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Motorhoming in Scandanavia

This is an account of a novice motorhomer first trip out in the van - he choose Norway

I boarded the Irish Ferries ship the Isle of Inishmore in Rosslare heading for Pembroke in Wales at around 7:30 a.m.. It's about a four hour trip and the sea was calm making it was a very pleasant crossing. This was the first leg of my trip - ultimate destination Scandanavia, but I had yet to make my way across Wales and England to board a ferry in Newcastle upon Tyne. I had never been away outside Ireland in a camper before and was surprised to discover that diesel is about one pound Stirling a litre which worked out at about €1.47 a litre compared to Ireland. This was to be the many of first lessons on this trip.
I picked out a campsite at Tuxford about halfway to the Port of South Shields in Newcastle upon Tyne, so on the Saturday morning, leaving Pembroke, I headed north. It was my first time working with coordinates on the satellite navigation and it worked out very well, I arrived at the lovely campsite. The campsite has wireless Internet access, my laptop I discovered is missing some software and I was unable to access the Internet. This was unfortunate as I had intended finding a campsite in Stavanger in Norway when I arrived there. However, not being totally reliant on technology I reverted to some reading material to locate a campsite from the book supplied by Scandinavian camping company.
I got up on the Sunday morning at around 9 a.m. attempted to boil my small electric kettle with my new inverter which I bought from eBay. It is supposedly a one thousand watt with two thousand watt peak, it nearly freaked out when I plugged in my little electric kettle. Made my cup of tea on the gas and had my breakfast.
At around 11 a.m. I headed for Newcastle and reached the docks at South Shields at about 2:40 p.m. miles ahead of time, I had a long day hanging around waiting for the boat, which I boarded at around 11 p.m.. The camper was searched by a very polite customs official whom I had a good chat with about diving in west Cork. His main concern was that I did not have anybody else hidden in the camper.
Having boarded the vessel I headed for my cabin. It was an internal cabin, that is there were no windows/ports the cabin itself was okay it had a bathroom with shower, it was functional. The biggest drawback I found was the heat, which I could not control. However despite this I eventually got to sleep and was in no hurry to get up the following day. Needless to say when I did get up and go for something to eat the food was outrageously expensive, but that was not unexpected.
In Stavanger having disembarked I headed for Stavanger camping to spend the night. It was in a lovely location but the campsite was a bit of a disaster. There were no marked stands everyone was higgledy-piggledy parked on wet grass, I couldn't get connected to electricity which was no great loss in the circumstances. But I was a bit worried about getting out of there in the morning so parked carefully and had no trouble.
I woke at the ungodly hour of 5:30 a.m. and decided to make an early start. The campsite while not quite in the middle of the city was surrounded by city and I decided that driving on the left as a beginner that the quite of the early morning might be the best time to make a move. I was quite nervous at the start but quickly got into the run of things. I headed north and got my first baptism of Norway's favourite pastime which seems to be "digging tunnels". There were two tunnels going under a fjord - the first is the deepest underwater tunnel in the world it just seemed to go down forever - my ears popped. They were not the longest tunnels I encountered but they certainly were an eye opener. Shortly after the second tunnel I had my first experience on another Norwegian standard transport method which is the car ferry, especially going up the west coast between all the little islands and head lands. A twenty five minute crossing cost around €17. I travelled through beautiful countryside not dissimilar to what you would find in West Cork, Kerry and up the west coast of Ireland. I stopped at a supermarket and bought the makings of sandwiches. A packet of cooked ham which had the delightful name of "skinke" and some rolls made a grand lunch.
I had left Ireland with over €40 credit on my phone this was reduced to around €10 with very little effort in around a week of roaming with Meteor, with over a month in Norway still facing me I decided to try and buy a Norwegian SIM card for my phone. I had heard that Norwegian SIM cards have to be registered so you must have a local address. However this did not turn out to be totally correct, the sim card has to be registered, but you can register it with your passport as a visitor registration. I met two local girls who worked in a Shell filling station they both spoke perfect English and were extremely helpful. They translated the registration form for me and helped me fill it in, they then faxed the form to the relevant athority, and in about 20 minutes I had my new SIM card which cost me around €10. I also had 250 NK credit which is a little over €30 which lasted me right up to the week before I returned home five weeks later.
This brings up another point - everyone in Norway from the youngest to eldest spoke English, when I asked the two girls about this they informed me that they start to learn English from the time they are four to five years of age, this made life very easy for me.
So having been fed with skinke sandwiches and with my new phone number I again headed north towards a town called Odda which I had decided would be my first stop on the road.
The second half of my first day in Norway set the scene for rest of the holiday I will never forget the journey to 0dda it was without doubt breathtakingly beautiful as snowcapped mountains, magnificent waterfalls and a fjord with water so blue it was hard to believe, all unfolded before my eyes. I wrote earlier about how impressive the first two tunnels were but can now tell you they were puny compared to the tunnels I travelled through on the second-half of the day.
I reached 0dda at around three thirty and found the campsite Odda Camping without any bother thanks to the sat nav. It was a lovely site at the head of a fjord named Sarfjorden surrounded by mountains, right beside the sea. I discovered that my electric cable had the wrong connections for Norway which use the two pin system rather than the more usual three pin system. However the campsite owner most obliging lent to me a short lead that allowed me to connect to the electricity outlet. The following morning he very kindly sold me the lead for around €8, this sorted my problem for the rest of the holiday.

