ISDALSTO, VOSS, FLAM, FAGERNES

5 August

We said goodbye to the farm camp and drove up north around Bergen.  We are off to Isdalsto to visit the Norwegian couple we had met in Copenhagen.  This place is just a bit further north of Bergen so not far off our next route where we will head back towards Oslo.

We had to stop at a camping and caravan store to buy a seal for our toilet as it had started to leak.  I guess it is probably quite old and they don’t last forever.  Thankfully they had what we needed so we will have to fit this in the next day so that it is back working properly again.

We arrived at Laura and Knut’s house which is a lovely 130 year old timber home with a huge amount of land around it.  It is quite amazing when you see the house you would never guess it is that old.  I reckon they obviously built/build houses incredibly well here in Norway.  Plus I think they maintain them really well too.  You rarely see rundown unkempt houses here.

It was so nice to have someone again to visit in a place where we know no one and just happened to hit it off with this lovely couple.  Knut was working in the North Sea oil rigs so we missed seeing him unfortunately. Laura made us coffee and waffles with strawberries and cream – so totally unexpected and really lovely.  We ate the waffles like they were Belgian ones – not as they do here in Norway.  It sometimes amazes us how you can get on so well with someone you have only met once, but we had a wonderful afternoon and though we were offered to stay the night, we sadly had to say no as we needed to keep on moving onwards towards Oslo.  Laura had made a delicious soup – more like a casserole to us, that she gave us to take with us along with some other Norwegian goodies.  It was so welcome to have tea for the night especially as we freedom camped late that night and it meant Scot didn’t have to cook.  Laura loves to practice her English which I can well understand as you do tend to lose any language that you aren’t often using.

We really hope we can catch up with them both again sometime in the future before we head away from this part of the world.

Our freedom camp was outside of Voss where we had previously passed through on the Norway in a nutshell tour.  We decided to stop in a rest stop on the fjord front where there were already a few campers staying.  We thought it would be a safe place where there are others.  It was ok until I started to not like the look of a few of those who were camping there the night, but it was too late to make a change by this time.  There were other quite respectable vans there so Scot was of the belief we were ok.  I didn’t sleep well though as I hadn’t before when freedom camping as there were others arriving through the night who were talking to the ones I didn’t like the look of.

The next morning, I found out why I didn’t quite like these people – they were very dodgy looking  Bulgarians (I wasn’t holding that against them) but they were living out of their cars.  I have developed a real suspicion about these nationalities like the Romanians and Bulgarians in countries such as this as they are cited for their bad behaviour all the time.  When I see them like this, many of them together living in one car (3 in this case) – although they did have a van with a Swedish number plate which I wondered how they had acquired that – I get quite suspicious.  Norway is an expensive country for most but for those nationalities it would be difficult for them to survive here as they are generally much poorer.  It seemed that this was their nightly camp and there were about 12 of them living there.  We spied one of the girls selling a magazine in Voss similar in style to those who sell the Big Issue in Brisbane city. I just didn’t get a good feel about these people and I was very glad to be moving on, maybe they were ok, but maybe they weren’t.  Gut instinct to me is everything when travelling and they just looked like real ratbags.

We stopped in Voss to have a look around and then continued on around the route the bus and train had taken on the tour we did.  We stopped at Gudvangan, but there isn’t a lot there.  It is mostly just a carpark for buses and cars who are going on the ferry trip around the fjord.  There was a cute little cottage with God Kaffe (Good Coffee) so we stopped there and had a cup with a local ‘cake’ called Lefse which was like a sweet flat bread rolled up with a spread on it and we were told that different parts of Norway make a different tasting spread for the Lefse.  It was very different to what we are used to but pleasant.  Scot is always eating the red currents that are currently growing on bushes all over so he had a few in the garden this little cottage had.

We travelled on to Flam where we decided to stop in the camping ground for the night as we liked it here when we got off the ferry a couple of days ago.  It is quite reasonably priced, clean and well laid out.  We are parked on a terrace with a view of Flam and a river that runs into the fjord.  I had been getting cranky about the van as you don’t get a chance to give things a good spring clean that often when you are always on the road, so since we had stopped early today we both got to and did some of our overdue jobs.  We fixed the toilet first, then Scot got on the roof to make some further water proofing fixes where we thought there was a problem still and I spring cleaned inside, doing all the washing and dusting and sweeping out the interior.  It feels great when this is done.

We then took a walk up a near by nature trail which has a great view over the fjord and surrounds.  We watched the ferry that we took arriving in and the people getting onto the Flam rail.

We had another delicious dinner complements of Laura and it started to rain, so we are snuggled in our cosy van doing the blog and reading.

I think it rained all night as the ground was quite mushy when we got up, but it was so cool as there was fog/mist all around the fjord and the hills around us.  This is how a fjord is supposed to look – misty and eerie.  We packed up and headed off on the E16 highway towards the East.  The countryside starts to change as we head away from the west coast of Norway.  We drove through the longest tunnel ever – we thought 11kms was long but this one was 24kms long.  Almost as far as from Clontarf to the city.   Scot found out that there is a tunnel in Norway that is 45km long which took a while to build but saves a lot of work maintaining the alternative road over the mountain.  They cut out so much difficult travelling, I think NZ should start doing a few more tunnels to cut out some of the mountain drives, although that would then change the countryside so maybe not.  The countryside gets less mountainous and more lake like fjords with rivers often running into them.  We hit road works which went for quite a few kms but it was good to see them doing the roads up as some of this highway isn’t in the best shape.  I guess the snow and ice plays havoc with the maintenance of the roads.  Scot thinks all the beer tax is going on all the road works J.  We came across a few lovely settlements that were obviously ski  field areas where there were a lot of holiday chalets.  You can tell that Norway is like NZ when you come across sheep just either wandering over the main highway or lying along the side of the highway right near where we drive past.  Also came across a cow doing the same.  We planned to travel further today to get close to Lillehammer where we will head before Oslo, but with the slow travel due to road works we were held up and we only made it to Fagernes which is another lovely village on a lake.  It was quite warm in the sun this afternoon so we decided we had to go for a swim in Norway so this lake was the best opportunity.  It was quite cold and it took your breath away, but we still managed to have a bit of a swim.  I have not lost my paranoia about something lurking below me in the water after my scare which is crazy because there will only be fish swimming here, not sharks or dugongs, but regardless of what I tell myself I still get a bit freaked out when I can’t see much because of how deep the water is.  I hope this will eventually go.

Tomorrow we will go for a walk around the town and maybe another swim while we can if there is sun shining before heading off for Lillehammer.  Lillehammer is where the winter Olympics were held here in 1994 and will also hold the youth Olympics next year.

