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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Tuesday - Pulpit Rock
We got up early and managed to get down the road before the quarry traffic started coming up from the town below for their shift.
We headed for a place called Preikestolen, but commonly known as Pulpit Rock. A large car park with electronic barrier, bathrooms, hotel, restaurant, tourist shop, etc. were our driving destination, and we got there well before 7 AM. The car park was nearly empty. We used their bathroom facilities quickly and were keen to start the 1+ hour hike up to the rock before other travellers turned up.
It was a nice hike and the trail was well looked after. It climbs nearly all the way, but as you near the end the scenery starts to open out below you:
A few minutes later and you reach the target - a giant vertical wedge of rock poised to separate away from the mountain and plunge into the black depths of the fjord below.
I don't mind some rock climbing - when I have a rope attached to me, but I don't like standing unprotected too close to the edge of things like this:
Viewed from above you can see the square profile of this wedge of rock. You can also see the only other people up there - some guys from New Zealand who had camped there over night - you can just see their dome tent on the right hand edge of the rock. Just as well it stays light at night at this time of year - you wouldn't want to step out in the middle of the night to relieve yourself and find you are staggering around that platform in the pitch black:
Once we had our fill of precipitous drops, we started the descent to the car park. It was only then we started meeting people who had reached the car park as we were leaving - they were slower hikers. This meant we had the rock virtually to ourselves with the only sound coming from cuckoos.
But as we descended further the opposing traffic changed from the odd walker passed every 5 minutes or so, to small groups and eventually to a queue of tired, sweaty coach tourists struggling up the trail. By the time they reached the rock exhausted, it would be packed with people. You would no doubt have to queue to have your picture taken. That is not how I like to appreciate nature.
Also, on the way down the midges had awoken to their target audience and were swarming around the unfortunate hikers. OK, they aren't mosquitoes, but anyone who has visited Scotland can tell you how annoying they are.
It was time for a picnic, and I pointed out the car parking was expensive, so we should make the most of it. So we left the camper where it was and took our stuff down to the small lake below the car park. It was far enough below to not be visited by the tourists whose only interest was Pulpit Rock. I felt slightly sorry for the people running the place since it was clear they had tried to expand the operation to provide other interesting activities like canoeing, but no-one was interested - they only had the main destination on their mind and would leave as soon as they had achieved it. As a result we had a lovely quiet lie-down and then picnic on a rock by the lake:
The wind got up and it was starting to get cooler, so we returned to the camper, via the souvenir shop and paid our car parking (insert credit card into the machine at the barrier - slightly more awkward because it assumes a left hand drive vehicle, and my truck is right hand drive).
We dropped off the mountain back to the main road at sea level, and followed it around to the entrance of the fjord we had just been overlooking. There was a large picnic area there and we pulled in to have a quick look before boarding the next ferry. It had 3 or 4 individual bays for cars and a number of nice picnic benches made of stone overlooking the fjord. As we pulled in a brand new class A pulled up next to us. After they had levelled their RV using built-in hydraulic legs I said hello. They were from Holland. They asked if we were staying there the night. I said no - it was only lunch time. They said they would be staying.
It was a nice location with a nice view of the fjord, but there was still a fairly busy road behind. But occupying a sought after picnic spot at lunch time and then all afternoon seemed a bit selfish. Two other RVs pulled in and did the same, so that was the all the picnic spot parking taken and no other travellers would be able to stop there to use the site for its intended purpose.
I have been using similar sites in the evening / overnight, but that has left them open all day for those who want to pull in for a 15 minute break, look at the view and stretch their legs. But I wouldn't want to monopolise a picnic site like during the day.
My worry is that these sites were put there for travellers to rest for a short while. The Norwegian government clearly turns a blind eye to vacationers boondocking in such sites overnight, but if they find wealthy foreigners monopolising the sites for most of the day and night with their luxury RVs, preventing Norwegians from using them as intended - well, you can imagine it would just lead to "No Camping" or "No RV" signs appearing.
After a few minutes we pulled out and drove the quarter of a mile to the ferry dock - making sure we got in the right lane, since there are two ferries from there to different destinations. The ferry captain managed to ram the dock on his way in. This was odd because all the ferries I had been on so far had been very well piloted.
We were joined on the ferry by what would have been a nice old Cummins powered Dodge RAM; but it had been rendered fairly useless as a pickup by the installation of a pair of 8 inch diameter exhaust stacks that rose vertically from the inside front of the load bed. From above I could see that in the bed they turned 90 degrees and joined in a big Y connector issuing from the centre of the load bed.
The ferry captain managed to ram the dock on the other side of the fjord too - it clearly wasn't his day.
