Goodbye Scandinavia!

Oslo (Norway) to Bangkok (Thailand) to Melbourne (Australia)

A train trip to the airport, a flight to Copenhagen, another flight to Bangkok, two sleeps and then home - what a nice way to spend a couple of days!

Overall the journey wasn't too bad, departing Oslo at 11am meant it was essentially a day trip to Bangkok so no need to worry about sleeping on the plane. 

Flying into Copenhagen we had a good view of the bridge connecting the city with Malmo in Sweden, which we had crossed by train when we'd travelled between the two countries. 

After a short stopover in Copenhagen and a 10+ hour flight from there, we arrived into the airport in Bangkok at 6am local time. As we'd booked a stay at an airport hotel we slept for about 6 hours and then took the train into the city.

We took another train towards the river and walked for a short while to find a nice bar right by the water's edge. Our seats were so close to the water that we were splashed by the wash of the larger boats that travelled the river. It was a very pleasant way to spend the last afternoon of our holiday. 

From there it was back to the hotel for dinner, then another sleep so we could get up early for our 8:40am flight back home.   

How can they not like us?

Oslo

It was free walking tour time once again so we met our South African guide (why are they never locals?) near the famous tiger statue quite close to where we'd had dinner the evening before.

We'd encountered a few very large cruise ships in our travels around Norway, and we quickly found that the locals aren't that impressed by the people using them, judging by the signs we saw plastered around the place. Fortunately we're not like other tourists, so we knew they didn't apply us (or did they?).

The walking tour took us past the main highlights of the city, including the Opera House the harbour, and the hall where the Nobel Peace prize is awarded each year.

After we finished the tour we headed to the Royal Palace for the changing of the guard. No matter how many times and in how many different places we've seen a changing of the guard, each new experience reminds us of how traditions like these serve no useful purpose other than to provide a free spectacle for tourists! 

From there we walked along the waterfront and soaked up the fading afternoon sun as we had a drink and snack at a couple of the bars by the promenade. 

Look at the size of that cruise ship, no wonder the locals are unhappy!

A great train journey

Bergen to Oslo

Up early for our train trip from Bergen to Oslo, we arrived at the platform along with a lot of other obvious tourists who were there to take what is said to be one of the most picturesque train trips in the world.

The views were definitely stunning, though we did have an issue with the carriage in that there was a problem with the air conditioning and it started getting very hot. The upside of this though was that some people were relocated to other seats, meaning we could spread out and both have a window seat.

We arrived in Oslo mid-afternoon, with just a short walk from the station to our hotel. K rested for a while (train travel can be very tiring!) while M went exploring, passing a civil protest outside the town hall and ending up a Slottsparken, the gardens surrounding the Royal Palace. 

M had heard of this park before, as it was the location where Hank Von Hell had met his untimely demise just the year before. M searched the gardens to see if there was any sort of marker or tribute to Hank, but couldn't find anything, probably just as well because Hank wasn't exactly what you'd call a perfect role model.

From there M wandered back to the hotel, via the harbour and the famous Opera House, all the while scouting for a nice place to take K to dinner that wasn't too far from the hotel. Fortunately there were some nice restaurants near the railway station, so that's where we ended up later that evening for a nice Italian meal.

  

Sun!

Bergen

Finally we had a sunny day in Norway and we headed out at around 11am for a coffee to find the streets to be almost deserted. 

We should know by now that we can't expect anything to be open in Norway on a Sunday, but we were still surprised to find the main supermarkets closed. We found a small supermarket that was open, and along with a bunch of other tourists in the same predicament we bought something to cook for dinner.

It ended up being a sunny afternoon, though the air was cold so jackets were still required. M took a walk to Bergen Castle, and then to Nordnes Park at the end of the peninsula where quite a few locals were taking advantage of the sunshine.

You can't trust Google

Skei to Bergen

Our last drive of the holiday, back to Bergen where we had to return our rental car. The weather had improved slightly and we finally saw blue sky and sunlight, a relief after a week or so of clouds and wet weather.

We thought we were going to arrive at our apartment early, but Google Maps had other ideas, for some reason it tried to send us over a hill in the middle of Bergen with steep cobbled streets, tight corners and tourists walking down the middle of the road. 

