic Circle Centre for all your souvenirs (and food if you wanted, they had reindeer burgers) and for a group photo op.
Had a 30min shopping break. Got money out at out an ATM there for the Nordkapp visit. They have to hire a bus for it (due to driving hours) so how much it is is dependant on how many people go. The more people the cheaper it was. I think nearly all our group went and it came out as NOK900 (about NZD150). See day 16. The ATM was just inside upstairs.
Our stop for the night (Tysfjord Turistsenter AS) was self contained cabins, but with a seemly rather limited hot water supply for the whole blocks of them. They had two beds down stairs, or should I say ladder, and two upstairs. Used sleeping bag again. Had really yummy roast chicken for tea. I ate quite a bit of it. There was a free washing machine and drier, but only one of each which were in quite high demand, and neither were very quick. Had to supply your own washing powder.