 

BERGEN PHOTOS

There are photos I forgot to load of Bergen so here they are:

NORWAY IN A NUTSHELL

2 August 2015

We head off the next morning after a wet night and head up via Stavanger to the end of the road at Mortvika to catch the ferry.  We had to drive through two huge tunnels  – the first one was 9km and the second one was 5km.  They are so long you think you are never going to come out the other end.  Some of the tunnels are a little scary when you enter as your eyes are used to bright sunlight and the lights in some were out or not very bright and it makes it difficult to see.  The ferries are great here, they go everywhere which saves you having to drive around the long way to places.  Plus they leave every half an hour, they are really inexpensive and you don’t have to book beforehand.  Although if it was the middle of summer and school holidays I imagine you may have to book or else you may not make it on some of them.

We took the first ferry from Mortavika to Arsvagen which is about a 20 minute crossing, smooth as and cost us 206nok (aud$35) for us and the van.  They are so quick they roll on and off the vehicles so quickly.  We travel up then via the highway to Sandvikvag.  We were going to find somewhere to stay the night before we got the next ferry but there wasn’t really any places that presented as a suitable.  So we took the ferry from Sandvikvag to Halhjem which is the same as the last one, but was about $10 dearer as it was a 45 minute crossing.  But still for a country that is supposed to be expensive that is a great price.  We got to Halhjem and decided we needed to find somewhere for the night.  Scot wanted to freedom camp so we looked for places to stay.  We drove into a little place called Osoyro not far from the ferry which looked like a nice little place on the water.  We stopped at the marina which allowed 8 hours of parking and would have suited us for the night, but there was a lot of foot traffic going past and it didn’t feel quite right.  We asked at a service station where the nearest campsite was and they gave me a phone to ring them but they didn’t have any room.  The guy there gave us a brochure which showed farm camping.  I didn’t know where we had  rung so we decided to go and have a look and see if it was the same place the guy had rung for us or if it was somewhere different.

When we arrived it was the same place but the lovely owner of the farm Inger, let us park in her sons driveway park which was fine for us and it meant we were in a safer place than the marina.  They had a toilet and shower plus washing machine to use so was really great for us.  Inger mentioned that people had travelled into Bergen from here and the bus wasn’t that expensive so we decided to stay a few nights and see Bergen via the bus from here as well.

The next day we took the bus into Bergen and Ruth had suggested we look at the Norway in a Nutshell tour which looked and sounded amazing, so we booked on that for the afternoon tour.  The weather forecast had said the weather was going to turn bad the next day which made us also decide to do the trip on the first day in Bergen.

So from Bergen, we took a train that went through the valleys to Voss.  From Voss we took the bus to Gudvangan.  On one part of the road the bus driver went off the main highway onto a side route which climbed up really high and then came down this horrid steep narrow road (it was only one way) but the view was magnificent.  Then from Gudvangan we took the boat right round the fjord to Flam (pronounced Flom like you have a plum in your mouth).  Then we took a special railway from Flam to Myrdal which is one of the steepest railways in Europe.  The views were spectacular.  Then we caught the regional train from Myrdal via Voss to Bergen which had a cafeteria car with food and drink.  We then got the bus from Bergen back to Osoyro and got back to the van about midnight.  A long day indeed.  I can say that the scenery is spectacular and worthwhile doing – thanks for the suggestion Ruth!.  We took so many photos that the camera battery exhausted and my phone battery went flat.  I will limit what I put up as there are so many.  The main difference between the scenery here and in the South Island of NZ in the fjords is the vegetation.  NZ has rainforest and here is mainly pine/spruce trees but still stunning.  We met a lovely young American couple who teach in Japan and a lovely German couple we talked to on the trip.

4 August

We went into Bergen again on the bus to have a look around the city.  We visited an area that was all timber buildings – more like a hippy kind of place but it was so lovely.  I can’t remember what they called it, but we had a look around the many shops there and then went on down to the wharf.  There were about 7 boats that looked like they were whaling boats.  They had rounded sterns and big cranes on them and I wanted to buy a can of spray paint and graffiti them to stop the whaling.  But a tour guide I got the attention of told me they were actually oil boats so I was glad about that.  They believe they are whaling here in Norway in a sustainable fashion and the minke whales they hunt aren’t in danger of diminishing in numbers.  I still hate that they kill them and I don’t believe you can prove that it is a sustainable industry, as how can you count how many whales are left?  You can buy whale meat in most fish shops and it is on the menu of a lot of restaurants as well.  It is an awful looking meat as it is black.  I believe they may also export whale to Japan strangely enough.  I thought the Japanese took enough whale from our waters.  I read an article that said the whale meat has been getting rejected by Japan because of the high amount of toxic chemicals in them.  Sad to think a place that you would think was very pristine has chemicals in its oceans in dreadful quantities.  This is perhaps why some of the other Scandinavian waters have little or no fish and have problems with algae.

Bergen is a lovely place to look around – it’s Norways second largest city.  They have cool statues all over and a great café scene.  We walked around the streets just checking out the houses some which had cool little stair cases in narrow alleys which reminded me of some parts of Paris where you can climb up staircases in between houses and buildings and virtually get lost.  Scot had to see the church where the cannon ball had launched itself into a wall of a church during a battle with the English 350 years ago and had never been removed.

We even found Scot an inexpensive pair of waterproof hiking boots which really are necessary as we have had so much rain and our runners just get saturated.

We didn’t stay in town late.  We got back to our van early evening so we could get ourselves ready to head off the next morning.

LILLESAND, BORHAUG, SANDNES

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.

 

NORWAY

Wed 29 July

Our little park stop was good for the night and we got up in the morning and took off – headed for Norway.  As we drove up the eastern side of Sweden, from the motorway, we saw some places that looked really lovely.  Especially from about Uddevalla, the scenery improved and looked quite cool.  It would be an area that would be much better to look around as I am guessing it is perhaps a little more like Norway with little islands and bays.  We had been told the south is the best part, but I am thinking that perhaps this western coastal part is much nicer scenery.  As you get further north east and inland there isn’t anything to see as the roads are surrounded by forest so you are unable to see any of the land.  There are lovely areas around the lakes though.  We will come back through Sweden to catch the ferry over to Finland so we still have a little more to see.

Today it is bucketing down with rain – our 7th day of rain in a row.  I guess we can’t complain too much as we have been very lucky to have had so little rain so far on our travels.

We think we will go to a camp ground in Oslo, so we head towards a campsite that is a little out of Olso.  We arrive there and it doesn’t look good.  The ground here is muddy, slushy, and the site itself looks really dodgy and Scot doesn’t like it.  So I go in anyway just to see if they have a vacancy and how much it is.  They tell us to look around, but when we do we know we will get in and never get out again.  So we decide to leave.  The other campsite right in the city is fully booked this week as Oslo is hosting the Norway cup.  This is a competition for young football players, whose teams come from all over the world.  A total of about 1500 teams compete in the Norway cup so it is a big deal here.  We may come back to that campsite on our way back to see Oslo.

