Day 26 - 28 Stavanger

12 - 14 August 2014

Day 26
Train
Tonight I caught the night train from Oslo to Stavanger. Unfortunately it's dark most of the time so I missed the nice views except just near the end when I was awake and the sun started to come up. The average Norwegian must have long legs because the seats had lots of leg room, which I approve of.

Norwegian leg room

As long as the train says the name of the place you're going, then you're probably in the right place... Right? In this case it was fine, I was on the right train. I had to laugh at my name backwards (mot) because that's how I wrote it when I was in kindergarten.

I guess it goes to Stavanger

The ride was pretty good and I set a new personal best for sleeping on transport: 6 hours! The lady in the seat next to me only sat there for a few minutes then moved to another seat; I don't think I smelled that bad but at least I had two seats to myself. There was also a pet cat on the train that pissed all over the toilet so that gave it a....um... unique smell. The NSB site lets you book for pets though so it was allowed on. The other funny bit was I started the trip facing the direction of travel but when I woke up near the end of the trip, I was going backwards.

Day 27
Priekestolen (Pulpit Rock)
Once of the train I need to find my hostel and dump my stuff there. I got changed then headed back into town to catch the ferry. I got a bit lost on the way but eventually found the port and bought the special Priekestolen ticket that gets you on a ferry, then a bus and then also the return trip.

When the bus dumped us all at the bottom of the walking trail, I set off quickly in an effort to get away from the crowd. I had a quick look at the sign...

Sign at the base of the hike. It says 2 hours up and 2 down but I went up, took photos, had lunch and came down in just over 3 :D

...then started climbing. I soon realised there was no beating the crowd because people are everywhere.

Sooooo many people

The climb wasn't too bad even though it rained the whole time but it sort of felt like a game. You had to...

Avoid the slow people (almost everyone)

Cross the board walk

Navigate the rocks

Climb the waterfall. There's water running over and around all these rocks.

Eventually I made it to the top and because I'm super lucky, the sun came out just as I arrived. The first thing I realised is that it's really hard to take a good photo when you're actually on the rock as the helpful lady who took this photo highlighted.

Worse than average photographer skills didn't matter because this was a terrible vantage point

I climbed a little further and then I could get the photos you see in all the tourist things.

Panorama of Priekestolen

And of course I got the proof that I was there.

Priekestolen selfy

From the rock you could get a fantastic view of the fjord though.

Looking into the fjord from Priekstolen

Just before you get to the rock, there's another rock that sticks out where you can get...

A nice photo with the fjord in the background

And...

A photo with the whole of Priekestolen in the background

While I was walking around, I noticed that they're invested in keeping this massive tourist attraction in one piece by stick bolts all over the rock.

A rock bolt

By now, it had started to rain again and because it was super windy on the rock, it was freezing. I couldn't feel my fingers so it was certainly time to go. I only had to walk 5 minutes down the trail and I was out of the wind so I could stop for some of the lovely views.

By the time I got back to the bottom, I was definitely tired. The lack of sleep from the train and a 3 hour hike had caught up with me. I caught the bus and then the ferry back to Stavanger and headed back to the hostel. On the way I saw this odd statue too.

A steel guy standing in and looking into the bushes

The hike was great and I'd recommend it. Yes, it was busy but there are lots of places to overtake people. Because it's so touristy, you see all sorts of people on the trail like people carrying babies, big groups that block the trail, crazy fit people who run the whole thing, oldies with hiking poles (who were doing really well), dogs having a blast and of course people who looked like they weren't in the best shape and they might die on the walk. 

Day 28

Sverd I Fjell
I checked out in the morning and walked over to see some giant swords. Unfortunately they were really hard to photograph well because the bright sky kills the photo. The swords are made of steel and concreted into the ground and I think they look pretty cool.

Panorama of the swords in the bay

The giant swords and I

There was also a bike path near the swords that has a counter to show how often the path is used. I'm not sure if it's really necessary but it's fun to know that sort of information.