On my first evening in Norway I cooked up a feast of spuds, pork chops and a turnip that my son Brian had put in the camper for a laugh. I was exhausted and exhilarated after my first day so I got an early night.
The problem with going to bed early is one has the tendency of waking very early also, so after a cup of tea and a slice or two of bread I started on the road at 7:40 a.m.. The road wound along beside the fjord for about 40 miles - it was absolutely beautiful. However the road was quite narrow and I met quite a few articulated lorries and tourist buses coming against me at speed. I found this a little nerve wracking and the cause of a few skidmarks which were not necessarily on the road surface. Having reached the end of the road beside the fjord I hung a right at Vansbygd and headed towards Bjorkestolen which was my next choice of a campsite to spend the night, my journey for the day amounted to around 160 miles. Anyway I'm getting ahead of myself having turned right at Vansbygd the road started climbing up into the mountains. This was a total contrast to the earlier scenery it now started to become rugged and rough raging torrents of rivers with massive volumes of water, waterfalls by the score and snow in all directions. There were 10 to 15 foot drifts of snow on both sides of the road, both sides of the road were also marked with 15 to 16 foot long bamboo sticks these were used to mark the sides of the road for the snowploughs. These mountains are not extraordinarily high I am talking about between three and 4000 feet at the most.

Thursday 14th and I am out of bed early - made it to the road for 8:50 a.m. and headed towards Dokka. For first time since I left my home the morning was dull and overcast. I was again climbing mountains and as I got through Hovda I ran into a full blown blizzard the snow was coming down thick and heavy. The morning in general was wet and miserable and I seemed to spend forever going up one side of a mountain and down the other in very poor visibility and at very low speed. When I reached Lillehammer, the site of the 1994 winter Olympics, the weather cleared and I had a lovely run north beside a river called Lagen. Not spectacular scenery but very pleasant. I called in to a little country garage to get a fill of diesel. The woman behind the counter must not have liked the look of me as she told me my Visa card was no good. I had to pay her with cash. This was a worry at the time because if she was correct and there was a problem with my credit card it might have been a very short holiday. However I soon discovered my credit card was fine and the entire episode was a result of her suspicious little mind and I a picture of innocence! T
Woke at around 7 a.m. on Friday the 15th to most beautiful day. My main ambition today was to get a loose fan belt tightened. The Norwegian for car is bil so following directions from the campsite owner I arrived at a garage called Oya Bil. Unable to get assistance there I was redirected to another garage called wait for it "Killi Bil". Unfortunately they were unable to help me either. At this stage I returned to the camping site got out my deck chair and turned my belly to the sun. I was slowly winding my way towards Trondheim where I was to collect my son Alan. He was arriving on the 18th and Saeta campsite was around 200 km from Trondheim. It was within easy striking distance and I had three days to get there.
The following morning a weird thing happened. I opened the blinds to behold my German neighbour with a mechanic from Killi Bil garage buried under the bonnet of his car. I asked the mechanic when he had finished with the German to tighten my fan belt which he did for the equivalent of about €10 which he didn't want to take, fair dues to him.
I went on the road at around 10 a.m. heading for Domas and onto Andalsnes, stopped to get a fill of diesel with my perfectly good credit around lunchtime. I decided when eating to try " wild camping" as the Norwegians call it. Legally in Norway you are entitled to camp anywhere you wish, the restrictions being that you are outside 150 m of the dwellinghouse and it's not agricultural land, once these criteria are filled nobody can say boo to you, this is not the full list of criteria but the main points.
