Fjords, ferries and Olympic fun!

Next stop was a brief visit to the Swedish city of Gothenburg. Not a huge amount to say about it, just a normal city, lots of bridges and canals. Aparently it is the food capital  of Sweden and there were a lot of restaurants. Myself and a couple of the girls ended up having a pretty good dinner there washed down with Swedish cider :) That night was a hostel stay way out of the city (a familiar thread on this trip). So fuelled by cheap German vodka we had ourselves a little kitchen party- not so clever when early mornings beckon!

Finally we crossed the border into Norway where we would be spending more than a week. Our first stop over was to be the small town of Gjovik and on the way we stopped at the Olympic town of Lillehammer. It's a really, cute little place - fairly touristy but a recommended visit if you have the time! Lillehammer is also famous due to it's connections with the Mossad killing of an innocent man who they believed was part of Black September - the group who kidnapped the German Olympic team in 72 which eventually led to them being killed in a botched rescue operation. Mossad actually killed a Moroccan waiter there. They were arrested but all were pardoned within a few years. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lillehammer_affair

We then drove to Gjovic and had a few hiccups - first we went to the wrong hotel (!) and then the hotel we went to tried to make 4 of us sleep in a room designed for 2 . . . yeah not going to happen. So once again I had to move, but got a room alone this time :) That night we headed out for some drinks and to enjoy the lovely light evenings.

Getting ready to go!

The following morning we headed back to Lillehammer to take the chance to go down the Olympic bobsled track. We split into teams - I was on team UK of course and strapped ourselves into a rickety wheeled bobsled (what they use to train when it's not snowing). We had a professional driver and we all had to get very 'up close and personal' - those things are small! We then got a push start and off we went. It was not as scary as I thought it would be - not as bad as some roller coasters. There are a few turns where you are literally on the wall which is a bit unnerving. Unfortunately team UK didn't win but we placed respectably! Something else to tick of my list!

The crazy road

Onwards we went, including a little stop in a town called Lom which has one of the oldest wooden churches in Norway and an excellent bakery - try their cinnamon rolls if you go - yum! The drive to our next stop was insane. As you may know norway is the land of Fjords and mountains and in order to get to our destination we had to drive over a mountain - on a scary windy road designed for cars not 50 seater coaches and then take a ferry across one of 

Geiranger Fjord

the most beautiful fjords Geiranger (pronounced gay-ranger, the 
aussies found this hilarious as they call readheads 'rangers' you can work the rest out). The mountain road we took as a unique experience and out driver Baja did an excellent job of getting us down in one piece. Next we got on the ferry across the fjord, very beautiful, lots of waterfalls etc.


We spent the night in the little town of Hellesvylt - had a really awful dinner which Rachel and I supplemented with pizza and had a pub quiz (my team won :) ). All in all not a bad day.

Our drive the next day was a pretty one. We had lunch at a glacier - Boyabreen. Glaciers are basically ancient blocks of ice - they are responsible for carving the mountains and fjords of Norway during the ice age. You can tell if it is a glacier as glaciers have a blue tinge to them. We also drove through Europes longest road tunnel - yay? It was 26km long and took us nearly half an hour to drive through. I'm not sure how our driver did it - I was alseep by the end. Tunnel driving is tough -in the on every 6 km there is a opened up section bathes in blue light. Apparently it makes the driver more alert! Our journey today also included a ferry across Songnefjord which is one of the biggest at over 200km long - and of course stunningly beautiful.


Next day we headed to Voss which is the 'activity' centre of Norway. Both summer and winter sports are huge business here and the town produces a disproportionately large number of winter Olympic athletes. The town is based near a lake and our hostel was based on the banks of the lake. We had dinner in the hostel (note - in Norway fish is not seafood. seriously). and then headed into town to a bar owned by our driver's friends. We spend a fun if slightly messy evening getting to know random norwegians and singing karaoke. Good times!


The next day most people headed to whitewater rafting, being an awful swimmer I decided I would be a liability and headed into the city of Bergen with a few others. The train journey afforded us an opportunity to sleep and when we arrived the weather was gorgeous. We spend some time exploring the town and the famous fish market where the others tried smoked whale. Apparently is has a strong aftertaste but I decided some things are best unknown. 

Translations - got any shrimp mate?

Back in Voss our group had a barbeque on the lakeside. Very funny watching aussies and kiwis trying to barbeque on a disposable grill. The don't use charcoal to barbeque at home and they certainly don't have disposables. They resembled a bunch of native americans trying to send smoke signals to their village across the lake (they put cooking oil on it!!!).




So our Norwegian fjord adventure came to an end, next we hit the capital, Oslo and the (allegedly) northernmost point in Europe, until next time :)