Bike counter

And then there were these annoying plants that were releasing seeds in the gusts of wind so every now and then you'd get a face full of flying white things.

Annoying reproducing plants

Bus
I headed back to the hostel and on the way I had a freak out moment. This was because the hostel says reception is closed during the day and because I had a bus to catch at 4PM, I was worried I wouldn't be able to get my bag and would miss my bus. It turned out ok because there were still staff around so I grabbed my bag and headed down to the bus station.

I arrived early enough to get onto the earlier 3PM bus and lucky for me, the driver let me on to the earlier bus. Looking at the map, the ride wasn't going to be boring.

The bus ride map. There were two ferries, a bunch of tunnels, twisty roads, some bridges and some views of the fjords.

On one of the ferries

In one of the longer tunnels. The descent in quite steep but the photo doesn't show it so well.

This is one of the most interesting and scenic bus rides I've done. I'd highly recommend it.

Thoughts on Stavanger

• Preikestolen is the most popular thing there and most people are there to go see it.
• More of a general Norway thing but drivers always give way to pedestrians.
• I don't think I saw a single traffic light in Stavanger. The whole place uses round-a-bouts and under/overpasses including underpasses for pedestrians. It's a fantastic set up.
• I saw quite a few people here wearing gum boots that were trying to be stylish but I don't think you can make gum boots look good.

Double what?
I looked up the Norwegian alphabet and how to pronounce the letters and when it came to the letter W the person says double-vee. Wait! What? That's actually correct. Why does English call it double-you when it's not, it's a double V. Stupid language!

Day 22 - 26 Oslo

8 - 12 August 2014

Day 22

In the airport

I'd looked to see what time the last train from Oslo airport to the city left and I assumed I probably wouldn't be able to get my bag and go through customs then find the train in 30 minutes so I didn't bother booking a hostel for the night. As it turned out the flight was delayed so I definitely missed the train and the plan was to sleep in the airport. It's the first time I've slept in an airport so I wasn't sure what to expect but I wasn't the only one with this idea, there must've been at least 50 other people doing the same and because they got there first, they had all the good spots like couches. I ended up sleeping on the soft mat for a kids playground and I had a surprisingly good sleep plus I saved a night on a hostel in the process.

Day 23

Train

After I woke up and made myself beautiful (takes hardly any time) I caught the train into town. The train was really modern and had WiFi on board. Is there anything the Norwegians do that doesn't have WiFi?

Waiting

The hostel I'd booked didn't open reception until 10am so I had a few hours to kill. It was clear blue skies and nice and sunny so I made my way to a park. I expected that heading north from Scotland would make it colder and rainier but that wasn't the case. I had a nice snooze in the park on a bench but I was woken up by two cops on horses. Luckily they were just checking everything was ok, I wasn't in trouble.

Sleeping on the bench

After checking in, I went for a walk to the supermarket. On the way I noticed all the traffic lights have double red guys. They always change together so I'm not sure why. Maybe to make it extra obvious not to cross?

Double red guy power!

The strange thing I found in the supermarket was what I thought was ham and bacon in a tube but it turned out to be cheese flavoured like ham or bacon. I tried the bacon one and it's quite nice. It does actually taste like bacon.

Ham or bacon flavoured cheese

Catching up
In the evening I caught up with a friend who used to live in Adelaide but now lives in Oslo. His room mate also came along and we went to a bar first followed by a Vietnamese restaurant. We had a good talk and I learnt some more about Norway and got some suggestions on things to see.

Day 24
Breakfast
The hostel had a kitchen but no bowls so I had to improvise.

A cereal vessel

Holmenkollen
The mission for today was to catch the metro up the hill to see the ski jump. When I got there, I saw people doing a zip line from the top of the jump.

That dot is a person on a zip line.

I also saw...

A moose

and took the obligatory selfy.

Obligatory selfy

I went for a walk around to see if I could get a good view out over the city and on the way I saw...

