Friday 31 July
The next morning we get up and go for a walk into Lillisand. What a lovely little village. In Southern Norway particularly, they all have white wooden houses with a couple of different colours of rooves. See pictures of some of the buildings. They look so fresh and vibrant and when you add the colourful flowers it just looks amazing. There weren’t many people around and so it was lovely just to walk around the buildings and check it all out.
After breakfast we showered and I had the same problem again only this time thankfully I hadn’t started the shower, but it is a pain to have to get dressed again, go up to the office to explain the shower coin got chewed up and then go back again hoping that it doesn’t happen a second time. We took off and drove through Kristiansand and stopped in a little seaside village called Mandal which is really pretty, as I guess most are on the seafront with a marina and white wooden buildings. We found a little bakery and had a coffee and bread like danishes which were really lovely. We haven’t had many that are so nice you just want to have another one. It was lovely sitting in the sun after quite a few days of rain. The little village was so busy with people. The school holidays finish in Scandinavia in two weeks so hopefully it will all quieten down then. We found a shop that sold electrical stuff and thankfully we found the type of electrical cable we need here in some of the camping grounds so we should be set now with that.
We drove on thinking we would stop earlier today than the last couple so we drove down a road from Rom and thought we may find a nice freedom camping spot around Lyngdal. But it’s funny that you can’t find them when you want one and you always see spectacular ones when you aren’t looking. We ended up driving right to the end of the peninsula but didn’t find a camping spot. We did stop at Farsund and there was a hard stand at the marina there which we checked out as it wasn’t much to stay, but all the spots were taken and we couldn’t really find an appropriate spot to park so we moved on. This looked like a great place to have a look around, but it wasn’t to be. We passed a little place called Vik – which seemed appropriate to stop at, but these places are just off the main road and the access roads to them are more often than not very narrow and difficult to traverse so we are cautious not to drive down them. Scot did have a run down this one to check out the road but it wasn’t the right place to stop. So we continued on to the end which was a lighthouse on a very rugged part of the coat. It was so like Irelands west coast – very rocky rugged and wind blown. We had a look around there and back tracked to the nearest settlement which had a small hardstand marina where there was a couple of campers there already, so as it was late we stopped there for the night. They are cheaper than camp grounds and they still have a toilet and shower to use which is fine, plus free wifi – even better if it’s free.
We were bedding down for the night when Scot went out and turned off the gas. There were some young kids hanging around on their motorbikes so he yelled at them to f*ck off. I was worried all night that they might come back and trash the van or at the least graffiti it, but thankfully they weren’t bad kids so we went unscathed.
The next morning we headed back to the main highway and back around to the west. We drove to Flekkefjord where we had been going to drive the day before but didn’t so we stopped here for our standard morning coffee. A nice town but busy and parking was difficult so we didn’t stay long. At this point we decided to go of the main highway as on the map the road looked like it was ok. This may be the last time we go off the main highway in Norway.
The road went from Flekkefjord through Sogndal, Hauge and up to Egersund. It started out ok, it wasn’t bad, it was a little close passing cars, but it was manageable. We went over the first very high climb which was windy U turn bends climbing up and then back down. I wasn’t worried as I had driven this type of road in the van we hired in NZ – which is why we did that – to make sure it wasn’t a problem. But on the descent the brakes overheated as it was a major decent and they smelt really bad so we stopped at the bottom of the hill and had lunch while we waited for the brakes to cool down. We took off again and then hit the worst climb of all. Had we known what it was going to be like we – or maybe just I – wouldn’t have driven it even though the road surface was good, it was a bit hairy. We climbed up the very windy road that climbed up virtually a rock face, the photos don’t show exactly how scary the road was. In parts we couldn’t have passed a car if one came towards us and there were a few cars on the road thus far. We passed the odd camper and we both had to stop and pass slowly to be sure we could make it. And I was getting the odd car flying towards me around a corner which was meant for only one vehicle and I had to stop suddenly so they could pass – a bit silly of them really. Anyway we got to the major climb and then we got to the highest part of the mountain and it went into one lane with a tunnel through the rock with a sheer fall down the side. As I approached it I saw a car coming out of the tunnel and it just kept coming. In my understanding of the courtesy road rules on a road like this the car coming down waits for those coming up to pass as it is easier to stop going downhill than going up. Anyway she didn’t stop. When she got to us we couldn’t pass and she was looking at us like “ What are YOU doing you stupid people”. She was young and obviously inexperienced so she just stopped her car and sat there looking at us. So I backed back and although thankfully I didn’t have the sheer drop on my side I did have a deep gutter that had I gone into we would not have been going anywhere. I eventually manoeuvred the van so we could pass with an inch to spare. My heart was thumping and I wasn’t impressed.
We continued up through the tunnel where we came to a NZ memorial of all things. There was a NZ flag flying and a plaque explaining about the 4 NZers that were killed in WWII trying to get a German boat that was parked up in the Norwegian fjords illegally as Norway was supposed to be neutral and the Germans used them. But two of the planes crashed and all were killed on board, so the Norwegians have erected this memorial to the men on board. Although the road was a difficult one, the views were really spectacular (for the passenger anyway) and the photos can never do this stunning vista justice. Knowing the road I wouldn’t drive it again, but having done it I am glad we did with what we saw. It reminded me of one particular road we drove on in Ireland – a pass on the west coast. It was horribly steep and in our little car I was shitting myself we would meet another car as we were going up as there was no way even two small cars could pass. In fact on that road you couldn’t have passed a motorbike. This wasn’t that bad but it brought back that memory.
We continued on and I was very aware of trying to not let the brakes overheat again which is hard as the gears just weren’t keeping the van under speed at all, but we were fine. This was the last of the hairy roads and we went back to the highway as we weren’t keen on doing the second half of the road that tracked the coast. It is difficult to know what a road is going to be like until you actually start to drive on them and in most cases you can start to drive but if you change your mind there is never anywhere to turn around so you are committed.
We stopped for the night in a campground in Sandnes as it was getting a little late to get the ferry above Stavenger. Nothing to report about this place, just an ordinary ground obviously favoured by the Germans as there were many of them there which we hadn’t struck since we left the Netherlands.
