Trip report : Norway in the truck camper
Well, we had done a lot of stuff in our own country in our truck camper the past couple of years, and a lot of foreign travel in rented campers, so time to get our little camper on a ferry and oversea...
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Saturday - driving south
We had a lie-in this morning. We were pretty tired after yesterday. It was still lovely weather so we sat out on the dyke separating the campground from the river. We took our regular folding directors chairs, but during the whole trip we only used these cheap beach chairs - they are lighter, use less space and give you what I like to call an "infinity table" - i.e. I have the entire ground to put my beer / food / book / etc. on - or at least that which is within arm's reach.
The Germans were having breakfast sitting on the roof rack of their Land Rover :B
The campground had very nice showers. In fact it had those family rooms with a shower, wash basin and toilet all in the same lockable room, which meant we could go in together.
We dumped and refilled while we had the opportunity.
We headed south. I didn't know where we would camp that night, but there were a load of waypoints I had programmed into the GPS that were quite a few hours south. I discussed with Sally and we decided to do a chunk of driving to give us more time in that region.
As ever, the drive down revealed lovely scenery in itself:
And inevitably more ferries:
So another chance go explore the inside of another ferry:
A pretty village at the end of one of the fjords:
Up the road we dropped into the Hopperstad stavkirke - around 900 years old:
These were built pretty much with viking longship technology.
A guy in his 30s was sat inside, so we asked him a few questions - he was extremely knowledgeable. He said there was something like 30 of these left with a couple of replicas in the US.
He explained that the church was from the time of the plague. I asked about a 8 inch square port hole in the side of the church - he said it was so the priest could bless those who were outside who were not allowed in the church, including lepers.
From here we headed up hill and was soon back in the ice.
I decided not to take this side road:
The truck was dirty, so what better than a car wash. However, this guy took forever and just left dirty saliva marks on the back of the truck. At one point he attempted to clean the inside of the driver's door. Needless to say I didn't leave a tip.
Dropping down the other side of the mountain we found a ski resort. Many of the resorts are biased towards cross-country skiing and have excellent cycle paths / ski tracks running parallel with the roads and cutting under them through tunnels. The accommodation is attractive too, in a classic Norwegian style:
Time for some more tunnels. This one was a surprise - it had a roundabout in the middle - carved like a donut in the rock:
I was considering hiking up to Trolltunga. This is the piece of rock shaped like a tongue that sticks out from a mountain above a fjord. To do this we would need to find somewhere nearby to camp for the night. Entering the nearby town we saw there were loads of RVs boondocking appropriately on the dock near the ferry. It looked really busy and after the quiet of the places we had come from Sally really didn't want to stay there.
I decided to drive up to the point where the hike to Trolltunga starts. A narrow road winds through the suburbs which climb steeply up the hill from the fjord. After the houses was a motorhome parking area. We stopped and read the sign. Parking was expensive and the sign clearly indicated that overnight parking / camping was banned. It also indicated that from there you needed to take a taxi up to the trail head and gave some phone numbers. This was all starting to put me off.
Screw it I thought, and ignored the no-RV sign, and continued up the single-track road towards the trail head. I suspected the sign was more aimed at class C and larger vehicles, where-as being narrow at the wheels it is easier for us to pull right over to let other vehicles past.
On reaching the top we found a large and full car park, again with expensive parking charges and lots of sign posts. Extremely tired looking people were streaming off the trail - the hike is quite a long return trip.
We decided this all looked too commercial for our liking, so we headed back down.
I had another campground on the GPS, in the town centre, but when we drove up to it it was pretty packed with tightly spaced RVs. I had also marked a glacier that was apparently worth visiting, so I wondered if we could find a boondocking spot up there. However, as we turned onto the road we came face to face with a sign saying not only no RVs, but with a width restriction which we clearly didn't comply with - so that idea was out.
We headed further along the valley away from the fjord and found a nice waterfall. We would have stopped longer, but it was starting to get late now:
As we headed further up we saw a sign to a ski centre. Assuming that this would be closed at this time of year we guessed we might have a chance at boondocking there. Initially the access road went through a number of nice houses, so I was in two minds whether to continue. Then it narrowed to a single lane with grass growing up the middle descending a fairly steep hill, and only just wide enough for the camper, If the road deteriorated much further I wasn't looking forward to having to reverse all the way back up.
However, at the bottom was some sort of activity centre that was clearly closed at this time of year, and the track had a barrier just past it, so clearly there would be no through traffic.
A couple of cars did come down the track in the evening, their drivers looked confused and they headed back up again. I put that down to a GPS glitch - the mapping on my GPS tried to push me off the main road and onto the bottom end of this track several miles down the ravine, and others were obviously suffering the same fate. In the end we got a quiet night, but for a while were slightly spooked by the lights of the activity centre coming on - but after investigation it was clear it was unoccupied and they were on a time.