We decide to head around Oslo and down towards Drammen.  As we come into Oslo, it looks so much like NZ, especially like coming into Wellington from the Hutt Valley.  The similarity is quite amazing. The traffic is busy like most cities but it is easy to navigate around.  We head south again, looking for a campground but when we got to Drammen we didn’t know where the site was so ended up on the south side miles out of the city centre and ended up stopping at a business and asking where the campsite was.  On the northside, almost opposite where we were.  So back we went.  As we drive down the road of the campsite, there is a massive puddle on the road and right beside it are two young kids riding their bikes home.  There are cars coming towards us and we can’t stop in time, but we go through the huge puddle and absolutely drench the poor kids who squeal as they are hit.  We piss ourselves laughing, but it isn’t really funny – there is nothing worse than being splashed by some buggar driving along the road, but we didn’t do it deliberately.

There are stores here called Kiwi which we have to check out, but Laura told me they were good value for buying groceries – Scot hopes the beer is cheaper here.  Found a spot by the river and hope we can get out in the morning.  It is still raining.

 

Thursday 30 July

I get up and go to have a shower.  There are only two so I have to wait.  Most of them are coin or token operated and these ones are no different.  So you can put a 10Nkk in for 6 minutes or 5nok for 3.5 minutes, so I try the 10, but nothing happens.  Then I put the 5 in and the water starts.  I have to say that you don’t even get cold water if you don’t put money in – you just don’t get any water and the time starts from the minute you put your coin in, not when you turn the water on.  So I wash myself, then I have 30 secs left so I soap up my hair thinking I will put the other 5nkk in that I have to wash the soap off, but I put it in and nothing happens.  Crap, I have shampoo in my hair, I am wet, I have no more coins and there is no water and someone left the door open wide to the showers so the whole camp ground can see in.  So I have to try to wrap my small shower towel around me, gather up my clothes and toilet bag and hope no one is looking and get into a basin cubicle so I can wash the soap off under the basin.  I knew it was a hilarious look but I felt totally ridiculous.  I think the owner thought it was funny when I told him the coin box wasn’t working properly.

As we pack up we are worried about getting out of our parking spot.  The ground is saturated and very muddy and we are not sure we will be able to drive off the grass.  There is an initial debate over who is the best driver to try to drive us out – but we decide it will be difficult no matter who is in the seat.  So I drive, but the wheels just sit and spin…buggar!!  It isn’t looking good, we may be here for another night…lol.  We back up a little as we can’t back up a lot as the river is about 10 metres from our rear and I don’t want to go skidding backwards into it.  Other campers come to our aid and with some carpet under the front wheel to get some grip plus a push we manage to get onto the concrete path and can drive out.  Scot is covered in mud as are the sides of the van.  The lady pushing got showered in the water that had been sitting on our roof, shame I didn’t see that…lol.

We get Scot cleaned up and head out of Drammen.  We were going to see Olso from here but it is something like 230nok return each to the city and we may be better off waiting until we can get into the camping ground that is in Oslo even though it is a dump from the sounds of it, it is ok for us to see the city.  So we will see Olso on the way out of Norway instead.  We head south towards Kristiansand.  We’ll see how far we get today and find somewhere to stop later in the afternoon.

On the motorway there are many tunnels.  They obviously see no benefit from going over hills as their roads go through most of them.  The roads are good and the scenery as we travel is really stunning.  Norway is everything people say it is scenery wise.  We take off on a smaller road to see some of the local sights which is good, but when you come across a pedestrian crossing, I have to slow down to 2nd gear which is better for the van as it doesn’t knock it around so much, but the crossings are everywhere.  It’s a bit slow going, but nice countryside.  We get back onto the main highway going south and it’s interesting it changes into a single lane each way and the speed lowers to 70km/hr for most of the way south. At one point, where we had rain and the roads seemed to be a bit greasy, a huge truck with 2 trailers slid on the corner and came towards the van, in that split second I looked to see if I could go somewhere but no dice and I had thought the second trailer was going to swipe us sideways into the rough. My heart was pumping so hard, but as his trailer got to the start of our lane he saved the slide.  I thought we were gonners for a second.

We stopped at Sandefjord for a coffee, muffin and make our sandwiches there.  Nice little town on the water.  Everywhere looks like it has a marina and there are always huge amounts of boats.

We make our way to Lillesand which is on the coast which looks potentially a lovely place to stay.  The campground is very full and the grass is also quite sodden but not as muddy.  We manage to secure a site, but again had to borrow an electric cord to suit our power cord to their power supply.  We need to buy one of these as it appears as if Norway use this different style of plug connection to ours.

Scot decides to go for a run as the rain is easing (we did have lovely sunshine for most of the day).  He is going to check out the local area on his run.  I give him 200nok in case he finds a pub to have a quick beer – which of course he does!  There is a 7 piece band playing tonight, so he chats to the owners father and the bar lady and has one beer so he can come back and tell me the good news.  He doesn’t want to tell me the bad news though, that is he didn’t realise the cost of the one beer he had – a bottle of local Norwegian beer which was 129nok ( equivalent of about aud$25)  Unbelievable, but it was a very expensive big hotel and also that is Norway with it’s alcohol prices.  The Govt here puts huge taxes on luxury things, so beer, chocolate etc is expensive, but so far the prices of food are either equivalent to aud prices or cheaper.  We will be interested to see how that translates as we do more in Norway.

Scot persuaded me to go back to that same hotel to listen to the band they had playing.  It’s weird how a foreign language doesn’t sound funny but everyone is laughing but you can’t laugh with them as you have no idea what is happening.  We decided to have a drink, but  a cheaper one than Scot had bought earlier.  It was still $26 for a wine and a beer.  A wee bit expensive.

 

SOUTHERN SWEDEN

We wake early and Scot has been saying for weeks and weeks that he should get up and have a run in the morning.  Well, this is the morning it happens.  I am amazed, but I did prompt him this morning as it is a pleasant morning and it is a good area to run around.  Off he goes and returns about half an hour later and then decides to jump in for a swim as the water really doesn’t feel that cold.  I would have joined him but I can’t stomach water that has weed in it, and this place has the bottom covered in weed – not something I can bear.  We get ready and take off for a trip around the bottom of Sweden where we want to end up around Malmo.  It starts to rain again, which has been the case each day we have been in Sweden so far.  We travelled west and drove through Kristianstad, Horby and down to Ystad and took the coast road through little villages.  The countryside as we travelled through this part of the country has changed to be a lot more like Denmark with lots of grain, potatoes, corn and other crops being grown and not so many forests.  It was a dreadfully windy day and as I drove, the van was being blown around on the road quite a bit.  I could have a bitch about the older slow Volvo driver around the bottom off Sweden I got stuck behind, but it was actually a Renault driver….haha.  It was actually quite slow going around the bottom as the speed it mostly 40km/hr with lots of speed bumps.  The top side along here was that the houses were very quaint with lovely gardens and lots of colour.  Obviously difficult to achieve by the beach but a lot of effort had been put in by most who lived there.

