We stayed a few nights by the fjord at Aurlandsvangen the other end of the Lærdalstunnelen. One day we drove the route (Aurlansfjellet) over the top of the tunnel that the locals call ‘the snow road’, widely known as one of the most scenic drives in Norway. There is a stunning viewing platform after you’ve climbed up from Aurlandsvangen, giving a panoramic view of the town and fjord as you start to drive the winter-closed pass over the top. Even in August there are patches of compacted snowbanks hanging around up here on the boulder-strewn plateau. En route, we spot a small lake with an ice bridge at one end and Iona and Tash can’t resist a cold swim and photo opportunity under the ice bridge. We drove past it, with them discussing a cold swim and finally concluding that they would regret it if they missed such an iconic wild/cold water swimming opportunity (or in Iona’s case, an Instagram opportunity). Personally, I find this whole episode to be the behaviour of lunatics, or people without a nervous system and am happy with my role of photographer and foot paddler.
The next stop was at Fjærland, deep in the fjords, where you could see two glaciers from the campsite and the landscape was a fast-forward kaleidoscope of changing hues and you could enjoy a floating sauna before diving off the wooden platform into the fjord which was colder than swimming up on the snow road pass, according to Tash. And I became a lunatic with no nervous system. We toured the Bøyabreen and Supphellebreen glaciers – two very big chunks of ice formed thousands of years ago. Glaciers are a large, slow-moving accumulations of ice, snow, rock, sediment, and sometimes liquid water that form on land and move downhill due to gravity. They are formed in areas where heavy snowfall accumulates over time and compacts the snow below into ice which then begins to flow downhill due to its own mass. At Supphellebreen, the water trapped within the ice gushes landwards in majestic waterfalls. But it is the translucent blue colour of the ice that really strikes you. It is the hues and effect of light through the ice that manufacture something never before seen: a new shade of glowing aquamarine.
On the route back south, after a night in Oslo where the expensive campsite had a sculpture park next door, we decided to stop off in Sweden (Gothenburg) for a couple of nights, taking full advantage of our freedom of the road without bookings, before the ferry back to Denmark and the long road back through Germany.
We made it back to Germany in one day and due to the heavy traffic we had experienced on the way up took a different route inland to the east via Hanover. But this day’s travel though Denmark was not without incident. I am told that Copenhagen is worth a visit, but the E45 through Jutland is not. Miles upon miles of flat, featureless farmland, dotted with dull, disinterested dwellings that didn’t seem that bothered about adding any particular interest to the landscape – they left that to the odd lines of pylons or wind turbines, occasional copses that never made it to woodland status and left me with the feeling that I couldn’t really see the point in Jutland. I know we all need farmers, but Jutland didn’t instil any desire to see more of the place. For about 100km southwards from Aarhus we stop-started through a series of roadworks and bridges were a rarity.
As we entered Germany, we got stuck in stationary traffic for two and a half hours or so. The sort of scenario where people are out of their vehicles attending to calls of nature at the roadside, or chatting to one another. It seemed like there must be an accident ahead. At least we could brew up some coffee and make some food in Peaches. I got chatting to a German lady in a motorhome who used to live in Ireland and was keen to practise her English as it had become too expensive for her and her partner to visit the UK since Brexit. They were on their way back from a Viking re-enactment festival in Flensburg on the Danish border. She told me that they had a Scandinavian surname and had drunk a ‘couple of beers’ and dressed as Vikings at the festival. The windscreen of their vehicle was blocked to about one third of the way up by a ramshackle pile of cuddly toys – mementos of their travels. And they had many more at home. Once, this has even caused them to be pulled over by the police to check that the visibility was within legal limits from the cab, and in true efficient German style, the officer had whipped out a tape measure to check. It turned out to be legal… just. It also turned out that she herself worked for the police, looking after and storing evidence from crime scenes. She was alarmed by the appearance of three black unmarked police cars with hidden flashing blue lights that were passing with the multiple ambulances and fire engines and marked patrol cars. Something was afoot. The black cars only got involved with serious crime: terrorist incidents, or suicide attempts and the like. She later came back over to tell us that she’d found out through her contacts what it was all about. There had been an accident but when the police arrived one of those people involved had pulled a knife on them and had subsequently been shot dead. When we eventually passed the scene, officers were sitting on the open boots of their patrol cars looking shell-shocked, some hugging each other in the aftermath of the incident.
Eventually we arrived at Bissendorf, near Hanover for a night. We shared no common language with the lady who seemed to be the one in charge at the site but through my few words of German, her minimal understanding of English and miming skills did manage a conversation. She asked if Charlie was a boy or girl dog and then mimed that he should not pee on the campsite. What did she think that the first thing a dog who has been stuck on the road in a campervan all day would do? Guiltily, we followed her mimed instruction and took him over the road for his ablutions (after he’d illegally peed on the campsite) to be met with ‘no dog-pooing ‘ signs. So he couldn’t wee that side of the road, and couldn’t poo this side. We gave up and just hoped that we wouldn’t be too badly told off if we were busted. We had one more night in Germany before the ferry back where we stayed on a lake and the owner tutted and shook her head when we arrived and asked for a pitch.
“Everyone one turns up and only wants to stay for one night,” she complained, still shaking her head. In the end, she begrudgingly allowed us to stay for one night and later told Tash off for letting Charlie have a wee. A pattern seemed to be emerging. It was only four hours from the Hook of Holland the next morning and time to stop off on the way to have a look around the town of Osnabrück.
So that was it: a 5345 km round road trip to Norway from Devon. One of those that was as much in the journeying as the stunning destination. And on reflection, we probably didn’t get the ratio between staying places to look around and driving time quite right. In two weeks, it was a little too much time on the road, but was nevertheless right up there with classic Peaches road trips and the wonderful scenery in Norway was the prize at the end that justified the time spent on the road. And in the end, the youthful freedom of the road did win out over the worries that make us older. Job done. We felt as young as our hopes and left our worries behind. That Turkish proverb turned out to be true.
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