Stay tuned for the coast...
We had a lie-in this morning. We were pretty tired after yesterday. It was still lovely weather so we sat out on the dyke separating the campground from the river. We took our regular folding directors chairs, but during the whole trip we only used these cheap beach chairs - they are lighter, use less space and give you what I like to call an "infinity table" - i.e. I have the entire ground to put my beer / food / book / etc. on - or at least that which is within arm's reach.
The Germans were having breakfast sitting on the roof rack of their Land Rover :B
The campground had very nice showers. In fact it had those family rooms with a shower, wash basin and toilet all in the same lockable room, which meant we could go in together.
We dumped and refilled while we had the opportunity.
We headed south. I didn't know where we would camp that night, but there were a load of waypoints I had programmed into the GPS that were quite a few hours south. I discussed with Sally and we decided to do a chunk of driving to give us more time in that region.
As ever, the drive down revealed lovely scenery in itself:
And inevitably more ferries:
So another chance go explore the inside of another ferry:
A pretty village at the end of one of the fjords:
Up the road we dropped into the Hopperstad stavkirke - around 900 years old:
These were built pretty much with viking longship technology.
A guy in his 30s was sat inside, so we asked him a few questions - he was extremely knowledgeable. He said there was something like 30 of these left with a couple of replicas in the US.
He explained that the church was from the time of the plague. I asked about a 8 inch square port hole in the side of the church - he said it was so the priest could bless those who were outside who were not allowed in the church, including lepers.
From here we headed up hill and was soon back in the ice.
I decided not to take this side road:
The truck was dirty, so what better than a car wash. However, this guy took forever and just left dirty saliva marks on the back of the truck. At one point he attempted to clean the inside of the driver's door. Needless to say I didn't leave a tip.
Dropping down the other side of the mountain we found a ski resort. Many of the resorts are biased towards cross-country skiing and have excellent cycle paths / ski tracks running parallel with the roads and cutting under them through tunnels. The accommodation is attractive too, in a classic Norwegian style:
Time for some more tunnels. This one was a surprise - it had a roundabout in the middle - carved like a donut in the rock:
I was considering hiking up to Trolltunga. This is the piece of rock shaped like a tongue that sticks out from a mountain above a fjord. To do this we would need to find somewhere nearby to camp for the night. Entering the nearby town we saw there were loads of RVs boondocking appropriately on the dock near the ferry. It looked really busy and after the quiet of the places we had come from Sally really didn't want to stay there.
I decided to drive up to the point where the hike to Trolltunga starts. A narrow road winds through the suburbs which climb steeply up the hill from the fjord. After the houses was a motorhome parking area. We stopped and read the sign. Parking was expensive and the sign clearly indicated that overnight parking / camping was banned. It also indicated that from there you needed to take a taxi up to the trail head and gave some phone numbers. This was all starting to put me off.
Screw it I thought, and ignored the no-RV sign, and continued up the single-track road towards the trail head. I suspected the sign was more aimed at class C and larger vehicles, where-as being narrow at the wheels it is easier for us to pull right over to let other vehicles past.
On reaching the top we found a large and full car park, again with expensive parking charges and lots of sign posts. Extremely tired looking people were streaming off the trail - the hike is quite a long return trip.
We decided this all looked too commercial for our liking, so we headed back down.
I had another campground on the GPS, in the town centre, but when we drove up to it it was pretty packed with tightly spaced RVs. I had also marked a glacier that was apparently worth visiting, so I wondered if we could find a boondocking spot up there. However, as we turned onto the road we came face to face with a sign saying not only no RVs, but with a width restriction which we clearly didn't comply with - so that idea was out.
We headed further along the valley away from the fjord and found a nice waterfall. We would have stopped longer, but it was starting to get late now:
As we headed further up we saw a sign to a ski centre. Assuming that this would be closed at this time of year we guessed we might have a chance at boondocking there. Initially the access road went through a number of nice houses, so I was in two minds whether to continue. Then it narrowed to a single lane with grass growing up the middle descending a fairly steep hill, and only just wide enough for the camper, If the road deteriorated much further I wasn't looking forward to having to reverse all the way back up.
However, at the bottom was some sort of activity centre that was clearly closed at this time of year, and the track had a barrier just past it, so clearly there would be no through traffic.
A couple of cars did come down the track in the evening, their drivers looked confused and they headed back up again. I put that down to a GPS glitch - the mapping on my GPS tried to push me off the main road and onto the bottom end of this track several miles down the ravine, and others were obviously suffering the same fate. In the end we got a quiet night, but for a while were slightly spooked by the lights of the activity centre coming on - but after investigation it was clear it was unoccupied and they were on a time.
Stay tuned for the coast...