We stopped for the night at Habo Ljung which is just above Malmo and on the coast from Lund.  We did want to stop at Malmo and have a look around, but we felt that there wasn’t enough time to do all that we want to and the scenery around this area was the most important part.  The camping ground at Habo was very full and was right on the water front.  We had a problem with their electricity points not being the standard ones which we have only encountered once before in Belgium, but they said to have a look around as there were other styles as well.  We ended up parking up beside another GB campervan (Great Britain) which would be the first one we have seen since Luxembourg.  The couple who owned it had a lovely retriever called Oscar who was quite adorable.  Bill was English and Margrit was Finnish and they were on their way back from a long holiday in Finland.  I am sure the universe put us beside them on purpose as we had moved from another spot.  We got some great advice about the ferry we need to take from Sweden to Finland which will save us money and also on the areas in Finland that are best to have a look at.  It seems we always get put near campers we can gain knowledge from for our onward journey which has been just fantastic.

We went for a walk along the beach front and out on the jetty.  The water was very shallow for a very long way out.  There was a lot of very smelly weed along the beach and everywhere in the shallow water.  They had piled a lot of the weed up to obviously move it away.  The dreadful part about the weed was it had a horrid pinkish colour and looked a bit like an oil slick had gone through without the oil.  We wondered if it was a result of algae bloom which Denmark has also been having a problem with.  It didn’t look safe to swim in close to the shore and the stench of it would put you off anyway.  A great shame if they have a problem here as there aren’t a lot of places they can swim and this looked like it would be a popular place to swim.  Along the shoreline of the south there are a lot of rocks and no easy access to the shore so any beach must be valuable to the residents.  Another thing was the lack of any sign of fish anywhere of any size along the length of the jetty.  Usually you would see some small bait fish.  Our fishing friend Mick would have been very disappointed with this area – actually he would be quite disappointed by the lack of fish in most places we have been, except at Karlskrona where they did fishing excursions.

I like the way they charge for laundry here – 40sek for 3 hours to use the laundry and you can get as many loads as you need to done which ends up very inexpensive as opposed to Netherlands where we paid 8Euro for one load.  That is the difference between $8 and $24.  This is the worst campground we have been in for facilities.  There are 4 toilets between about 200 or more campers and there was always a queue to go in.  They were unisex so you can imagine the state they were in with that many people using them. The showers were the same in the morning.  I am really un-impressed about this aspect.  The wifi was equally shitty- only available at the café, so you had to sit in a seat outside it to get any connectivity and even with only 3 or 4 people on it, it was slow as.  It makes it hard when we are trying to keep in touch with everyone and a lot of our time each night needs to be spent having a look at roads we will take the next day, where we will stay, how far we will travel, what there is to look at in areas coming up which all takes a lot of time, so I get really frustrated with it at times.  Facebook is the hardest.  You can sometimes look, but you can’t even like anything because you have not got enough reception.

It was finally my turn to cook which I did – instead of going out.  I made a great pasta dish which proves I can actually cook, I am just not fussed on it. Scot did enjoy his night off for July….lol.  I would have done the dishes but I was too busy doing the clothes washing :-).

Tuesday 28 july

We travelled from Habo and went up towards Gothenburg on the highway.  We had a lot of ground to cover so the highway was really the only way to go.  We stopped at McDonalds for a coffee as the other roadhouse’s coffee is just dreadful and at least McDonalds is bearable.  I was shocked at the price of burgers here, not that I know how much they are in Australia as I have never bought one.  But they were charging 70sek ($12aud) for a Big Mac and one with chicken – no idea what it was called was the equivalent of about $11.  I can’t imagine they would sell any in Aus if they were this price, but I have no idea really.

We got to Gothenburg and decided that it would be a nice place to see a little of as we had heard it was quite a cool city.  We drove to a camping ground (Scot navigated perfectly) that is very near to the tram, but for the first time since being in Europe we were told they were full.  Wow, we have never had to try an alternate ground, so we went to another one which was like a huge dirt carpark and it was a long way to the tram – up a huge hill.  So we went to another holding stand that is only for Motorhomes and was owned by the original camp we visited.  It has power and security driving by occasionally but nothing else.  This was fine for us as we could walk 10 minutes to the tram going into Gothenburg.  We got in for free as even though I asked how to get a ticket from the driver, my card didn’t work – or I was doing something wrong.  Very embarrassing actually in front of the entire carriage watching me not able to figure it out.  Anyway we got off in pouring rain (which had been off and on all day) and found the tourist centre to get a map and work out what we wanted to go and see in the short time we had.  We wandered around, under a newly bought umbrella as ours is somewhere in Malilla or in someone else’s van 🙂  It was quite a busy and cute city and we were a little disappointed we couldn’t do it justice, but time is of the essence and we saw as much as we could.  They have an amazing sailing ship out on the port which we went to have a look at, but it is a permanent feature there as a hotel/restaurant.  I could imagine it in its sailing days would have been incredibly spectacular with its sails up.  Gothenburg has many cafes and pubs unlike a few of the other places we have seen and reckon it would be a neat place to party.  It is a university town though, so this may be why.  We sat out one huge downpour in a café having coffee, hot chocolate and muffins and used the wifi since we have none at the campsite, but the rain wasn’t stopping any time soon by the look of it.

It was going to be too much of a hassle to keep looking around in the rain so we decided just to head back to the van and relax.  We didn’t really go with our wet weather gear on, but should have guessed it was the thing to do after rain every day, so we didn’t really want to get saturated trying to see anything more.

VAXJO, MALILLA SPEEDWAY, KARLSKRONA SWEDEN

One thing we forgot to put about Copenhagen: In the city there was road works everywhere we turned, but this was ok as it seemed they were making a concentrated effort to improve the roads and squares which was great to see.

I want to reply to Di’s comment, each persons experience with a city is always different, I don’t think you had rose coloured glasses at all. It always depends on the weather, the people around you, the time of the year and how you are feeling. We liked Copenhagen – it is a lovely city, there were just some things we hthought were a little ordinary to us. I remember sitting in Amsterdam having our very expensive beer and looking at all the rubbish lying everywhere, but we watched guys cleaning it up. Unfortunately you cant stop people dropping their rubbish and butts everywhere but you can make an effort to clean it up every day. In the Haven in Copenhagen the rubbish, broken glass, butts etc had been there for a while which was such a shame, it wouldn’t have taken much to clean.

We drove up to Helsingor and stopped up for half an hour and had a nice coffee and cake in the small busy village.  If we had had a bit more time this would have been a lovely place to spend a little more time.  People were from all over I think, who were either going on the ferry or had come over on the ferry.