Back on the road again we headed up a dead-end valley to visit Manafossen waterfall. From the car park it is a short climb up to a point where you can view it, but you wouldn't want to attempt it if you had any difficulties walking. They had provided some hand rails, but some of it bordered on rock scrambling.
It is worth the short clamber though:
Parked next to the falls Sally spotted a helicopter, and looking more closely we could see a group of actors with fake beards standing in their shorts with a film crew. I suspect they were portraying survivors in some drama.
Having visited the falls and used their long-drop toilet, we drove back down the valley to the end of the fjord where I knew there was a campground. This would give us showers and a chance to ensure all batteries were fully recharged. I also use such opportunities to turn the fridge to maximum and build up some cold in its contents in case in subsequent boondocking sites we had battery problems and had to limit fridge use.
I went to charge my "box of electricity", but found the charger wasn't getting power. A quick test showed it was the mains extension cable that wasn't working. I made this from a spare plug and socket and some cable from a garden strimmer I had thrown away. It had worked so far during this trip, so something had suddenly changed. I carry a digital multimeter in the truck, but it took a while to track it down - the fuse was OK and the wiring to the connectors were OK.
I finally tracked it down to a break in the live wire near one end of the cable, so I simply cut 3 inches off and re-wired it.
It was merely an annoyance. I carry a lot of cables, having experienced campgrounds in France where the nearest hookup is 50 yards away. So I have 2 20 yard cables with the blue plastic connectors on the ends used for RVs (at least in Europe), plus a 15 yard cable with a UK mains plug on one end, adaptors to convert the RV plugs and sockets to European and UK plugs and sockets, and a couple of other shorter extension leads in the camper. So I probably do have more than enough cabling even if I couldn't fix this red cable :B
While doing maintenance I decided to clean the dust off the solar panels and clean the bird droppings off the moon roof that Sally had so carefully polished before leaving the UK:
After that I went to have a look around the campground - we pretty much had it to ourselves - it wasn't very large, and was incorporated into a marina for small boats. The 'sea wall' of the marina had cabins built on it, clearly fairly recently since some were still for sale:
They looked nice, but closer inspection showed the quality wasn't great. I suspect they wouldn't have been permitted in Germany. The new marina also looked nice, but again, close up the welding attaching parts of it was particularly poor.
A rickety walkway extended around the rock at the edge of the fjord. Fishing seems to be big in Norway and I think people rent a fishing spot there:
Stay tuned for the last of the fjords and more switchbacks...
We got up early and managed to get down the road before the quarry traffic started coming up from the town below for their shift.
We headed for a place called Preikestolen, but commonly known as Pulpit Rock. A large car park with electronic barrier, bathrooms, hotel, restaurant, tourist shop, etc. were our driving destination, and we got there well before 7 AM. The car park was nearly empty. We used their bathroom facilities quickly and were keen to start the 1+ hour hike up to the rock before other travellers turned up.
It was a nice hike and the trail was well looked after. It climbs nearly all the way, but as you near the end the scenery starts to open out below you:
A few minutes later and you reach the target - a giant vertical wedge of rock poised to separate away from the mountain and plunge into the black depths of the fjord below.
I don't mind some rock climbing - when I have a rope attached to me, but I don't like standing unprotected too close to the edge of things like this:
Viewed from above you can see the square profile of this wedge of rock. You can also see the only other people up there - some guys from New Zealand who had camped there over night - you can just see their dome tent on the right hand edge of the rock. Just as well it stays light at night at this time of year - you wouldn't want to step out in the middle of the night to relieve yourself and find you are staggering around that platform in the pitch black:
Once we had our fill of precipitous drops, we started the descent to the car park. It was only then we started meeting people who had reached the car park as we were leaving - they were slower hikers. This meant we had the rock virtually to ourselves with the only sound coming from cuckoos.
But as we descended further the opposing traffic changed from the odd walker passed every 5 minutes or so, to small groups and eventually to a queue of tired, sweaty coach tourists struggling up the trail. By the time they reached the rock exhausted, it would be packed with people. You would no doubt have to queue to have your picture taken. That is not how I like to appreciate nature.
Also, on the way down the midges had awoken to their target audience and were swarming around the unfortunate hikers. OK, they aren't mosquitoes, but anyone who has visited Scotland can tell you how annoying they are.
It was time for a picnic, and I pointed out the car parking was expensive, so we should make the most of it. So we left the camper where it was and took our stuff down to the small lake below the car park. It was far enough below to not be visited by the tourists whose only interest was Pulpit Rock. I felt slightly sorry for the people running the place since it was clear they had tried to expand the operation to provide other interesting activities like canoeing, but no-one was interested - they only had the main destination on their mind and would leave as soon as they had achieved it. As a result we had a lovely quiet lie-down and then picnic on a rock by the lake:
The wind got up and it was starting to get cooler, so we returned to the camper, via the souvenir shop and paid our car parking (insert credit card into the machine at the barrier - slightly more awkward because it assumes a left hand drive vehicle, and my truck is right hand drive).
