Travel Tips

Austin and I loved Norway. The scenery always had us gasping in delight at every turn in the road! The mountains, valleys, fjords and lakes are just amazing. The people are super friendly too so we really didn't want to leave at the end of our trip...! Unfortunately money doesn't last forever and ours certainly didn't. It can be an expensive place to visit BUT the up side is - what a place to spend your money!

We drove inland and north up to Sognefjorden. WOW the drive itself was awesome and then you come down through a wonderful little valley (in this case it was Vik) and down to the biggest fjord in Norway. The water is that deep jade green colour (my favourite colour) and looks onimous but it was just beautiful. We saw lots of porpoises which was lovely and there are plenty of places to just stop and admire the view. We explored the coast areas and then discovered we weren't too far away from a Glacier (Austin's first!!) so we drove on to see Broyabreen Glacier. Which was really amazing!

When we first saw them we thought they were dolphins. Then we found out that they were actually the smaller cousins and that they were locals! Norway has lots of local porpoises who come and go as the seasons change. Occasionally they have Orcas come into the fjords hunting for food (the porpoises) as well but we didn't see any - pity!

We then drove up north to Alesund and got stuck there for a few days because of the persistant rain. But we didn't care. Our tent was warm and dry, the camp ground had a sauna and Alesund is very pretty. Austin even got to go fishing!!

Then we left our car in Trondheim and caught the train up to Bodo. Nine hours on a very comfortable train, not having to worry about following a map and just watching the scenery go by. It was great! Norwegian trains are very comfortable and we didn't find the journey too bad.
Bodo had the same feeling of my home town in NZ. Very provencial and friendly. The weirdest bit was walking down around the harbour watching the sun go down at 1am in the morning!!!! Then it came back up again at 2.30AM! Man that was strange! Austin managed to have a skinny dip off the break water at 12.30am. I have never laughed so much and I certainly haven't seen him launch himself out of the water so quickly before!!! Apparently it was a bit cold! hehehe

Austin thought that the water would have warmed up a little for him to get in and have another swim... But it was too cold again and he didn't stay in longer than a few seconds.

Boy did he get some looks with his hat... But bless him, he looks good!

We found this great camping spot just out of a little town called Leivek (south of Bergen) and it was so beautiful!!! The sunsets were amazing and so was the swimming!