We drove down to the ferry and managed to get on an earlier one than we had booked.  The crossing was only 20 minutes which wasn’t even enough time for Scot to have a drink!  He was disappointed.  They were selling lots of alcohol on the ferry I guess because it is harder to get in Sweden.  In fact we haven’t even seen a place that you can buy it yet, except one supermarket but that only had low alcohol beer and cider – not quite what Scot wanted!  The drink on the ferry wasn’t that expensive at all – in fact quite a bit cheaper than Australia.

Off the ferry we drove and would you believe it we turned on the radio and Abba was singing, welcoming us to Sweden. We headed up North East towards Vaxjo which was on the way to the Speedway.  As I had been told there are lots and lots of spruce forests and they line the roads we travelled on.  There are pretty lakes all over which seem to have most camp grounds located on them.  We stopped for the night at Evedal which is just out of Vaxjo and right on a large lake.  They had a great area for swimming and even had 3 diving platforms up to 10m but when you dived in you couldn’t see what was under the water so it looked quite dodgy and would have been a leap of faith that no rocks or branches were hidden.  Even Scot was unsure of diving there but it was a bit cold and late when we arrived.  I wish I wasn’t quite such a wuss with the cold otherwise I would have had a great swim there.  The campground was like Copenhagen – not enough facilities for everyone there so we had to queue up for a shower in the morning.

We went for a walk in the morning around the lake edge and one older man was in the water having a bath in the lake with his soap – maybe he didn’t want to wait in the queue (the far queue…haha).

When we arrived at this campsite they wouldn’t let us in to start with as we couldn’t find our camping card we had bought when arriving in Denmark.  We realised the buggar in Copenhagen hadn’t given us our card back when we left, so we had to pay 150sek for another one.  They are expensive and you can’t camp in Scandinavia without one.  They want to keep a track of you wherever you go here.

Scot was chaffing at the bit to get going as he didn’t want to miss out on the speedway.  We hadn’t been able to buy tickets as it wouldn’t accept our credit card, which we found out the reason why  and it was because our ip address for the computer was from a different country to our credit card.  Which pretty much puts any tourist out of the picture as far as tickets go.  Anyway I wanted to try to catch up on some emails as we were early and we had good free wifi for once so we left late in the morning.  The road wasn’t busy as it hadn’t really been the day before, but it started to rain on the way.  It didn’t just rain but it poured.  We started to wonder if it would be cancelled.

When we arrived in Malilla we decided to go straight to the track and check it out for parking for the night etc.  The guys on the gate wanted to charge us an extra 200sek if we weren’t going to leave the park after the race but they said we could go camp down the road.  There was a huge field that was starting to get filled with hundreds of campervans, caravans and tents.  So we decided we would park up there and walk down to the track when the ticket office opened.

The rain kept coming and coming and coming.  The guys on the gate said the rain was due to stop at 5 so it would be all ok.  We still bought our tickets knowing that if it was cancelled they weren’t going to refund anyone although they would have tried to run it the next day first.  The seats we wanted had of course gone, but in the end it didn’t matter when we saw the track, there weren’t really any bad seats.

By the time we walked down as the gates were open, the driveway to the field was a muddy quagmire and the grass was soppy and mushy.  The rain had stopped and the air was light misty foggy and damp, but at least not raining.  There would have been about 10,000 people there, but the stadium takes about 15,000.  The rain would have kept a lot away which is a shame.  The alcohol being served was all light and the only food they served was hotdogs, pizza, licorice and lollies.  Strange combination.

It is still the middle of summer here so I am wondering why we are wearing: long johns, two woollen singlets, T-shirts, jumpers, rain coats, scarves, boots, woollen socks and carrying gloves and hat!

The 16 world class riders were from all over, but there were 3 Aussies in there – Troy Bachelor (from Brisbane), Chris Holder and Jason Doyle.  We have seen them race at north Brisbane.  They did really well, Doyle and Holder were in the semi-finals but unfortunately didn’t make the final which is a shame.  It was a great race and for Scot definitely worth the detour to get there, it was a tick off his bucket list and now he can’t wait for the Isle of Mann.  They did take quite a while to get the track right after all the rain but they had covered it up while it was raining so it didn’t get saturated.  We did cheer for the Aussie riders so did our bit to help them along and there were two other Aussie flags in the audience that we saw J.  One guy yelled out Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, but by the time I realised he had done that it was too late to go Oy, Oy, Oy.

Walking back to our van at the end of the night, the walkways were muddy wet messes.  I had worried that we may get stuck trying to get out in the van in the morning but we were ok.

They must have partied on till all hours at the track as we could hear the music from the van.  I’m not sure how much partying can be done on light beer though?

We lost our umbrella there as we weren’t allowed to take them in but Scot scored a program left behind by someone so I guess it was even.

We got up reasonably early in the morning as I didn’t want to be the last one out in case we got stuck.  The grounds were a quagmire of mud and puddles but most people were ok.  I only saw people pushing one van out of a rut.

Sunday 26th July

We leave Malilla and head down the coast on our way around to Norway.  We intend to travel the coast around the bottom of Sweden as it is meant to be the prettiest part of the country.  We aren’t sure what we will see as we head up to Gothenburg.  We travelled down to a lovely area with lots of little islands and bays and a large port called Karlskrona.  On the way down the tree lined roads thinned to more fields and hills and some forests.  Makes a change from nothing but forest on all sides.  We feel that Sweden’s main income is probably timber – funny that.  Of course Volvo is also a big industry as they are everywhere – but you can’t complain about the Volvo driver in front as they  aren’t old men in hats….lol.

We are staying in a camping ground that is quite huge with lots of wild areas and water front sites as it is on a peninsula. There are a lot of kids around this campsite everywhere and as much as it’s nice to see the kids having fun, I will be glad when they go back to school in a week’s time for a little peace at night.  Since it doesn’t get dark until about 11pm, they don’t go to bed very early and you can still hear them when we go to bed ourselves.  Scot calls me a bar-humbug, but I think there is a time that children need to quieten down for those who like to sleep earlyish.

COPENHAGEN

An early rise and we headed off on the train to the city.  We tried to buy a 48 hour travel pass via the machines at the station, but they don’t allow you to use either notes or an international credit card.  We went into the 7Eleven to buy a ticket and we believed he charged us about 50 Kroner too much for each ticket, but we could use the ticket the next morning if we went into the city early enough.

So in we went, the trains are really wide – not like Brisbane or the London tubes and they leave every 10 minutes.  We have something to learn from other cities public transport.  Our trains leaving every 30 mins and sometimes every hour is ridiculous compared with all the cities we have visited where they go every 5-10 minutes.  They have special seats where you can rack your bike with it and these have priority over people sitting there.

We had a map from the camping ground and the guy had outlined all the most important things we should see.  So we went to see the ‘Little Mermaid’ first.  It was quite a walk from the station and when we got there, there were quite a few tourist buses (mostly Asian and American).  We were quite disappointed with the small statue that sat in the water on rocks just off the shore.  There was a huge amount of importance placed on the statue which we couldn’t quite figure out why, but it seemed everyone had come to see it.  I did ask at the camp ground why it was so significant for such a small seemly insignificant statue, but they didn’t really know, only that the story of the little mermaid was written by Hans Christian Anderson and he was Denmarks most famous person.  Funny thing was there were other statues around that area that were bigger and more impressive that didn’t even feature on the map.