Anyway I continued on the road which was very picturesque till I came to a lake called Eikisdalsvatnet which is a small lake by their standards but it was without doubt one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen, I found a good spot beside a small stream with a waterfall coming off the mountain. The lake was surrounded by snowcapped mountains that fell shear into the water, the place was totally awesome. I also had my first experience in this spot of the midnight sun, I woke up at around 2 a.m. and it was as bright as when I went to bed at 12:30 a.m..
Alan missed his connecting filght which enforced me to head for a campsite just north of Trondheim called Gallberget really a nondescript kind of place but was a place to doss for a day or two while awaiting Alan's arrival. When he arrived we headed north, covering 240 miles for the day. We found a campsite at Skogmo near Bronnosund. It wasn't a great but it did the job, and the old fella who ran it told us we were first Irish people to ever stay there.
The scenery on the journey the next day was mind blowing, we covered a good distance but the journey was broken up between driving and ferry trips of which there were four up along the west coast of Norway. The ferry boats were not that expensive and were a welcome break as we were quite tired after the long run on the day before.
Found a lovely little side road at the entrance to a tunnel beside a stream with a waterfall so we decided to stay the night. Left it at around 9:30 a.m. the following day Friday. We skirted the Svartisen Glacier which is the second largest in Europe, it can be quite clearly seen, this towering mass of ice between the mountain peaks with a long tongue moving down a valley towards a lake. There was a spot where you could get a boat across the lake and climb about two kilometres up to the ice. Alan headed off but I declined, I took out my deckchair and basked in the sun. It was amazing I was receiving texts from home about the terrible weather, and here I was 20 miles inside the Arctic Circle enjoying the most beautiful summer weather. Alan arrived back with a load of photos of the glacier.
We headed on to a town called Boda where we were picking up my youngest son David from the airport at around 1:30 a.m.. We checked out the airport first and then went looking for somewhere to put in a few hours while we waited. We went to have a look at the Saltsfraumen Maelstrom which is under a bridge as you head into Bodo, however we hit it at the wrong stage of the tide for while the water was moving strong it wasn't what I imagined a Maelstrom should look like, considering it is supposed to be the worst in Europe. We found a nice little spot beside the sea to while away a few hours as we waited. Alan got out his fishing rod and in the following hour caught around a dozen fish, we couldn't decide whether they were cod or Pollok.
Collected David from the airport and after some rest headed north towards Tromso and the North Cape. The weather had turned miserable, rain and cold as we got to a place called Alta which is near enough on a latitude of 70° north. We visited the museum where they are 6000-year-old rocks drawings that are quite interesting. We then discussed the the whole question of whether we should push any further north, the books we had and the people we met all suggested The North Cape was a rip-off and not worth visiting. Time was also a factor, this was Monday the 25th and the two lads had to be back at the airport at Torp in seven days time, at this stage we had Finland and Sweden to spend some time in also.
In the end we decided to head south into Finland and covered hundred and sixty kilometres and found a nice restaurant. We were of course back dealing with euro's again. We all had beef stuffed with reindeer and chips which went down no trouble.
We left Finland the following day and headed into Sweden. We covered around 220 miles and arrived at a town called Jokkmokk we found and nice lay-by beside a lake and bedded down for the night. I woke up at around 5:30 a.m. with the sound of a mosquito buzzing in my ear,(I reckon I nearly went into shock from blood loss from feeding mosquitoes) After a few days travelling around and sampling the food we decided we had enough of Sweden and headed west from Norway. Unfortunately our abiding memories of Finland and Sweden were mosquito bites and endless miles of trees on both sides of the road 800 miles in fact. To be continued....