We finally managed to get close enough to our apartment just as rain started bucketing down, so we were drenched as we unloaded the car, par for the course for the Norway leg of our trip!

Peace and quiet but not for long

Ålesund to Skei

The wind had picked up and so it was a really miserable day as we left Ålesund to start our two day drive back to Bergen.

A few tunnels and a couple of ferry rides later we arrived in Skei, a small town with some nice views of the fjord and surrounding mountains (I guess you can say that about almost anywhere in Norway though). 

There was a gap in the rain so M headed out to explore but that didn't last long as the rain returned and he decided it would be more enjoyable to sit downstairs at the bar with K.

The hotel we were staying at was huge but there was hardly anyone there so we thought we were in for a very quiet night. However as we were having a drink and admiring the view two huge buses pulled in and dropped off a heap of tourists, what a shame as we no longer had the place to ourselves!

Cold and raining

Ålesund

The weather in Ålesund was pretty miserable, it had been raining all night and this continued all morning.

K stayed in the warm hotel while M took a walk up the 418 steps to the Aksa viewpoint, to find a closed cafe and a group of wet tourists who'd taken the hop-on hop-off bus to get there.

The weather cleared up a bit around lunch time, so we walked around the harbour area. 

Later in the day M did some more exploring, ending up at Hessa, Ålesund's westernmost island.

More fjord cruising

Innvik to Ålesund

The hotel we stayed at in Innvik was operating as a vaccination centre for the locals to get their fourth covid shot so while we ate breakfast the older citizens of the area slowly wandered past to get their shots.

We drove up over the mountains, past ski resorts and patches of snow on the mountain sides to reach Geirangerfjord where we had a cruise/ferry booked for 2pm. On the way down we stopped at a popular viewing area where we could see the town and fjord in the valley below, even though the weather was drizzly the view was still spectacular.

The town of Geiranger was busy with cruise passengers, we've seen quite a few cruise ships in the fjords up to now, it's amazing how deep the fjords are and the sizes of the cruise ships that can travel them.

The car ferry took us through to Hellesylt, and along the way we saw some quite impressive waterfalls, as well as small farms and villages. many of which had been abandoned over the years due to their remoteness and the difficulty of surviving the winter. 

From Hellesylt we drove through the rain to our final destination of Ålesund, a fair sized town on the coast, which once again had some huge cruise ships in the harbour.

Proper Planning Prevents Poor Performance

Balestrand to Innvik 

A slow start to the day as the cruise we had booked didn’t leave until 12 and the town of Balestrand very small. There were only about 12 of us on the trip and it was two days before they stopped cruises for the end of the season.

It took us about an hour and a half to travel the length of the fjord, where we saw the usual sights of small villages, canyon walls covered with trees and waterfalls. 

We reached the small town of Fjærland to find a bus waiting for us to take us to the glacier museum. We were left there for an hour (when half that would have been sufficient) and then taken to a viewing area for the Jostedal glacier.

The glacier wasn't close enough that we could reach the ice, so it wasn't as spectacular as the ones we'd seen in Iceland, though we learnt at the museum that it's part of the largest ice cap on mainland Europe.

We made it back to Balestrand around 4.30pm and drove three hours north to our evening destination of Innvik, only to find we ended up driving right past the glacier museum and the glacier viewing area we had visited earlier - we could have saved a lot of time if we'd planned it better!

In the little town of Innvik we once again had a room right on the fjord with a glorious view of the water from our bed.

I hope we can afjord these ferries

Eidfjord to Balestrand

We woke up to a second cruise ship visible through our window. We could see the small boats ferrying the passengers to waiting buses to explore the area. 

We had 11.30am tickets for the Flåm Railway, a train that goes from Flåm, up the mountain to Myrdal and then returns. It is known as one of the most beautiful railway journeys of Europe, often taken as a side trip by people travelling between Oslo and Bergen.

It was drizzling with rain when we arrived and we were pleasantly surprised to find that the train wasn’t busy at all, which meant we could easily choose where to sit and move from side to side to see the views as needed. It was a 2 hour return trip and by the time we got back to our car the rain had really set in as we headed off to Balestrand where we were to stay that evening.

