Norway, August 2023
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 15 ก.ย. 2024
- This was originally going to be 2 videos, but the weather intervened during the last week of the trip so we condensed it into 1 video. Didn't stop us from absolutely loving Norway though! Even just driving between destinations was exciting as there is so much to see. The people are so friendly and everything is so easy and efficient as well. There are a lot of things they have done right. Although we missed a couple of activities that would have been absolute highlights of our trip, we had a great time and have got every reason to get back there and finish what we started.
We couldn’t agree more! It’s a magical country. Can’t wait to see more of your perceptions and adventures.
Glad you liked it here and welcome back for your unfinished business :) Some stunning footage. I had to look away when you were out on trolltunga....love from a rather wimpy Norwegian.
Ive seen a lot of great turists videos from my own country, but this was really special. Ive been seing most of this places. Picture quality was stunning. Next time in Norway I offer u free basecamp at my house 45 km NW Oslo
Thank you so much! Everything was filmed on the good old Go Pro and edited on imovie so nothing fancy. We can't wait to come back. Some of the best people we have met.
I am really sorry about "Hans" visiting us during your stay. For any international viewers, Norway has some intense weather during all seasons and we usually are fine with whatever is coming. Our national motto can be translated to "there is no bad weather, just bad clothing" after all. I want to stress that "That time we went..." did not chicken out for your average North Atlantic storm. Hans was a biggie.
I live in one of the dryest places in Northern Europe (it is climatically borderline classified as a desert with less than 300 mm of precipitation (combined snow and rain) a year. We got above 130 mm in 4 days. I was put on evacuation notice. A friend of mine (happily evacuated) got half a forest and the better part of a 400-meter hillside of thick glacial till from the last ice age into their home (a home that has been safely standing there for a few hundred years).
So yeah - even we Norwegians had our hiking boots parked for a good week. Even if we were crazy, we could hardly move because pretty much all the roads anywhere were closed due to flooding and landslides going off everywhere.
Regarding the trolls - it is one of the words that the English language adopted from Norwegian/Old Norse alongside "Fjord, wing, window, whirl, ugly, take, steak, ski, seat, saga, reindeer (the list is quite long) (We integrated quite well over on the British Isles after being perhaps a bit too enthusiastic when visiting the UK early on in the time of Viking).
Now - biting some nails here (I could be mistaken and you are Australian?) - but you have to be Kiwis, right? (If correct) I was lucky enough to roam your beautiful spot on this planet back in 1995 (we had a little team of Kiwi and Aussie rafting guides coming up to us every summer to take punters down our lively rivers when I was active in that profession so I got invited down to both Australia and New Zealand after having worked the "monsoon season" in Nepal together during the fall of 1994. I am probably one of the few who ever told you that I enjoyed the North Island the most. Sure, the South Island is like coming home but the landscape on the North Island was more exotic to me. I really loved camping out on those black beaches and hanging out in larger and smaller towns in the North.
Now, being sorry about Hans (climate change is turning into a really pesky beast) here is my tip for your next visit:
Start in Oslo and drive North via Valdres, Valdresflya (through Jotunheimen), over Dovrefjell (listen to Grieg's Dovregubbens hall to get some late 19th-century Norwegian heavy metal in symphonic make-up, as one does). Do a quick stop in Trondheim. It is a great Norwegian town, and the most northern medieval cathedral in the world is a sight to behold.
But here is the trick. Your true journey will begin for real in Brønnøysund. Because you will take the "outer coastal route" through Nordland - first up to Bodø (Plan for more time than google maps will indicate because you will want to stop, hike and explore a LOT). From Bodø you will drive a bit more before ferrying over to Lofoten. Your mind will slowly explode as you move North because you are literally driving into the Arctic. The fiords we can see in southern Norway and on the South Island are still there, but they are changing character every single day as the forest line drops down to almost sea level and you see these old granite monoliths of mountain peaks shoot straight out of the ocean.
So - yeah - Lofoten is world-famous for all the right reasons. But you will not stop there. Nonono. You will push on and ferry to Andøya, then ferry over to Senja, have a cappuccino in Tromsø (Paris of the North) and end at Kvaløya (if you do not want to drive a lot longer to check off the North Kape from some bucket list (I would not prioritize that much).
I have been lucky as an old mountain guide and rafting guide working around the world - turned into a geoscientist working in the mountains of Norway, the Alps (both the French and Swiss), the UK (in Wales and Scotland), South America, Greenland, Spitzbergen - I have had some good views that include south-east Asia, Australia, New Zealand and the Himalayas in India and Nepal.
I am not very patriotic, though I like my little nation and felt VERY much at home in NZ (as I knew I would we are kind of the perfect antipode of each other). You even gave me some cultural baggage as "Bone People" by Keri Hulme had a decadal jubileum and the movie "Once we were warriors" were screened while I visited you. But I want to quote a Swedish friend who I met during my rafting guide days after I took him north. Allow me to paraphrase and translate: "Now I get why you do not do LSD - you can just open your eyes and look at this".
He is correct. As a "southern" boy, the landscapes going on in Nordland and Troms are simply mind-boggling and I do not think one can walk anything like it anywhere on the planet.
Welcome back (Norway is BTW again cut into quarters again - we have more floodings right now).
Thank you so much for your comment! First of all, yes, we are kiwis but more people guess Australian than Kiwi so you have done well :)
It takes a LOT for us to cancel an activity and Norway has been on the top of our bucket list for so long that we wanted to make the absolute most of it. But, as you said, Hans had other ideas and we had to make the sensible call.
Thank you for the suggestions though! Very detailed and we are excited to do some research and check them out for whenever we manage to get back there. You have such an amazing country and we can't wait to get back.
PS, I'm glad you felt at home in NZ. The North and South certainly have their advantages. AND, you saw Once were warriors? That movie is intense!
I guess you now know that Trolls are Norwegian! Even the word Troll. Love your video!
Thank you so much :)
Norway is ‘huge on trolls’ because the concept of trolls originates from Norway!
Hello