Saturday 15th to Monday 17th September 2018
We have been in Norway for 50 days today and not a day has gone by without seeing something amazing. Takk Norge.
However, the weather of late hasn’t been that kind and we have undoubtedly spent more than we planned to spend. The decision was to move south taking in a visit to Copenhagen, a place neither of us had been before.
As the checkout time is 16:00 at Oslo Camping and we still had 4 hours validity left on our Oslo Passes, before leaving we drove up to visit the nearby Holmenkollen National Ski Arena. This has facilities for ski jumping, cross country skiing and biathlon. The viewing platform at the top of the ski jump offers fantastic views over Oslo and its’ surrounding area. There is a fine museum covering over 4000 years of skiing history.
The museum is well laid out and has displays of skiing equipment through the years, Norwegian polar expeditions and models of the development of the ski slope over the years.
There is a full sized moose exhibit that annoyed me a little.
Kim will tell you that in the 4000km we have driven through Norway, we have seen hundreds of moose warning signs, (most of which I have shouted disbelieving expletives at), but not a single moose!! I now believe they do not exist 🙂
To reach the viewing platform you take an unusual sloping lift with glass sides which some riders were finding a little scary.
On reaching the top there is a sloping glass wall which gives a view straight down and is equally toe-curling.
The views from the top are stunning in all directions and just how the ski jumpers ride the extremely steep slope and leap from the end defies me! Almost as mad, IMHO, are the people zip-wiring down the cables above the slope 🙂
On returning to terra firma we walked around the facility watching super fit people dry skiing around the cross country circuit or using the biathlon shooting range. There are many signs warning of fast moving skiers and to keep off the track. Good advice.
We then made our way over to Holmenkollen Chapel an old looking structure which we subsequently discovered dates from 1996. We were unable to view inside due to a wedding.
Enroute to the chapel we passed Holmenkollen Troll a near 7 metre statue that overlooks the ski slope.
We made our way back to camp via the supermarket and got the caravan ready to leave. We were aware that the Oslo marathon was taking part today but figured the major roads out of the city would not be closed. We did see the leader of the race at the 10km post as we passed by.
Once out of the city the only holdup we encountered was a diversion around a closed tunnel. Our last road works of so many these last few weeks.
After crossing the border into Sweden the road became smoother and two lanes each way so progress was good down to our chosen stop for the night Hafsten Camping. A Camping Card accepting site at 190SEK a night. We’d stay two nights.
Towing Kilometres – Today: 234 Cumulative: 23,959
We had talked about taking time to visit Gothenburg but on researching what there was to see we decided to adopt a new plan. We’d camp near Copenhagen, visit the city, then fly home for a week or so to visit family and reset the 90 day travel insurance restriction.
Finding somewhere to leave the caravan & car could be the only problem.
The journey down to Copenhagen went smoothly. We stopped off to fill the LPG as we were passing close by a filling station. Later we stopped for a coffee break and bought an online ticket to cross the magnificent Øresund Bridge.
Just down the road we stopped at a REMA1000 and spent the last of our Swedish Krona.
After crossing into Denmark we made our way along the busiest roads we had seen in many weeks to our campsite of choice, Holbæk Fjord Camping.
Towing Kilometres – Today: 462 Cumulative: 24,421