We are now getting used to the road petering out in front of us and our gps saying “take the ferry”, sure no worries we know that we will line up for 5-10 minutes and be efficiently delivered to the other side of the fjord whilst enjoying a break from driving. We have no idea how much these frequent trips are costing, the car hire just said they'll take it out of our deposit. 

Balestrand is a pretty town right on the water. It also has an interesting church that was used as the basis for a church in the movie "Frozen", not that we've ever seen the movie or recognised the church. 

Our room at Balestrand had a "sea view", meaning our outlook was directly over the fjord and you could easily think you were staying in a cabin on a ship.

Take the ferry

Stavanger to Eidfjord

Stavanager was still asleep when we left at 11am, they really don’t do Sundays over here. 

Today we were driving to Eidfjord via Hardangerfjord. We found ourselves heading towards a port, and our GPS told us to “take the ferry”. The car hire company had told us that an electronic tag on our windscreen would cover all tolls including ferries. Our trip that looked quite short on the map took longer than expected as there were more ferry trips to be taken, we hopped from one side of the fjord to the other, and from island to island until we reached the scenic drive on the north side of Hardangerfjord.

The scenery was beyond picturesque; we think Norway wins hand down as the most beautiful country on earth. The underground tunnels and massive roundabouts are something we haven’t encountered before, there seems to be a lot of expensive infrastructure supporting a relatively small population. 

The size, width and depth of the fjords are massive. We had booked a place with a view over the fjord and mountains and walked in to town to sit on the lawn at a hotel near the water's edge to enjoy a drink. 

Whilst sitting there we realised that the dock in front of us was equipped to berth cruise ships and we were horrified to think that our incredible view could be blocked out by a multi storied monstrosity. An hour later we looked out our window to see one sailing in to harbour, this just shows how deep the fjords are to be able to support such huge vessels.

Time to cruise another fjord

Stavanger

We had a fjord cruise booked for 10am so we walked from our apartment to the harbour. 

We sailed past lots of houses and small settlements along the edges of the fjord, as well as lots of waterfalls. 

Along the way we passed Preikestolen, better known as Pulpit Rock because of its huge flat prominence, made famous by one of the Mission Impossible films.

After the cruise we explored the town centre with it’s up and down cobbled streets, which were  crammed with groups of tourists, people out to enjoy the weather, and groups of teenagers doing what bored teenagers in small towns do on a Saturday afternoon.

Sorry that seat is taken

Bergen to Stavanger

The ferry we had booked to take us down the Norwegian West Coast was originally scheduled to leave at 1pm and arrive into Stavanger early evening, unfortunately it was delayed to a 3pm departure giving us time to kill and a much later night time arrival in Stavanger. We picked up our hire car for our Norwegian road trip and joined the long queues of people waiting for our ferry. The Queen Mary 2 was in town and parked right next to where we were waiting.

Once on the ferry the scenery was idyllic with masses of islands dotted with beautiful houses in pretty colours. Although this ship was similar to the others we had been on it was more difficult to find comfortable seating that hadn’t already been “bagged” with jackets and personal items left everywhere with their owners nowhere to be seen. As we were getting off that evening rather than continuing on to Denmark as many of the passengers were, we found not having our own cabin meant we had no escape from the constant noise, music and other passengers partying in large groups.

We arrived into Stavanger after 10pm, late arrivals are something we try to avoid as navigating and finding accommodation is much more difficult in a strange place when it’s dark. 

Our apartment had a smart lock set up we hadn’t come across before and it made us wonder how people less computer savvy would manage. Plus we had to climb steps to our room, so many steps! The room was very cute though and had the most comfortable bed and pillows we’d had for weeks (or maybe we were just really tired)?

Garden State

Bergen

We were staying in the town centre quite close to the harbor area so it was easy to walk out the door and see pretty Bergen. We stopped for a coffee and were very surprised to see a Victorian number plate on the wall of the cafe!

We took the Fløibanen Funicular up the side of Fløyen mountain from a spot just by the harbor for the six minute ride to the top. The view was stunning, Bergen is surrounded by seven mountains as well as fjords, so with a clear blue sky it was another perfect day. We felt pretty fortunate, Bergen is known as the rainiest city in Europe as it rains 239 days each year but today wasn't one of them. 

