Day Twenty-Three: Glava (Sweden) – Oslo (Norway) – Gjøvik Lake (Norway)
Coming into Norway was amazing, you could feel the difference as soon as we crossed the border from Sweden. I don’t know how to explain it, Reece uttered ‘it’s like Sweden, but on steroids’, and as we’d only yet ventured around the south of Sweden where it was flat, I think that was quite a fitting description as we drove over the bulges of Norway’s land.
The views were amazing, rather than red as we had often seen in Sweden, the houses in Norway seemed to be paler colours – pastel yellow and chalky blue – and the hilly landscape meant better views across the amazing lakes and pine forests. The only problem with the hills is that Papaya the Bongo does not agree with them. With her twenty-four-year-old mechanics and automatic gearbox, the usual purr of her engine turned into an angry growl as she tried to work out which gear was best to tackle the incline. All we could think of was the expensive Swedish diesel being gobbled up by the thirsty engine, and what an earth that meant for the mechanical side of things.
Talking about diesel, we were surprised to find that Norway’s diesel was, in fact, cheaper than Swedish diesel. I had been led to believe that everything, especially fuel, was more expensive in Norway so this was a welcome surprise.
Our first stop was Oslo. I have previously been to Oslo before on a Norwegian cruise with my family, and the most memorable thing about the city was the Vigeland Sculpture, which my step-dad and I went to see and photograph in 2016. I remember the city being nice, but preferring other sea-side towns to Oslo, such as Ulvik and Kristiansund. This time around, Reece and I parked the camper in a free car park outside the city centre and walked in, which took around 40 minutes.
The walk began quite pleasantly, with beautiful views across the city and cute houses, but soon became very busy and industrial as we reached the centre. We walked around for quite a while, finding some cute streets and hoping to find somewhere to sit down and have a pint. We both knew Norway was expensive, but when I asked and found out a pint was £10/€10, it was still a shock, so instead, we continued walking. After buying some overpriced falafels, we went to look at the royal palace and then got the bus to the Vigeland Sculpture Park. Around the park, there seemed to be a bit more of a younger scene going on, with a group of teens having a rave in the sculpture park, people skating outside, older teens following guys with huge speaker systems on their backs, shop-bought beer in hand. After seeing the prices of beer even in the shops, £5 per 33cl bottle, I still have no idea how the students managed to afford anything remotely alcoholic!
After the park, we went back to the camper and set off to find somewhere to sleep for the night. We wanted to make our way further up north to see some fjords, so we drove quite a while, in the dark too, so when we reached where we were staying for the night, again found on park4night, we couldn’t see a thing, only that there were other campers and tents there, so we parked up, set up camp, and went to bed.
Day Twenty-Four: Gjøvik Lake – Lovatnet Lake – Kjenndal Glacier
As we woke, the sunlight uncovered where we had parked, and it was even more beautiful than we could have imagined. We were parked on a grassy lawn with mountains surrounding us, at the foot of the mountains was a perfectly clear lake. Wanting to take advantage of the sun, we bathed in the beautiful, albeit very cold, lake after breakfast and soaked in the sunshine afterwards, drying off our swimwear and towels.
We wanted to see a fjord today, so after watching some youtube videos, we settled on a lake called Lovatnet, which although isn’t truly a fjord as it is not an inlet of the sea, it is fresh water, but it has all the other features of a fjord as it is situated in Lodalen valley. Before the trip, Reece had said he wanted to see a glacier as, with the way climate change is going, we don’t know how long the glaciers will last. At the time, we had no idea where we would find a glacier, but as I was searching for a place to stay, the most highly recommended campervan spot appeared to be at the foot of a glacier, which happened to be attached to the Lovatnet fjord. However, I wasn’t expecting much from the glacier as none of the youtube videos had even bothered to mention it.
We both took turns to drive from Lake to Lake and the views along the way were absolutely breathtaking, with lakes and river of all different shades, icy blue, turquoise, some as green as the grass next to them, other lakes so clear they were almost mirrorlike. As we climbed up the mountain on winding roads and through the craziest dungeon-like tunnels, the weather turned, which ruined the view in some ways, but it created for the most peculiar driving I have ever done – crawling around hairpin bends and flying above and through the clouds.
The views only got better and better as we reached Lovatnet. The weather improved, and we carried on towards the glacier. The water of Lovatnet was such a crazy colour – bright turquoise from some perspectives. This colour derives from the rock flour, or tiny peices of rock that get ground up from the constantly shifting glacier, that rest at the bottom of the lake.
As we reached the glacier, we were the only ones there, and it was absolutely stunning, with waterfalls surrounding us and the glacier suspended upon the mountain. It was such a magical place.
Day Twenty-Five: Kjenndal Glacier – Gerirangerfjord – Storfjorden
In the morning, we went for a walk to get even closer to the glacier, luckily for us we had missed both the bus full of tourists and the downpour of rain that took place around 9am, instead we watched out our window, waited for the sun to come out, and went for a walk. We managed to get pretty close, close enough to feel how cold and clear the water was in the stream coming down most directly from the glacier and see the huge chunck of ice in even more detail.