Now back in Norway, we headed towards Oslo. The first town we came to called Roros. It is a world Heritage site, the centre of the town has century old houses on little narrow streets that are architecturally significant. We travelled through Lillehamer which was the 1994 Winter Olympic host town, at this stage it struck me as being a small and nondescript kind of place. We finished up in Dokka where we're booked in to a campsite to service the van. The following day we meandered down towards Oslo. Our plans went awry when we could not find our campsite outside Oslo, so we finished up in a campsite in Oslo called Ekeberg. The site was expensive (€33 a night) but it was a beautiful site on a hill overlooking Oslo with every amenity imaginable.

Our first stop in Oslo on the Sunday were the museums which are all reasonably close together. I was interested in the old Viking ships of which there were three dating back to the eighth and ninth centuries, they were very impressive. From there we went to the Kon Tiki Museum where we saw Tor Heyerdahls two craft - the Kon Tiki and the Ra - which he used on his expeditions, finally Amundsens Museum which housed the ship that he used to travel to the South Pole.

Over the next two days we went through Drammen, Konsberg, Notodden, Quarve and Skien and back towards Torp airport. I left the lads at the airport for their 6.30pm departure and at 7 p.m. my other son Brian and a neighbour Alison arrived. The following morning we headed north towards 0dda. Brian was hoping to see the glacier Folgetonni which is the third largest in Europe. The road to 0dda was spectacular and Odda itself is a very pretty town with some very colourful buildings. Headed for the glacier and finished up in a tunnel that went under it - an 11 km tunnel that seemed to go on and on and on. So we finished up on the other side just near enough to get a few distant photos of the glacier.

Voringfossen the waterfall was our next stop. The sat nav must have been set for the shortest route because it took us over a narrow little mountain track about the width of the van, definitely skid mark time again. It was a bit scary but we got through it and the views were spectacular, however progress was painfully slow and at 12:30 p.m. we had just about half of the 90 km covered. We had to cross Eidjford for the second leg of the journey so we got a ferry at Bruravik to Brimnes. Travelled through Eidfjord and on to Handanger Nature Centre there was a clothes shop that sold native woollens which are very colourful. It wasn't far from there to the waterfall but was uphill all the way, we climbed to about 2000 feet up a spectacular mountain road. The waterfall is the highest in Europe with a straight drop of over 600 feet it is really spectacular. We continued onto Hamer which is just south of Lillehammer and found the carpark to the ice skating stadium for the 1994 Winter Olympics. We had a look around the Olympic Hall on the Sunday morning before we left for Oslo. Arriving there around 12:30 p.m. Brian and Allison headed off to have a look around the city, they were not interested in museums, but had a good look around the shops.
Monday was Brian's last day so once again we headed for Torp airport.

Having dropped him off, we were bound for Sweden for a few days. We got the car ferry from Sandefjord to Stromstad in Sweden. We arrived rather late it was 11 p.m. but we were lucky enough to find a carpark with plenty other campers and caravans and parked up for the night.
The following morning we left Stromstad for Lake Venem. We had intended spending two or three days in Sweden driving around the lake, however the scenery returned to tree-lined roads with a few fields here and there. It was 357 miles around the lake and we did it in one-day, the lake is supposed to be beautiful but in those miles we saw it for about five minutes and we couldn't get near it. We returned to Stromstad and left for Norway the following morning on the 10 o'clock sailing.
We decided to see some of the south coast of Norway so we headed for Larvik and on to Kristansand. A few miles before Kristansand we found an unusual campsite called Moglestue in the haggard of a farmyard run by an old woman who was quaint to say the least. We were told to stay away from the field on the left as they would be digging the spuds the following day. We found a grand spot under an old oaktree, we were able to connect to the electricity surprisingly enough and the amenities weren't bad either.
The following morning we discussed what we would do next. Remember the clothes shop at Eidfjord, it seems the clothes at this shop where half the price compared to the shops in Oslo, so we decided to head back in that direction for the remaining few days, it also took us through the best of the scenery again. Alison enjoyed the shopping I had a great chat with the shop owner he spoke perfect English and was a mine of information.
Over the next two days we made our way back to the docks at Stavanger for the journey home. The weather was miserable but boarding time eventually arrived and we got settled on board. It is a full day's voyage that seemed unending however it should be said the sea was kind both coming and going, it was flat calm on both occasions which considering the reputation of the north sea was a blessing.
Finally disembarked in Newcastle and headed for Manchester and on to Pembroke the following day.