Stunning Aurlandsfjellet Tourist Route, Norway

Zagan the motorhome is having a very well deserved rest, while Jay sups an equally well deserved beer – yes a Norwegian can of beer at over £3 for a single can from the supermarket, so you can tell he’s earned it. We’re parked up on a patch of land next to the E16 (N60.88406, E7.15484), with a wonderful view out over the Aurlandsfjorden.

This morning we didn’t have to travel far to reach our first viewpoint of the day. The Utsikten viewpoint on the Gaularfjellet Tourist Route was only opened this year, in fact bits of it were still to be finished. That didn’t stop us from climbing up and out on the three concrete triangles it is made up of, looking out over the the many, many hairpin bends that we’d soon be taking to reach sea level and the ferry across the fjord. Down below us we could see a little blue van following some tiny sheep down the road, little did we know that we’d soon be acting as shepherds too.

Hidden houses on Gaularfjellet

Me having a Titanic moment on the viewpoint

Jay sizing up the road ahead

As we wound our way down the mountainside we soon caught up with the blue van, now normal-sized, as were the sheep. He was ushering the mother and two lambs back down the road, and while they were running quite a lot of it, they were easily distracted by the plants and grass on the verge. As the group stopped for a snack, a hand appeared out of the blue van and waved us past, but as we started to overtake the sheep decided to get going again. Of course this all coincided with a narrow bit of road, so we found ourselves crawling along, shepherding the sheep down the hill much to the amusement of the farmer in the blue van.

Not too many haripin bends today

Leave it to us Farmer, now come along Dolly & Co. our brakes are cooking behind you

Jay has pretty much mastered engine breaking to get Zagan off any mountain, but when you throw sheep into the challenge it makes things a lot trickier. At the next wide bit we pulled in and waited for the farmer to take up his duties again, sitting and waiting for him to get a bit further ahead while our brakes cooled off. Needless to say, he didn’t get very far, but we found a wide enough space and made it past the unusual convoy to carry on our descent.

We reached the ferry port at Dragsvik bang on noon and pulled in behind a car in lane 3, which was marked for Hella. Lane 1 was quite full and heading to Vangsnes on the other side of Sognefjorden – the longest Fjord in Norway, which creeps some 200 kilometres into the country (and is a huge 1308m deep). When the ferry arrived everyone started their engines and both lanes started to move forward. This level of ferry chaos has been unseen by us before (at least not in Norway), so we did what we do best and followed the chap in front. Lane 1 at this point admitted defeat and stopped trying to board. As we paid we checked we were on the right ferry, which we were, but were surprised to see the queue from lane 1 on there too. Ten minutes later all became clear as we disembarked and they all got off, turned around and got back on again facing the other way. Seems it’s a two stopper ferry. Perhaps they were supposed to get on first, who knows, no one seemed all that bothered.

Not much else to do on the ferry but giggle at the warning signs

After pulling in to let all of our fellow ferry drivers past, we ambled along the edge of the fjord separated from the water by thin strips of land full of trees teeming with apples, pears or plums. At several points I could have easily reached out of my window and saved us a few quid in the supermarket. We stopped for diesel in Sogndal and having driven through the town decided to carry on. It looked busy with people and cars everywhere, yet uninspiring. I’ve felt that about a lot of Norwegian towns, they are a bit like those in Finland too, only there to service folks. There hasn’t been much inspiring architecture and the shops are either in a shopping centre or big supermarkets, there just doesn’t seem to be any character. How fantastic would it be to plop an Italian hill-top town here just for a bit of a change?

Not feeling the love for the towns, it took a detour today to go and find a bit of character. We nipped to Kaupanger to see its impressive stave church. It was built in 1184 and like the other 28 in Norway its construction involved an upright stave post on each corner, hence the name. Our guidebook says it’s impressive, and it might be on the inside, but as the doors were bolted shut we’ll never know. From the outside it was a nice wooden church.

