14 - 18 August 2014
Day 28
To the hostel
I headed off from the bus station toward my hostel but stopped at the supermarket on the way to get some supplies. The interesting thing about the supermarket is that the cashier takes your money and will give you the notes part of your change but if you are going to get coins, a machine on the counter gives them to you. This is the first time I've seen this but after speaking to some people, apparently they're quite common in other parts of the world (like the US).
I'd also noticed something that Norwegian stores do which I think is a great idea: sticking the open times for the stores next to the name.
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| Open times of stores are as important as the name |
At the hostel I cooked a delicious dinner of instant noodles and tuna. While in the kitchen I met another Adelaidean and we ate together in the common room and were joined by two Germans.
Day 29
Exploring
Today I went for a walk to see Bergen with one of the Germans from the night before. We walked down the main pedestrian street, went past the smelly fish market...
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| Took a photo with Bryggen (the old town) in the background |
And took a....
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| Panorama of the old side of the Bergen port |
...and then went and sat near the castle to soak up the sun. When we finally decided to head back to the hostel, we bumped into an American guy that my German friend knew and together we went for a walk through
Bryggen...
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| In the streets of Bryggen |
...and at the back of it we saw the giant wooden sperm/fish thing.
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| Fish thing |
Then we found an "antique store" and decided to go in for a look. It was more like a garage sale where the guy had as much of the most eclectic stuff jammed into the shop as possible.
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| Panorama of the antique shop |
I found a stuffed duck.
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| A duck! |
In our wanders we saw some neon street art. Someone must pay for this to be lit up!
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| Neon street art |
And we noted that the logo for the post office looked like a Poké Ball.
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| Poké Ball post office logo |
Friends
A big part of the reason for visiting Bergen was to catch up with a friend that I first met on my trip last year in Turkey. She lives here so she came and picked me up from the hostel so I could stay with her. Before I could leave the hostel, I first had to dig my bag out of the luggage room where it was buried under about 15 other bags.
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| Full luggage room in the hostel |
The American guy tagged along to join us for a short hike up some of the mountains around Bergen.
The hike
We went up Stolzen and it was quite steep as this picture shows.
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| My friends (blue top and yellow top) on the hike up Stolzen |
At the top we were rewarded with some lovely views over Bergen.
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| Panorama of Bergen from Stolzen |
...and a nice person took a photo of our small group.
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| American, Norwegian and myself with Bergen in the background |
The next part of the walk was fairly flat but was still quite scenic.
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| A mountain-top lake |
Eventually we were at the top of another mountain, Fløyen.
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| Panorama over Bergen from Fløyen |
From here we made our way down the mountain and back to my friend's house. We saw this interesting sign on the way.
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| No witches! |
My friend's house has an amazing view over Bergen.
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| View from my friend's balcony during the day |
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| View from my friend's balcony at night |
We barbecued some lovely steaks and enjoyed a great dinner while having a nice chat. It was so good to have some "real" food after living on hostel grade food for a while.
Day 30
Hike up
Today my Norwegian friend and I packed all our gear and drove out to Hardanger Fjord to climb the Skrott mountain. The plan was to hike up today and stay in a cabin near the top then hike back down tomorrow.
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| Skrott is the peak in the middle of the frame |
The cabin is at ~1100m above sea level and we started at sea level so we walked through a few different landscapes. There was alpine near the bottom then in turned into rocks and grass.
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| Landscape at about half way up Skrott |
Norway is all about nature so I had to stop a few times on the way up to get a photo of the awesome view. Around the area I took this photo we saw some sheep running around and some lemmings scurrying between rocks.
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| My friend at the entrance to the cabin |
It was about 6 degrees (Celsius) so I grabbed a quick photo of the cabin itself then we headed inside where the fire was going and it was nice and cosy.
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| Panorama with the cabin on the right and the toilet block on the left |
We were both starving so we cooked a massive dinner and devoured the whole thing. Everybody else in the cabin (about 10 other people) were Norwegian but they were kind enough to speak English so we could chat until bed time.
I checked the outside thermometer just before bed and it was almost as cold as Adelaide got this year.
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| Thermometer outside the cabin |
Day 31
Hike down
It had rained a lot the night before so the hike down was going to be a bit slippery/muddy. It was 3 degrees when we set off but we soon got warm and had to start taking layers off.
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| I was moving much slower than my friend so she had plenty of time to get photos of me cautiously walking along |
Eventually we made it to the bottom and it was obvious that my attempts to keep my boots sort of clean and/or dry failed completely.
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| Wet and muddy boots |
We drove home where we could have a shower and clean/dry all the gear. I had the best time on this hike because the scenery was amazing, it was a challenging climb, it was the first time I'd been on a hike for more than one day, I saw snow again and I got to stay in a cabin on a mountain. I wasn't sure what to expect with the cabin but it was really nice, even better than most hostels I've been in. A guy spent 40 years of his life building the whole thing by hand and now his brother stays in the caretaker cabin and looks after it. The beds were really comfy, the kitchen had everything you needed and it felt very homely with lots of pictures and knick-knacks around the place.
At the supermarket on the way home I grabbed a Kvikk Lunsj (quick lunch), which I'm told is the chocolate that Norwegian hikers eat. The Norwegians will tell you that it's far better than a KitKat but apparently my underdeveloped Australian taste can't tell the difference.
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| The hiker's choice of chocolate |
Day 32
Travel day
Today was a travel day from Bergen all the way to Stockholm. I was up early to catch my first train to Oslo.
Thoughts on Bergen
- There are a lot of Telsa Model S (electric cars) getting around. At least as many as any other make of car you pick. It's good to see electric cars taking off.
- The city looks really pretty because it's surrounded by 7 valleys and 7 mountains.
- Hiking is literally on your doorstep because the mountains surround the city.
- I had a great time there and met some wonderful people so I think the place is pretty cool. I like it much more than Oslo.
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