We dropped off the mountain back to the main road at sea level, and followed it around to the entrance of the fjord we had just been overlooking. There was a large picnic area there and we pulled in to have a quick look before boarding the next ferry. It had 3 or 4 individual bays for cars and a number of nice picnic benches made of stone overlooking the fjord. As we pulled in a brand new class A pulled up next to us. After they had levelled their RV using built-in hydraulic legs I said hello. They were from Holland. They asked if we were staying there the night. I said no - it was only lunch time. They said they would be staying.
It was a nice location with a nice view of the fjord, but there was still a fairly busy road behind. But occupying a sought after picnic spot at lunch time and then all afternoon seemed a bit selfish. Two other RVs pulled in and did the same, so that was the all the picnic spot parking taken and no other travellers would be able to stop there to use the site for its intended purpose.
I have been using similar sites in the evening / overnight, but that has left them open all day for those who want to pull in for a 15 minute break, look at the view and stretch their legs. But I wouldn't want to monopolise a picnic site like during the day.
My worry is that these sites were put there for travellers to rest for a short while. The Norwegian government clearly turns a blind eye to vacationers boondocking in such sites overnight, but if they find wealthy foreigners monopolising the sites for most of the day and night with their luxury RVs, preventing Norwegians from using them as intended - well, you can imagine it would just lead to "No Camping" or "No RV" signs appearing.
After a few minutes we pulled out and drove the quarter of a mile to the ferry dock - making sure we got in the right lane, since there are two ferries from there to different destinations. The ferry captain managed to ram the dock on his way in. This was odd because all the ferries I had been on so far had been very well piloted.
We were joined on the ferry by what would have been a nice old Cummins powered Dodge RAM; but it had been rendered fairly useless as a pickup by the installation of a pair of 8 inch diameter exhaust stacks that rose vertically from the inside front of the load bed. From above I could see that in the bed they turned 90 degrees and joined in a big Y connector issuing from the centre of the load bed.
The ferry captain managed to ram the dock on the other side of the fjord too - it clearly wasn't his day.
Back on the road again we headed up a dead-end valley to visit Manafossen waterfall. From the car park it is a short climb up to a point where you can view it, but you wouldn't want to attempt it if you had any difficulties walking. They had provided some hand rails, but some of it bordered on rock scrambling.
It is worth the short clamber though:
Parked next to the falls Sally spotted a helicopter, and looking more closely we could see a group of actors with fake beards standing in their shorts with a film crew. I suspect they were portraying survivors in some drama.
Having visited the falls and used their long-drop toilet, we drove back down the valley to the end of the fjord where I knew there was a campground. This would give us showers and a chance to ensure all batteries were fully recharged. I also use such opportunities to turn the fridge to maximum and build up some cold in its contents in case in subsequent boondocking sites we had battery problems and had to limit fridge use.
I went to charge my "box of electricity", but found the charger wasn't getting power. A quick test showed it was the mains extension cable that wasn't working. I made this from a spare plug and socket and some cable from a garden strimmer I had thrown away. It had worked so far during this trip, so something had suddenly changed. I carry a digital multimeter in the truck, but it took a while to track it down - the fuse was OK and the wiring to the connectors were OK.
I finally tracked it down to a break in the live wire near one end of the cable, so I simply cut 3 inches off and re-wired it.
It was merely an annoyance. I carry a lot of cables, having experienced campgrounds in France where the nearest hookup is 50 yards away. So I have 2 20 yard cables with the blue plastic connectors on the ends used for RVs (at least in Europe), plus a 15 yard cable with a UK mains plug on one end, adaptors to convert the RV plugs and sockets to European and UK plugs and sockets, and a couple of other shorter extension leads in the camper. So I probably do have more than enough cabling even if I couldn't fix this red cable :B
While doing maintenance I decided to clean the dust off the solar panels and clean the bird droppings off the moon roof that Sally had so carefully polished before leaving the UK:
After that I went to have a look around the campground - we pretty much had it to ourselves - it wasn't very large, and was incorporated into a marina for small boats. The 'sea wall' of the marina had cabins built on it, clearly fairly recently since some were still for sale:
They looked nice, but closer inspection showed the quality wasn't great. I suspect they wouldn't have been permitted in Germany. The new marina also looked nice, but again, close up the welding attaching parts of it was particularly poor.
A rickety walkway extended around the rock at the edge of the fjord. Fishing seems to be big in Norway and I think people rent a fishing spot there:
Stay tuned for the last of the fjords and more switchbacks...
