Wild Norway

I made it to Norway eventually and swept into a round of parties, meeting cousins of all shapes and sizes (my maternal grandmother having been Norwegian). The weather was atrocious – even worse than in the UK – but here are some pictures of the beautiful landscape.

 

On the first day I walked with my brother and sister-in-law and two English friends of my aunt to this lake, which Frog and I had found near the hotel five years earlier. In spite of non-stop rain, I thought the lake was prettier this time. Perhaps the heatwave on my previous visit had withered the greenery.

 Lake, jetty and granite

The jetty is for swimming. The Norwegians are very hearty and, even though the temperature was about 14, as we walked back two boys were leaping in and out of the water.

The rock in the foreground is not broken concrete but granite, which comes to the surface everywhere.

 

Here is the hotel garden on my last day, when of course the sun came out, and here is another lump of granite. How the trees manage to grow on it, I have no idea.

 

Hotel garden

As children, we spent our summer holidays by the sea in Norway and clambered over the rocks in bare feet, as this was the best way we found to grip them.

Also on my last day, I found this enticing path signed ‘Kyststien’ which I guessed meant coast path. I wished I’d found it earlier.

 Coast path

Most of the interior of the country (below the treeline) is forested with pines but here, by the coast, were some broadleaved trees – oak, silver birch, rowan. Also scrumptious wild raspberries, another feature of my childhood.

  

This is the beach in front of the hotel, but I didn’t brave the sea.

 

Hotel beach

On my penultimate day, I went for lunch with one of my aunt’s daughters. She lives on the outskirts of Kristiansand.

Here is her view.

The view from my cousin's house

 

And here is the path from her garden to forest and mountain.

The path from my cousin's garden

On my last morning, I walked round Kristiansand with my brother and sister-in-law. 

Here is the harbour, not what you’d expect next to a city.

 Kristiansand harbour

People were picnicking and swimming.

As you can see, nowhere in Norway is far from nature, although according to a cousin that is changing as the population expands.

That breaks my heart, as (in my experience) Norway is one of the last wild places left in this part of the world.

Return to Norway

Five years ago Frog and I went to Norway for the 75^th birthday party of my aunt who lives there. (I wrote about it in this blog - see 'Seven Days in Norway' in the column on the right.) Last week I went on my own for her 80^th birthday party. It was the first time I’d travelled abroad alone since my early twenties. I was petrified.

We took off from England in rain and wind, the sort of weather we seemed to have been having for weeks, and the plane juddered through the clouds.

For once I had a whole window to myself, not half a window, or a bit of wall, or a window over someone’s shoulder.

So when we came out of the clouds, I saw this and my brain took off. I left the normal world behind and felt as if I was in outer space.

 

In outer space

We landed at Amsterdam in more rain and taxied around the vast concourse.

As usual, in spite of the announcement asking people to remain seated until the plane had stopped and the fasten seatbelt signs had been switched off, people clicked open their seatbelts, stood up and began getting their luggage out of the overhead lockers.

I stayed sitting -- I was in no hurry as I had a four-hour wait for my plane to Kristiansand in Norway – and managed to snap this man in his cartographical jacket (and trousers to match).

Frog would have been proud of him. He didn’t approve of drabness for men.

 

Cartographical man

And this twin of our plane. I love the name ‘Cityhopper’.

Cityhopper

And (from the terminal) this sign on a bus. All the buses were powered by either wind or sun, which I suppose meant they were electric. I applauded the airport’s environmental efforts.

 

Powered by Dutch windmills

In spite of that, however, hardly any of the many water fountains around the terminal that I remembered from my first visit, were still working.

Never mind. I had a long walk to my gate (24 minutes according to the board, which stretched in several volumes across a wall), so perhaps I’d find one en route from which I could refill my bottle.

 

A fragment of the board

Schipol airport was the same incomprehensible chaos that I remembered from before. Then I’d had Frog to find the way. Now I was on my own. I started walking.