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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Monday - Wiggling our way around the coast
We thought this was a quiet location, but from early morning until just before 7 AM there was a stream of traffic passing us. I say stream - that is stream compared to Norwegian traffic, not London traffic; but it was more than we expected, including several large trucks. There were also a few large resonating booms from somewhere in the distance.
When we came to leave we headed further around the island, in the same direction as the traffic. We soon found the destination of the traffic and source of the booms - a large stone quarry with grading plant and docks.
Once past the quarry the traffic disappeared and we found a nice fishing village:
We carried on around the coast on increasingly narrow roads until we came to a bridge to return to the mainland:
And soon after was the inevitable ferry - on this one they collected payment on the ferry itself.
Again we decided to pull off the main north / south road, which we had rejoined, and find a nice place for lunch - a narrow road lead past some farms and along the edge of a small lake - as good a place as any:
We had missed out visiting Trolltunga, for the reasons I mentioned earlier, but there was a similar overlook we could visit that would involve less hiking. But I would want to start early morning to avoid the crowds, and that meant finding a camping location not far from it tonight. So my boondocking RADAR was now engaged as we drove through the forested land on a plateau close to the town nearest our destination. There was a pull-in with a picnic table and a view and we stopped to evaluate it:
But Sally pointed out that it was a very narrow pull-in only just off the dirt track and she felt it was not appropriate. Since this is not far out of town I could imagine local teenagers coming up here at night to play at being rally drivers. Maybe my imagination is too fertile, but then again it has served me well in the past.
I checked the map, and now having learned something about Norwegian habitation patterns, identified a small dead-end road leading from the town up to a lake - it looked the sort of place with boondocking opportunities.
Tomorrow's destination is a tourist magnet, and as such that means that many RVs are likely to congregate in the area. That means that close and obvious boondocking spots will be taken or overly busy, shared with multiple RVs, there will likely be local resentment as a result, and many potential spots will have signs saying "No Camping" or "Private parking". Hence the need to be more tactical about finding a camping location.
We drove up the road to the lake - it was just rural and distant enough to put off other RVs. At the top was a parking area for residents and for visitors to the currently closed activities centre. Camping there would be too obvious, but 200 yds before there I found a smaller unused parking area. There were quarries nearby but there were no tyre marks from commercial vehicles in this parking area, and it was close to the start o a trail, so if we were discrete it would just look like we had parked while taking a hike.
Once parked we walked back to the lake:
And then walked around a quarter of the lake. We had the place to ourselves - some properties were occupied, but others were probably summer and winter vacation homes, and we were out of season.
On the way back we crossed a lovely fresh stream, and used it to have a sneaky wash.
In the evening a few residents' cars came past. Most noise though was from the quarry a quarter of a mile away up on the hill. They were operating machines noisily until around 6:30 PM and generating quite a lot of dust; then they all left. Apart from the boss it appeared. He seemed to stay and after a while started operating a machine again. He did stop before 8PM though.
Stay tuned for Pulpit Rock
We thought this was a quiet location, but from early morning until just before 7 AM there was a stream of traffic passing us. I say stream - that is stream compared to Norwegian traffic, not London traffic; but it was more than we expected, including several large trucks. There were also a few large resonating booms from somewhere in the distance.
When we came to leave we headed further around the island, in the same direction as the traffic. We soon found the destination of the traffic and source of the booms - a large stone quarry with grading plant and docks.
Once past the quarry the traffic disappeared and we found a nice fishing village:
We carried on around the coast on increasingly narrow roads until we came to a bridge to return to the mainland:
And soon after was the inevitable ferry - on this one they collected payment on the ferry itself.
Again we decided to pull off the main north / south road, which we had rejoined, and find a nice place for lunch - a narrow road lead past some farms and along the edge of a small lake - as good a place as any:
We had missed out visiting Trolltunga, for the reasons I mentioned earlier, but there was a similar overlook we could visit that would involve less hiking. But I would want to start early morning to avoid the crowds, and that meant finding a camping location not far from it tonight. So my boondocking RADAR was now engaged as we drove through the forested land on a plateau close to the town nearest our destination. There was a pull-in with a picnic table and a view and we stopped to evaluate it:
But Sally pointed out that it was a very narrow pull-in only just off the dirt track and she felt it was not appropriate. Since this is not far out of town I could imagine local teenagers coming up here at night to play at being rally drivers. Maybe my imagination is too fertile, but then again it has served me well in the past.
I checked the map, and now having learned something about Norwegian habitation patterns, identified a small dead-end road leading from the town up to a lake - it looked the sort of place with boondocking opportunities.
Tomorrow's destination is a tourist magnet, and as such that means that many RVs are likely to congregate in the area. That means that close and obvious boondocking spots will be taken or overly busy, shared with multiple RVs, there will likely be local resentment as a result, and many potential spots will have signs saying "No Camping" or "Private parking". Hence the need to be more tactical about finding a camping location.
We drove up the road to the lake - it was just rural and distant enough to put off other RVs. At the top was a parking area for residents and for visitors to the currently closed activities centre. Camping there would be too obvious, but 200 yds before there I found a smaller unused parking area. There were quarries nearby but there were no tyre marks from commercial vehicles in this parking area, and it was close to the start o a trail, so if we were discrete it would just look like we had parked while taking a hike.
Once parked we walked back to the lake:
And then walked around a quarter of the lake. We had the place to ourselves - some properties were occupied, but others were probably summer and winter vacation homes, and we were out of season.
On the way back we crossed a lovely fresh stream, and used it to have a sneaky wash.
In the evening a few residents' cars came past. Most noise though was from the quarry a quarter of a mile away up on the hill. They were operating machines noisily until around 6:30 PM and generating quite a lot of dust; then they all left. Apart from the boss it appeared. He seemed to stay and after a while started operating a machine again. He did stop before 8PM though.
Stay tuned for Pulpit Rock