A big troll guy

A guy road skiing (not sure what it's called) because there's a track near the jump.

I don't always have a garden but when I do, it's on my roof.

I managed to get a bit of a view of the city out over some toboggan tracks but the trees were in the way.

Attempt 1 at a panorama of Oslo

Then I walked up to the hotel near the jump and tried again but the trees are still in the way.

Attempt 2 at a panorama of Oslo

And finally I got something passable just above the metro station.

Attempt 3 at a panorama of Oslo

Vigelandsparken
I then caught the metro back toward town but jumped off a few stops earlier than mine to go see the statue park. It's quite a nice park with lots of greenery.

First view of the park

Then you see a statue and notice they're all naked.

Naked people statue

And then you see a gate and notice that has naked people art work in it.

Naked people gate

Then you see the centre piece and it's a very phallic tower of naked people surrounded by other naked people.

Naked people obelisk

They're all naked!!!

*gasp*

Then you take a photo with an iron boob.

Iron boob. I was trying to line my eye up with the nipple but failed.

There's also a circle of naked people.

Naked people circle

And then on the walk out there's a bridge lined with all sorts of statues. Some of them are a bit worrying like a guy kicking babies and others aren't so bad, like this.

Not so bad statue

And just as I was leaving I noticed this.

A naked lady wind vane

Royal Palace
I then walked over and had a look at the palace and saw the changing of the guards.

The Royal Palace

Day 25

Frognerseteren

Today I caught the metro up past the ski jump to the end station at the top of the hill, called Frognerseteren. The plan was to follow the walking trails up there because a site I found said they're really good. The station had a weird contraption:

A something holder at the station

There were a lot of signs but some pointed to trails that didn't seem to be there. I found it kind of hard to follow because they seemed inconsistent with the names of places they pointed to or you'd have two signs, each put up by different organisations, that would point to the same place but vary in distance by 200m. In the end I just ignored the signs are started walking. Some of the paths were interesting.

A boardwalk

And there were some nice sights to be seen.

A snow-less ski slope

A lake

I also spotted a bin to stick half of your pants in.

A pant bin

And a tipi.

A tipi

In the end the trails weren't as great as the website made them out to be but I did have fun however I still didn't get a view out over the city so the one from yesterday will have to do.

Day 26

Castle

I met an Irish guy in the hostel and we headed out to see the castle.

The castle in Oslo

The castle walls gave a good view of the harbour.

Oslo harbour

Military Museum

Then we went to the military museum because it was close and free.

They had a tank

And a stubby cannon

And another tank but you could sit in this one

There was some interesting information in here. It seems that Norway is involved in a lot of things around the world and it was also different to read about everything military related in a positive way. They seemed to spin all the stories to make them sound positive, which isn't a bad thing, it's simply different to what I normally see in "regular" museums.

Then, at some stage in the museum the Irish guy and I lost each other. The place isn't that big so I had a look around but couldn't find him. I waited outside for a bit but he didn't come out so I'm still not sure if he bailed on me or thought I bailed on him or what happened. I feel really bad because I don't like losing people. I thought we were getting on ok. :(

Back to the hostel

On the way back to the hostel I grabbed a picture of a giant Lego spiderman.

Lego spiderman!

And the trolls you see everywhere.

Tourist friendly troll

I hung around at the hostel for a bit and met more people in those few hours than the rest of my time in Oslo and then headed to the train station to catch an overnight train to Stavanger.

Thoughts on Oslo

• It is expensive like everyone says. Norway in general, not just Oslo.
• I couldn't find anywhere to get a decent panorama of the city.
• It's a ghost town early on a Saturday morning and a lot is closed on a Sunday.
• Oslo gets nicer weather than the UK. When the sun is out, it's great.
• As soon as you're outside the city centre, almost all houses are made of wood.
• There are a lot of troll statues around the city also apparently these are smaller and nicer looking than the ones from folklore.