We took a walk around the historic Bryggen area with the old wooden buildings (many filled with souvenir shops selling localised variations of the wooly socks, jumpers, and other items we'd seen in every other Scandinavian country).

  

Last new country

Reykjavík (Iceland) to Bergen (Norway)

Two flights today, first from Iceland to Oslo, then a much shorter flight to Norway's second largest city Bergen. Bergen isn't that big compared to somewhere like Melbourne, but even they have a light rail line from the airport to Sentrum (town centre) that runs every few minutes!

The weather is clear and sunny yet again, we only have two weeks left on our trip and this unseasonal Scandinavian weather has been fantastic so far, how much longer can it last?

It's that far?

Akureyri to Reykjavík (Keflavik)

Just a driving day today as we went from the north of the island back to the capital ready for our flight to Norway the next day. We stopped at Reykjavik on our way to the airport hotel (we had a very early flight the next morning) where K tried to find some last minute souvenirs. 

We checked into the hotel then M dropped the car back to the rental place, not quite realising how far the hotel was from there, but he ended up having a nice 6km walk along the airport fence and side roads. 

When he arrived at the hotel K was already in the airport lounge with a glass of wine in her hand ... typical!

More nice weather

Akureyri / Lake Mývatn

Today we spent the day driving around the Mývatn lake area. The weather was kind to us again today so it was a pretty easy day without having to contend with the elements. 

First off was Godafoss waterfall, we had seen this from the road the last couple of days but this time we went up close. 

Next was the Dimmuborgir lava formations, which had once been under danger of being covered by sand due to lack of care, but was now quite a popular attraction with lots of walking paths through interesting rock formations.

We drove around the lake to see it from various angles, then it was back to Akureyri for our last night there.  

Aurora!

Akureyri / Húsavík

We had a whale watching tour booked at Húsavík about an hour and a bit away. Tip if you’re driving in and out of Akureyri don’t take the expensive toll road tunnel. It only adds about 10 minutes to your trip and you get to drive along the stunning scenic, free route. Think about it - would you take the ocean road or pay $15 to drive through a tunnel?

The weather was perfect, beautiful blue sky, no wind and 18 degrees. The water in the bay was smooth and we had a stunning trip out to the see the single humpback whale that was spotted after an hour or so.

The whale put on a good show with a couple of nice tail dives. We noticed that Iceland doesn’t seem to have the strict protocols that other countries have regarding whale protection. They do have a “code of conduct”, but they only follow it loosely it seems, and it felt to us that the tourist boats were chasing a whale that was trying to get away from them - not sure that would happen back home.

The sky was still clear as night fell, so we decided we had a really good chance of an aurora sighting. After checking our aurora app (yep, they have those!) we looked out the window of our apartment to see a very faint aurora, in the last place we'd have expected it, as we weren't facing north and there was a bit of light pollution.

We jumped in the car to head out of town, we eventually found an area to pull over and from there we could see the glow of auroras all above us. They were still faint but quite obvious, green in colour, and they changed shape and moved around the sky. So we can finally say that one of our greatest objectives of the trip was achieved, yes we have seen the Northern Lights!

Iceland has a bad case of gas

Egilsstaðir to Akureyri

Apparently it’s always raining somewhere in Iceland and it was drizzly as we drove towards the waterfalls Dettifoss and Selfoss, but the rain had cleared by the time we arrived. 

We walked the 2.5km loop to take in the waterfalls, Dettifoss in the most powerful in Europe (even though Iceland is quite a way from Europe). They were nice waterfalls and it had ended up being quite a pleasant day so the walk and the viewing was much easier than our earlier waterfall attempts. 

Next was the interesting geothermal power plant and lava area around Kafka and Hverir. 

The bubbling earth, toxic looking pools and sulphur smell were similar to ones we'd seen in Bolivia but these covered a much larger area and the colours produced are a lot more vivid, especially in the bright sunshine.

We are staying in Akureyri, Iceland's second largest city, for the next three nights and doing day trips from there. Arriving into Akureyri is a bit like driving into Hobart, snow topped mountains and driving along the river, across the bridge in to the picturesque town.

