Saturday 19 May 2007
We were up at 7.30 am and enjoyed a buffet breakfast with fresh bread baked in the ship’s bakery.
We relaxed in our cabin as we watched the islands start to appear on the Norwegian coast.
As we were coming into Stavanger at 12.30 pm, a PA announcement told us to go down and wait in our vehicle. We were on Deck 3, and as we waited in the Earthroamer we listened to loud strange noises as the ship docked. It was probably the bow thrusters and the ship scraping on the side of the dock. Eventually the bow doors opened and we were the first vehicle out.
A friendly Norwegian customs or immigration man standing on the wharf had a glance at our passports and waved us on – no interest in insurance, carnets, registration ownership certificates or anything – how different it is going to be when we get to Russia.
In Sydney, we had installed the maps for Scandinavia in the Garmin 2720 GPS so now we are able to use the GPS for driving from the ship to the town of Stavanger a distance of 200-300 metres. Before getting into town, we parked in an open air car park and went for a walk. For 1 ½ hours we wandered around the fascinating town. It is obvious that Norway is booming from their oil reserves. Everything is beautifully clean, beautifully restored or beautifully modern. There were many expensive shops and well dressed people.
We looked for a restaurant for lunch but it was obvious we would have to wait too long – Dick has no patience so we went back to the van and made lunch with our Scottish bread and salad.
At 2.30 pm, we left on highway E39 and headed north. We were to realise that Norwegians are mad tunnellers.
The first tunnel was 5 ½ kilometres long and from then until when we left Norway we went through at least 30 tunnels. Some short, some very long some brightly lit and many totally dark, but all exciting.
We were now driving on the right hand side of the road. The main reason for buying the Earthroamer as a left hand drive vehicle was that the rest of the world trip would be in the right hand side of the roads until we reach Australia.
At the town of Mortavika the water crossing had even stumped the Norwegians – no tunnel so we drove onto a vehicle ferry.
We parked in the car park after paying the toll and waited for about 20 minutes while the ferry came in to the dock and tied up. We then drove quickly onto the ferry for the 15 minute crossing to Skudefjorden. The ferry was reasonably high speed and it rolled quite a bit but all the vehicles were simply parked on the deck without any tie downs.
No doubt the Norwegians are used to this. We climbed up the stairs to the food deck and enjoyed a coffee while looking at the beautiful scenery. It was 10°C outside, no rain with sun breaking through broken clouds.
Shortly after leaving the ferry, we stopped for our first refuelling on the Continent. The fuel was 10.19 Norwegian Kroner’s per litre ($2.00 AUD). We spent 2,328 Kroner’s ($450 AUD) for 228 litres of diesel.
As we headed north, it started to rain – we wondered if we would ever get out of the rain.
We realised not only could we drive from here to Vladivostok but we could also drive from here to Cape Town or from here to Singapore – extraordinary!
The road we headed on was absolutely magnificent. We are glad we chose to come via Norway rather than our original plan to drop down through France and into Spain. We decided that there would just be far too much traffic.
Here in Norway on the E134 driving through Olen towards Skare was one of the most magnificent roads we had been on so far, comparable with the Alaskan highway or driving in Yellowstone National Park.
As we drove up the side of Akrafjorden we passed through a number of tunnels and came out beside the beautiful Langfoss Falls that are 612 metres high.
It was lightly raining but absolutely spectacular. We walked under the road to look at the falls from almost their base.
The road we were on was built during World War II around the edge of the fjord but the many tunnels we were going through had been built at a later stage.
Shortly after the falls, we stopped at a tollbooth where we were charged 80 Kroner ($15.00 AUD) for our campervan. We headed to Skare following the E134 highway through to Røldal.
To cross the mountain range there was a magnificently long tunnel. Obviously you could drive over the top but we would imagine there would still be snow over the pass. The tunnel was at 3,400 feet and bought us out into the Telemark region on the other side.
At Edlind we left the E134 and headed more to the north as we wanted to see the famous power station where the British and Norwegians had parachuted in to destroy Germany’s heavy water production facility during the Second World War.
We entered Hordatunnel, our fourteenth tunnel since we had departed Stavanger and it was fascinating as we were convinced it actually wound spiralling down in the mountain. It is very hard to tell your direction in the tunnel as the GPS does not work nor the compass however when a tunnel keeps turning to the right for over a minute you realise that you must be spiralling in one direction or another.
Interestingly enough our NextG phone which we bought in Australia was working perfectly here – we understand it has extra bands so it was probably working on the GSM system. We phoned through to our friends in Oslo and communication was excellent. This is fascinating because it is a mountainous area where they must have many cell phone repeaters for it to work satisfactorily. Then again, Norway appears to have unlimited money for beautiful roads, fantastic tunnels and excellent public facilities everywhere.
At the Langfoss Falls there was nothing other than a little kiosk with no one in attendance. But there was a clean and modern public toilet as good a quality as you would see at the Hilton Hotel in New York – and all at no cost. We were to find out that this would change once we got to Russia.
As we climbed above 2,900 feet the lakes were frozen and it was 39°F outside.
We passed through the town of Rauland and a little while later just before coming into Rjurkan we pulled off the road into a little camping area with cabins, which had the name of Flothyl.
The whole camping area appeared to be unattended so we simply stayed for the night free of charge. We felt very safe.
It was raining lightly outside at 2,130 feet above sea level and it was 41°F.
Pip cooked our Scottish steaks as we watched a DVD and then slept very comfortably in our Earthroamer king sized bed.
248kms Today 16,183kms Total since Anchorage, Alaska
Click here for the next day.
Click here to return to the Smith’s Overland main index page.