We then walked to the Kings Palace where there were many people milling around.  I figured they were possibly waiting for the changing of the guard which we were told we had to see at midday, but we weren’t going to stay around for it as it was only mid morning.  And at the end of the day how much was there to see with two men walking up and down next to a building – couldn’t be anything on Buckingham palace surely.

On we walked to the Haven (harbour) where there were lots of cafes and restaurants, canal boats and heaps of people.  It was a very expensive area – like all tourist traps are.  We wanted a coffee, but the price was around $10 a cup which we thought was ridiculous, so we chose a slightly cheaper place.  That comes at a price – the coffee was not great, so wasted the $7-8 it cost for each cup.  Strange thing was the food didn’t seem to be so over priced for this type of area compared with the coffee.

We sat and had our standard home made lunch there after the coffee, watching the ferries come and go.  Sadly the area was quite filthy with rubbish everywhere and it didn’t look like it was being picked up very often at all.  Worst of all were all the cigarette butts lying everywhere.

We wandered from there and went over to the area in town we were told was the oldest Hippie suburb and all the houses had to be hand made.  It was made out to be a huge tourist attraction worthwhile visiting.  The entrance area looked like some kind of slum area and I didn’t feel right about it, but we still walked in and around a small part of it.  The houses if that’s what they wanted to call them, were really just makeshift shacks and it looked like a slum where homeless people lived.  The people who appeared to be living there looked like the most dodgy, shady characters who were no more hippies than we are.  They appeared to be running ‘Green’ cafes even though dope isn’t legal in Denmark.  We wondered whether the cops turned a blind eye to it here.  They had cheap junk for sale and as we looked around I wanted to leave.  I felt very sad for Denmark if this was an area they wanted to flag as a major tourist area that you just had to see.  It was dreadful and I reckon a lot of pickpocketing goes on amongst other rip off activities.

We walked around and saw some of the other historic buildings like a church that you could climb to the top and it had an outside spiral walking ramp you could climb up and see the whole city, but the queue to go up was long and we didn’t want to stay that long.

We wandered through town where there is a round building that belonged to a man who didn’t like stairs.  Apparently there are only about 3 stairs in the whole building, the rest is a huge winding ramp you can walk up between stories, that is wide enough for a horse and cart to go up.

We saw the Cathedral, the Old Stock Exchange, Christiansborg Palace amongst other buildings.

In Denmark you cannot pushbike each way on both sides of the road.  In Netherlands there is a bike lane on each side of the road that is split into two and you can bike both ways on both sides.  In Denmark you can only bike on the same side as the traffic goes.  We got into trouble near the campsite a couple of times biking the wrong way – but we didn’t know and there isn’t anything telling us that this is the case.  People just yelled at us in Danish of course as we were biking and we just looked at them, puzzled, not knowing what their problem was.  Now we know!

A day walking around the city is very tiring on the body so we left feeling quite exhausted.

We went back in early the next morning so we could use our train ticket again before it ran out.  We decided to do what we had done in Amsterdam and just walk around the city streets having a look rather than specifically looking for the main buildings.  We went past the Tivoli which is a very old fun park.  It had the typical rides, with ones like the chairoplane that not only goes round, but goes up really high.  The had like boats on long arms that did full circles backwards and forwards – enough to make you sick watching let alone going on it.  As we were walking along one part of the street Scot noticed dope growing in the flower beds in the middle of the city.  The plants weren’t grown enough for anyone to use and there was a gardener there who appeared to be pulling out all the weeds including the dope plants (probably to take home for himself….lol).

A lot of the buildings are really lovely with moulded characters and designs.  This time we found a much cheaper coffee place where the coffee was really good.  It wasn’t on a square or in a tourist area.  I bought some raspberries that were $2 a punnet, but they got quite squashed carrying them all day.  We stopped in Orsted park for lunch.  There was a lady and her daughter who were walking their Bengal cat in the park – what a gorgeous cat it was.  It was like a small leopard in the jungle.

We found more things just by walking where ever we wanted rather than following a map.  We found a food hall similar to the one in Rotterdam, just not in an amazing building like there, but with all types of foods being sold.  Lucky we had already eaten!

At the end of the day we took the train back but we were naughty – we thought since we had been overcharged for our ticket the day before and there wasn’t anyone checking tickets we ran the gauntlet back to the campsite.  Murphys law prevails…..we were asked by inspectors to see our tickets so we had to do some quick thinking and talk our way out of why our ticket wasn’t valid.  Scot said I looked as guilty as hell. I am not good at lying, but they let us away with it.  I guess there isn’t much point charging a tourist when you aren’t going to get any money out of them.  And anyway, at the end of the day we did pay what we should have for both days so they didn’t actually miss any money.

We went into a shopping centre near the campsite to buy a couple of things and what a huge shopping centre it was.  From the outside they don’t advertise that it is a shopping centre and you wouldn’t know what it was if you hadn’t been told.  They aren’t like us where there are neon signs everywhere showing what is inside.

Whilst we were at this camping ground the showers were an issue (well actually it wasn’t the first one).  There were about 300+ campers at this camping ground and there were only 6 toilets for females, 6 for males and 4 showers for the entire camp.  So in the morning showers were at a premium, so we had to get up very early in order to beat the rush and have one.  It wasn’t really a problem because we wanted to leave early anyway, but I don’t know why camp grounds get away with not having enough facilities for the amount of people they have staying.

We had a Norwegian van pull up on the other side of us at the campsite late that afternoon so after dinner we decided to go and talk to them about roads and places to see in Norway.  Laura and Knut were a lovely couple who told us heaps about Norway.  We are going to hopefully go and have a cuppa with them when we get up to Bergen on our travels.  Although they didn’t believe their English was that good, it was very good and we were easily understood.  Their English was a lot better than our Norweigan (we know none !…lol). Talking to them also allowed them to practice their English.

Copenhagen did have some lovely historical buildings and some really neat little shopping streets where the shops were partly below the street level.  It is definitely an interesting city to visit, but you can’t really compare it to other cities as they all have their own character.

The next morning we packed up, said goodbye to our new friends Knut and Laura and headed for Helsingor and the ferry across to Sweden.

On to Copenhagen

What a neat little settlement north of Struer – about halfway up Denmark’s largest western most island.  We drove up the coast route which is very similar to Netherlands except just not quite as low, but they still have dyke style dunes surrounding the West Coast.  You could be forgiven for thinking you were in Holland still as they also grow a lot of similar crops and there are few hills and the same smelly cow sheds and thatched houses. The thatched roofs of the houses look quite cool and the thatch is about a foot thick.  We heard that it is slightly more expensive than tiles and it only lasts for about 20 years, but people do it to be trendy.