Slowing it down

Höfn to Egilsstaðir

As we have found quite a bit in Iceland many cafes don’t open until quite late so we drove along the seaside near the pretty town of Höfn until we found the one tiny café that was jam packed to have a coffee before we started on our driving day. 

Our drive was continuing on the Iceland ring road anticlockwise and the road follows the coast most of the way. There was plenty of fog and drizzle which didn’t worry us as today was light on sightseeing. We didn’t have many expectations of amenities but were still surprised when it was 3pm before we came across a service station, with bathrooms and some decent food. 

We arrived into Egilsstaðir by 4pm and as we’d had a late lunch at 3pm settled on noodles and bread in our room with the hope of better weather tomorrow for our day at the waterfalls.

Now I see why they call it Iceland

Skogafoss to Höfn

With relief we woke to clear skies as we needed to be on the road by 7am for a busy day. The scenery on the drive was amazing, it was our first real look as yesterday everything was hidden by the rain.

Our first stop was the Skaftafell glacier hike, which we reached with plenty of time for the 9.30am start.  We turned up to a parked van just off the road and were herded production line style to be geared up, we then jumped back in our cars to drive in convoy to the glacier. After reaching the edge of the glacier we put on our crampons and crunched our way around, the sun was shining and it wasn’t cold, you couldn’t have asked for a better day for a walk on a glacier. The time from arriving to returning to our car was 3 ½ hours and we had been warned that there were no bathroom facilities so we’d skipped our morning coffee and were looking for lunch at the end. Unfortunately the lack of infrastructure on this side of Iceland is really noticeable. 

Rather than back tracking to the only open service station we’d seen on our long morning drive we decided to push on to our next stop Jökulsárlón or Glacial Lagoon. We had a 3.30pm zodiac trip booked there and it was only half an hour away. It was a wonderful sight with icebergs floating out out of the lagoon and past the beach into the ocean. There were hordes of cars and people, the busiest we had seen in Iceland so far. We couldn’t get into the carpark so drove to the ocean side parking and walked up the river towards the lagoon with icebergs passing by.

Here again the lack of food and infrastructure was astonishing, there were a couple of food vans, a few outdoor picnic tables and huge lines for the portable toilets. How do they manage in bad weather, what happened yesterday in the rain? Did everyone stand to queue for food and toilets while being drenched? We guess they must have as there weren’t any other options.

We were suited up and driven in a bus to the edge of the lagoon where we boarded our zodiac, for the 8km ride to the glacier's edge. As we have been to Antarctica and the Perito Moreno glacier in Argentina we felt the glacier here was a smaller affair. However, what we weren’t prepared for was the variety of colours. In Antarctica the ice is pure and the whites and blues are stunning but in Iceland there is the presence of volcanic ash and lava. The striking shades of white, black, blue and grey also ran to the colour of aluminum foil in the reflection of the sun. 

We were lucky enough to witness a calving, where a huge sheet of ice broke away from the glacier and thundered into the water, and rising again to float after finding it’s equilibrium. One of the huge icebergs near us had only calved 15 minutes earlier, so we had only just missed that one.

After all of that we finally finished our day an hour further on at the town of Höfn. 

They should call it Rainland

Reykjavik to Skógafoss 

Iceland had promised rain and boy did it deliver! We started our drive around the Golden Circle, the famous scenic route, hitting all the major sites and being welcomed with relentless rain at every stop. 

First stop was Thingvellir National Park which is the meeting point of two tectonic plates, it also happened to be the site of the world’s first legislative assembly. 

Next was the Geysir Geothermal Area where K watched the steam rising from the ground from inside the car, while M went out into the rain and waited to see a geyser spurt, though when it finally happened it wasn't that impressive. 

By the time we reached Gulfoss Falls K said she was has happy to see the spray from the waterfall from inside the gift shop and would hear about it from M on his return. He came back saying it was worth seeing and there was a lower road where it was possible to drive up close, so K managed to see the falls after all.

On the way to Kerid Crater we passed an Icleandic pony and rider and saw their unusual gait called the tölt. It was so wet and windy that the water cascading off the hills was being driven sideways. 

We arrived at our accommodation for the night at Skógafoss which was right next to the same named waterfall, which K was pleased could be seen from the car, and also from our small cabin.