We learnt afterwards that the glacier we had stayed under, Kjenndal, was actually a branch of the largest glacier in Europe, Jostedal Glacier, which is pretty impressive.
After visiting the glacier, we headed back up and over the mountain towards the most famous fjord in Norway, Gerirangerfjord.
On the way down the valley heading towards the glacier, all we could smell was, I assume, the brake pads burning with all the pressure of going down the hill. So rather than pushing Papaya and our nerves any further, we stopped halfway to cook up some lunch, under the watchful eye of a mama sheep and her lambs.
As we reached the bottom, the weather had slightly improved and it was a beautiful view, but not really much compared to the breathtaking turquoise of the glacier lake at the foot of the valley that we had driven through to get to Gerirangerfjord.
One particularly impressive element of the view from the fjords was the ribbon-like road that we were about to conquer. It was very windy and very uphill. We just had our fingers crossed that Papaya could make it, as there was no alternative.
Of course, with her 2.5 litre engine, Papaya had no problem climbing up the hill and, again driving on incredibly scenic roads, we reached our destination for the night. And it was beautiful, at the foot of get another fjord, and incredibly peaceful, and very conveniently located just behind a coop which had a loo with running water. Perfect.
Day Twenty-Six: Storfjorden – Atlantic Ocean Road – Oppdal
The twenty-sixth was the first day I woke up feeling pretty homesick, I missed my puppies and my pony, van life is hard work, and moving every day is even harder, and I just wanted to nip back home for a cuddle. Nonetheless, after getting up, brushing my teeth with actual running water from the coop and having some breakfast with the blueberries we had picked with an absolutely amazing view in front of me, I felt a lot better.
Our aim for the day was to see the Atlantic Ocean Road and then head towards the border of Sweden, which is exactly what we did. The road was a bit of a detour, so it simply meant we had to go over it both ways, which was actually a blessing in disguise as going over it the first way was a little disappointing, but coming back, it was gorgeous and exactly what we had been expecting.
The roads from the Atlantic Ocean Road to Oppdal, which is where we ended up staying for the night, were amazing and the sun was beating down on us, making the views look even more glorious.
Oppdal turned out to be a ski town in the north of Norway, since it was summer it was pretty quiet, but there were a few other campers next to us in the Car park, so it served us well for the evening.
Day Twenty-Seven: Oppdal (Norway) – Alsensjön (Sweden)
After leaving the little ski-town with a coffee and pastry each in hand to fuel us for the drive, we were set on getting back to Sweden before the end of the day.
After we got past Trondheim, failing at an attempt to get free parking in the city to do our laundry as we were reluctant to get another parking ticket, so we didn’t stop; but after we got past, we found a crystal clear lake and it was so hot, we just wanted to jump in! However, this was another ‘drinking water lake’ which had a no swimming sign and some other writing in Norwegian next to this. As we were sulking on our way back to the van, disappointed that we couldn’t jump in the lake, we bumped into an older gentleman who lived in one of the houses right next to the lake, we talked for quite a while, it turned out he was a retired English teacher, and when we got talking about the lake, he told not to worry about the sign, he used it as drinking water and it was fine if the odd person went in, just not the whole of Trondheim. So he pointed us to a place where we could get in the lake without people seeing us, with a parting warning that the lake was very cold. We got there and wading into the lake was beautiful, it was peaceful and cold, but not in an unpleasant way. It was a great pit stop.
The place we found for the night was called ‘Uddens Vänner’ and it was sort of like a free campsite, with lovely mown lawns and a great view across the lake.
Day Twenty-Eight and Day Twenty-Nine: Alsensjön (Sweden) – Norsjo (Sweden) – Vatungin (Finland)
Unfortunately, for these two days, there is not too much to write about as we have been pushing on trying to get to Finland and work our way down to reach Eastern Europe as, although Scandinavia is stunningly beautiful, it is pretty cold, but most of all it is expensive. As we would like to make this trip last six-months in total, we are heading towards Eastern Europe where diesel, groceries and everyday living is a lot cheaper than Scandinavia. We have taken the driving in turns, for the first time in the trip, I am usually very happy to be in the passenger seat, and we have reached Finland now, doing around 5 or 6 hours behind the wheel to get from the Atlantic Ocean Road all the way to the top of Finland. This is also why this blog is a day late – I have either been driving or being a passenger, where I struggle to write a lot without feeling a little queasy.
Our plan is now to take things a little more steady, get to Estonia in around four or five days, and then hopefully catch some sunshine and be able to afford to do a little more as we work our way down to Croatia through Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Germany, Czechia, Slovakia, Austria and Hungary.
Last night we stayed in a nice little spot next to a port, which in the sunshine looked gorgeous, but it didn’t look so nice waking up to it in the dreary weather of this morning (30th of August), which made us even more sure of our decision to get back down south!
Beyond Horizons 