The camping ground is close to the beach which is an awesome round calm bay – perhaps swimming material tomorrow if not too cold.  It’s the middle of summer, but it’s like the middle of winter in Australia.  Temps are down to about 11 degrees at night and 18-20 during the day, with a little chill  on the wind.  We went for a long walk around the bay and will be up early tomorrow (sure we will :-)) to have another walk and perhaps swim.

Saturday July 18th

So much for an early rise and swim.  It was windy overnight and cloudy with a little rain, plus I woke up feeling miserable, low, unwell and just plain awful.  I guess grief had caught up with me and the stress had put me at a really low point.  Poor Scot, I just wanted to curl up into a little ball, cry and hide from the world, but we had places we had to go which is maybe just as well as I had to pull myself together and face the day.  We went for a walk along the beach which at least got us started for the day and it was really pleasant in the bay – just a shame it was really just too cold for a swim and really too choppy.  If I had been doing tri training in this water I would have only wanted to swim in one direction to avoid copping mouthfuls of water.

We hit the road – me driving as I couldn’t face having to make a decision as to where we were going to head to for the night.  It was easier just focusing on the road and nothing else.  Scot made the decision that we would drive to a lovely area called Laven in the middle of the island where there was a lake.  The countryside starts to change as we head away from the west coast and has more hilly areas, valleys and lovely views with forests.  There wasn’t a lot of traffic on the road which was quite calming and we could relax and enjoy the drive.  We passed through a place called Sejs on the lake just out of Silkeborg which was a beautiful place with very expensive houses along the lake front and there were a couple of great wild camping areas, but it is illegal here in Denmark and I had wanted to see the camp ground I had pegged in Laven as it had looked lovely – supposedly on the lake front.  However the campsite wasn’t quite on the lake front but did overlook it above the little village and was pleasant.  We stopped there for the night but had to endure a couple of middle aged love birds that couldn’t keep their hands or lips to themselves and had their sex covering music going till late…..lol.  It was funny watching other campers walk past their tent and gawk at the spectacle they were confronted with (not the sex part).  Scot wanted to tell them to get a tent (or a room).  We have been quite surprised in Denmark as there seems to be far fewer campervans and a greater amount of caravans and tents.  Not sure why.  And it seems that maybe people don’t have lots of money to spend as a lot of the campervans and caravans appeared to be much older than what we have seen in all the others places we have been so far.  Maybe the Germans are wealthier as they always seem to have new vans.

I talked to the owner of this camping ground whilst Scot was in checking in as he came over to tell me that my steering wheel was on the wrong side …haha.  He was a pommie.  I didn’t realise at the time he was the owner until he told me he had paid 2.5 million pounds for the camping ground 11 years ago.  I guess it is worth quite a lot more now.  It had about 300 campsites charging about 300dkr/night and was very full.  300dkr is about $60 aud at the current rate.  A decent amount of money and most of the caravans were stored there year round.  The campsite is great for kids though as it has a great pool, and huge play area, mini golf, trampolines etc.  We walked into the village but couldn’t find a coffee shop or bar, in fact absolutely nothing retail at all.  The Danish don’t seem to be very big on cafes or even pubs like the Dutch are.

 

Sunday 19th July

We made a decision that because Scot wants to go to the Swedish round of the world cup speedway that is on in Malilla next Saturday night we would have to limit our time in Denmark so had to make a decision on where to stay for the next few days.  So today we drove over to the middle island of Funen where Odense is the major city, but we decided we would rather be by the water and I read that it is lovely down in the south of this island.  We had quite a long drive ahead of us so used mostly the highways to get down to the bridge joining the islands.  We were quite surprised by the amount of caravans and campervans that were on the road travelling the other way.  Literally hundreds and hundreds of them, but I guess due to school holidays being on for another 2 weeks everyone is taking advantage of this and getting away.

We flicked right over the little bridge through Middlefart and headed down the coast route towards Faarborg which is a major port here on this island with ferries going to other destinations.  However we passed a little camp ground that I had marked down in this area on the way to Faarborg so decided to go back and stay there at Falsled.  It was lovely and quiet right on the lake.  We met some lovely Danish people there who enlightened us on some of the local customs.  We had wondered why we couldn’t find any fish in the supermarkets we had been to – nothing at all except for frozen stuff and even then it was limited.  Apparently fish gets sold in fish markets mainly at the wharfs as is too expensive and others can’t afford to bid for it at the auctions.  We didn’t find the price expensive compared to what we pay in Australia, but these people said they couldn’t afford it.  We bought some on our way through Faarborg – some fresh and smoked salmon.  I have been quite interested in the price of things in Denmark (and will be in the rest of Scandinavia due to all the comments of how expensive it is) so I check out different foods and compare prices.  Some things are cheaper than we are used to, some are the same and some are more expensive.  And it depends on the supermarket you go to.  I like the super Brugsen here which is like the Albert Hein in Netherlands and provides a great variety, but we priced a packet of chips there and they were 35dkr – $7Aud which we were shocked at, but if you go to the Aldi type stores of course they are a fraction of that price.

We stayed two nights in Falsled and again hoped we may get in a swim but the wind has been too strong still and the water choppy.  We just chilled a bit, went for a walk to the Marina close by to have a Danish ice cream…yumm.  We did the boring things – washing, housework etc as you do and went for a walk around the little village – but like previously couldn’t find a café or anything to get a coffee.  It was relaxing though and just what was needed.

Tuesday 21/7

Today we drove from Falsled back through Faaborg along to Svendborg and up to Nyborg to take the bridge over to the most Eastern island of Denmark. On the way we stopped at a local Chocolatier and had a coffee and a few free samples of the chocolate.  Everywhere we have driven in this area there are little stalls at people’s gates selling fresh produce which at the moment is strawberries, cherries, red currents, fresh peas, potatoes and we have indulged in all of them.  I haven’t had that many fresh red currents since we grew them in our garden when I was a kid.

I would like to have spent more time down near Svensborg and below there but we just don’t have the time – maybe we will come back and see more of Denmark.  The bridge from Nyborg to Halsskov is a gobsmacking 20km long.  No wonder they have a toll on it which cost us 360dkr ($60aud) – only because we lied about the weight of the van otherwise it would have been much more.  It was a pretty awesome bridge and the second part is really high – the photos don’t show how high it really is.

The countryside around most of the country apart from the very western side is very staw coloured when looking at it as everywhere they seem to grow grain.  Not sure what the grain is used for – whether for cattle or for commercial use – flour etc.