Kaupanger Stave Church

By this point I was starting to feel a bit ‘humpf’ about Norway. Don’t get me wrong it is the most beautiful place, the scenery is stunning, breath-taking, jaw-dropping, but it is missing something. Perhaps it’s a lack of character or culture in some of the towns. Perhaps it’s because, due to the previous comment,  we don’t tend to stop in towns so don’t meet people other than fellow motorhomers. Perhaps it’s because eating and drinking out is so expensive it puts me off doing it. Perhaps it’s because we’ve booked our ferry home so are counting down. Perhaps it’s all of these and more.

A three kilometre long tunnel took us to another ferry port, the tunnel ending in a choice of a car park or the queue for the ferry. It was arriving just as our eyes adjusted from the dark. As we’re under 6 metres long (ahem) the ferries aren’t that expensive, these short hops are around £10 and if you compare that with the price of going from Dover to Calais they are a bargain. On the other side we slipped into a seven kilometre long tunnel which popped us out at Laerdal. By now it was 3pm and our stomachs were starting to drown out Zagan’s engine, so we stopped in a layby for some lunch (N61.10361, E7.43236 – looked fine to sleep in although close to the road).

So let me get this right, you built a 3 km long tunnel to a ferry port, err why didn’t you put the ferry port elsewhere?

Late lunch by the fjord

We fully intended to sleep there for the night, but after a quick check of the weather forecast we decided we should go over the Aurlandsfjellet mountain road today, rain is due tomorrow and being Saturday it will be much busier. The road is now a tourist route because you have the option of taking the longest car tunnel in the world (24.5 kilometres) straight through the mountain instead of crawling for 47 kilometres along the single track (with passing places), around hairpin bends and through some stunning landscapes. Derrrh, I know which I would choose, because I’m not the one driving!

Jay was up for it, so we started to climb, meeting a motorhome on the first corner – always a good start. We squeezed past, just missing wing-mirrors on the left and rock faces on the right. After that, meeting on-coming cars was a doddle. As we climbed we could see that someone had spray-painted the road for cyclists, pointing out how far above sea level they had gone and marking out dangerous potholes and bumps in the road. There was one huge, recently filled-in, pot hole which may have been because our road artist had drawn the outline of a body next to it, like you would see in a crime scene, and written RIP – to be fair a pothole that big would have killed Zagan, let alone a cyclist.

Jay looking back at where we’ve just driven up

Autumn colours were starting to tinge the trees and I couldn’t resist a stop off to see a couple of waterfalls on the way up. As we edged above the tree line, the rock landscape was dotted with patches of snow, which we, of course, had to get out and have a play on. What was supposed to be a 45 minute drive over the top took us over three hours, and would have taken longer but it was starting to get dark. We stopped at every viewpoint and several places that weren’t. Once again I am back in love with Norway and I don’t care how much eating out costs, or how drab some of the towns are, this is what Norway is all about.

Here’s comes Zagan!

Can’t resist a bit of snow in September

As we made our way back down we reached the Stegastein viewpoint which juts out 30 metres over the fjord 600 metres below. The wooden walkway curves sharply down with a glass screen to stop you from sliding over the edge like the ultimate funfair ride. As we reached the viewpoint a cruise ship was just making its way along the fjord. It was wonderful to see it and has us seriously considering a Norwegian cruise one day, they look amazing.

After 6km we have another 10km downhill to go!

Don’t look down!!!

Amazing viewpoint, and good timing

Reaching Aurland, the end of the tunnel and mountain pass, we were greeted with ‘No Motorhome’ signs. It’s not all that surprising as the place is between a cliff face and a fjord, so space is at a bit of a premium. So we tootled along the road towards Flåm and found this lay-by for the night. We’re both shattered after a long driving day – I’m co-pilot so on duty shouting ‘clear’ for every hairpin bend, if it is clear. Tonight I think we’ll sleep like logs.

Ju x

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