We are stopping just outside Copenhagen so we can have two days just in Copenhagen itself.  So we are stopped in a camping ground to the south west of the city.  The campsite isn’t much but you don’t expect a lot from them when you are wanting to see a major city.  We are only here to sleep essentially as we will spend the major part of the next two days in the city.  We are near a beach though so we parked the van and went for a bike ride to the beach.  As we were walking along we found the local life saver with the flags out and just beyond that we could see what looked like an awful lot of skin and no clothing.  We were looking at a naturist area which there seem to be quite a lot of in this country – there are even camping grounds that are Naturist.  So we decided it wasn’t a good idea to keep on walking but it was quite warm so Scot went for his first swim in Denmark – in the Baltic sea, in his undies – he didn’t quite want to go naked like the naturists just up the beach.  He was worried about the fish getting the bait worm…lol.

Earlyish night tonight and early up in the morning for a day of exploring.

OFF TO DENMARK

Whilst we are now in Denmark I will recount the days we spent in Coevorden before moving on to our days of travel.

For the week we spent in Coevorden – well 8km outside at a place called Da Vlindas, which was a lovely peaceful low key camping ground with lovely owners – just our kind of camp.  This made it easier to make the decision to stay until Monday of the funeral.

So during this week, Scot borrowed a ladder which was great as he was able to silicon some of the areas still needing it on the van but that couldn’t be reached by either the van ladder or from the ground.  He also completely cleaned and scrubbed the mould off the top of the van and then polished/waxed the top and all the rest of the van so the rain will run off really well now.  He has just told me that I have to put that I love him so much for working so hard when he is meant to be on holiday, but I won’t say that at all J.  Amazing where you find loose screws when you clean the van, just like motorbikes.  So there are now screws that were coming out on the outside of the van that are now secure again.  Amazing how much comes loose with driving the van on the roads.

We did a bike ride one day into Emlichem in Germany – about a 10km bike ride each way from the camp ground.  It was quite a strange little town – no market place or central (centrum) area where all the cafes etc were – so it was a bit boring.  All shops (the few there were) were closed for lunch – 12-2 and it was deserted.  They don’t start work until 8.30/9.00 and have 2 hours closed for lunch and then finish at 5pm  Great day of work if you can get it!  Most supermarkets are like Aldi here and I am not a fan of this type of store.  In Netherlands they have an Albert Hein supermarket who have the best food.  They have great varieties of bakery breads etc, cheeses, meals, deli and I love them.  I will miss them a lot.

On the weekend we went into Coevorden as they had the Haven Dargen boat festival on canals.  The boats are all like old barge style wooden boats and are all beautifully kept and of different sizes.  They also had markets, static displays, music, fair ground rides etc.  It was a beautiful clear warm day and there was a huge crowd there.  At night they took people for free out on a moonlight tour but it didn’t leave until 10.30pm, so it would have been a really late night by the time we biked the 8km back to the camping ground, so we didn’t stay for it.

The lovely camping ground owners had 3 dogs – 2 albino Alsatians and a little jack russel who own the ground as well as chickens and a rooster plus a cat.  On our last night we had desert bought out to us at the van which was strawberries and ice cream and cream and was a real treat.

We managed to watch the live streaming of the funeral at 3am which was difficult but good considering the circumstances.  Not a lot of sleep was had before or after the funeral that night.

Tuesday morning 14th July

We packed up and said goodbye to Da Vlindas and headed for the Germany/Denmark border.  It was a long day of travelling and the German highways were interesting.  We were travelling at 60 miles per hour in the slow lane with the trucks and these crazy Germans would scream past doing near on 120 mph – probably more.  They were almost a blur as they flew by.  We had to watch out for anyone coming up if we had to pass a truck as they got to you so fast it was frightening.  At one point we heard a not so pleasant knocking type of noise – a little like the tyre noise we heard when we had a flat spot in the tyre in Belgium so we ended up pulling up in a rest area and checked the van out.  We didn’t find anything wrong and figured out it was the way the road was made but due to being paranoid from having a previous problem it was prudent to check it out anyway.  We were very grateful there wasn’t any other issue.

Late in the afternoon we arrive in Flensburg which is right on the Danish border but still in Germany.  Very busy camping ground – which we believed were mostly transient campers on their way to or from Denmark as it was much cheaper than the Danish camping grounds just across the border.  We had been told we should buy bottles of Whisky in Germany as they were so cheap to take with us as payment if something had to be done to the van.  However we didn’t do that and found that the prices aren’t as bad as people make them out to be in Denmark.  Denmark prices are equivalent or maybe slightly cheaper than Australia, but as our dollar devalues it is making it seem more expensive than it really is.  When we left we were getting  0.72 euro to 1 aussie dollar and now we are getting 0.63 – so the dollar has dropped 10% against the euro in 3 months.  It was also about 6 Kroner to 1AUD but it now is 5 Kroner to 1AUD.  We still don’t feel the prices are expensive though when compared to Aussie.  We paid $1 for a litre of milk and diesel is the equivalent of $1.75 per litre now which is actually cheaper than we were paying in Netherlands and Germany.

We left Flensburg on Wednesday and finally crossed over the border into Denmark.  We drove up to an area on the West Coast of Denmark called Vejers Strand which is right on the beach – a camping ground that was essentially set amongst the sand dunes and was huge so you could park where ever you liked.  It was a short walk over the dunes to the beach which was a straight stretch and miles long.  The water was not that cold but the wind was a little chilly so we didn’t end up swimming – although others were swimming.  The beach was like one large carpark with people taking their cars and campervans down, parking and setting up for the day.  Most people parking were from Germany – it was obviously a popular spot for them – perhaps one of the closest beaches and holiday destinations for them.

As we were walking along the beach an army tank came flying past us as well as a armoured car.  We wondered if maybe no one had told Denmark the war was over????  They were actually from the local war museum and are all in working order and they have displays on the beach every month as well in the dunes where they do war exercises and re-enactments.  There are signs warning people not to go in as there could be unexploded shells.  Scot had a great talk to the guys and had a look inside the Leopard tank – he really should have asked for a ride.  We also saw two jet fighters fly right along the beach front very low and fast – this really made me think they didn’t know the war was over!

Thursday July 16th

This would have been my Mother’s 84th Birthday so we decided to stay here and do something special in honour of her.  It was a lovely day so we went for a walk along the beach and when we got back to camp we picked a whole lot of the wild flowers that were growing all around and I wove them into a lovely wreath.  We bought a bottle of bubbly and took this and the flowers down to the beach and toasted my Mothers birthday that she didn’t quite make.  Then I let the wreath float out on the waves at the beach as my way of saying goodbye.  The flowers floated out on the tide – free – like I know my Mother is now.  My mother loved the beach, sea and bubbly so was a very fitting tribute to her.  I didn’t think it was right for Scot to cook on this day either so we went into the little village and had a lovely dinner out which is a first in a while – I couldn’t even fit ice cream in at the end! (Though Scot said he could have forced another beer or two down :-))

Friday July 17th

We got up early for us and went for a long walk along the beach – it was almost deserted surprisingly – compared to the last two days, but I guess it would have been quite busy by lunchtime.  We left and headed north to Toftum Bjerge.