The Road to Hell, Route E6 the Longest Road in Europe
Zagan the motorhome is 3 metres from his nearest neighbour, in the free, central and official motorhome parking area at Trondheim, Norway (N63.42580, E10.38215). It’s news to us, but apparently under Norwegian law, motorhomes can’t stay any closer than that due to fire regulations, to help stop the spread of fire and to allow firefighters access. As a result the parking area here is full, despite only being half full.
Official, free motorhome parking in central Trondheim
A couple of days back we had a choice: head from Mosjøen back to the coast along the E78 and then south along beside the sea on the E17 again, or nail it down the E6, Norway’s backbone road and the longest road (within a single country) in Europe. The tourist info brochure for the southern half of the coastal route came out and, to be honest, it didn’t light our fire. The photos we all beautiful, but tame compared to the raw beauty further north. We’d also need to pay for a few more ferries, and it would take a few days longer to travel the coast, and we’ve made a call to be back in the UK first week in November. The weather forecast predicted a riot of rain, which sealed the deal for us: the E6 it was.
Cool cab art in Mosjøen
The past couple of days have been spent rolling south at great speed, sometimes over 50mph. Being the main road linking Norway’s south and north, you would be forgiven for imagining a kind of A1 sort of road, a straight-ish dual carriageway carrying a stack of lorries and tons of commuters. Nah. This is Norway, and only a few hundred people live here, or thereabouts. The road’s single carriageway, down to 6m wide in places, even less at the odd pinch point. The road even closes from time to time in winter when efforts to keep it open fail.
The E6: gets a bit tight in places…
Looking behind us as we entered the ‘South’.
I’m tempted to say driving the E6 inland felt a little like driving through Finland, but no. Finland driving feels like being sat stationary with the same 10 seconds of footage of slowly-moving trees being projected over and over on either side. The E6 had character: rivers and rocks, twists and turns, and the odd lorry-on-a-bend to widen your pupils and tighten your grip of the steering wheel.
A waterfall just off the E6
Autumn colours are starting to crop up in the Norwegian landscape now the end of August is here
Not fancying a full-on 6 hour blat, we pulled into one of the smattering of off-road picnic areas for an afternoon’s watching of The Jinx (just north of Grong at N64.53641, E12.43132). That night the rain and wind came, as we slept alone in semi-wilderness. I checked the level of storm in the early hours, peeking out of the door as Grizzly Adams might have done. Nah, just a bit of wind, nothing like the lashing we took once in Sicily, or the train-like blasts of Mistral which snapped our door off in France, phew.
One of the picnic spots on the E6 which you can stay in to break up the long slog south
Today we ate up another 3 hours, nipping to Hell on the way into Trondheim. Yes folks, given the opportunity to visit Hell, who’d pass it up? In we went, first heading for a shopping centre in Hell, then nipping to the train station for a few photos fooling about in front of the town’s name (which means ‘prosperity’ in Norwegian).
Shopping Hell
Bottles semi-filled with flavour ready for your home-brewed alcohol!
The Blues are coming to Hell
Hmmm, should I invest in a few more lobster pots? We love the shops here, one even had a load of 65cmm spanners – HUGE things – what on Earth people need ’em for I have no idea
One way to cut down beer costs here: brew your own
Blog reader Per Ivar pointed out Hell even freezes over here in Norway! Before we left Hell, we sorted out a buzzing noise which had started every time we hit the brakes: the earth wire had come loose on the lights and was making the indicator buzzer come on or some such. We had a good time in Hell.
From Hell to here. By this point the E6 has gone from a winding stretch of narrow tarmac, following rivers and edging around fjords to a decent-sized A road, with dual carriageway on the climbs and no tail of vehicles for us. Of course this comes with a price: the tolls have started to pop up again, overhead gantries nabbing a few quid from us here and there. Can’t complain though, this freebie parking area is spot on, and just a short walk over the bridge into the city. We’ve had a quick amble, but plan to check it out more tomorrow when the sun should hopefully shine!
A first look at Trondheim
Cheers, Jay
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We love crazy place names too. Recently we drove through ‘Dull’ in Scotland and spotted a sign saying it was twinned with somewhere called ‘ Boring’ in the USA!
Haha! Cracking! Cheers, Jay
Hello both need your thoughts on a tech matter as you’ve travelled in hot temps.above 30/35 ish.our fridge is not cooling enough. Freezer fine, fridge rises to 14/16 or more.Did/ do you have this problem, our fridge is original to our 2000 B544.We do tend to travel for up to 3 hours or more in the heat…We’ve tried vent covers off, adding fans etc. We’re told that’s it’s normal…Did you experience these problems ever. Many thanks Jackie
Hi Jackie, yep, we had a problem with our fridge in Croatia. They tend to work better on gas or hook up as opposed to 12V, but ours wouldn’t stay cold when on either in high temperatures (30 degrees C or more for days at a time). The gas burner had been replaced, so we think it was a limitation of the fridge design. We tried to park so the fridge corner of the motorhome would be in as much shade as possible, and fashioned a ‘shade cover’ from a floor mat which we hung about 20cm from the vents, to avoid blocking them. That helped, as did moving blue blocks from the freezer to the fridge each morning, then back into the freezer at night. Cheers, good luck, Jay
You are stars that you’ve taken time out to reply 😊 other half is a shipping engineer and he’d tried all sorts of things now we’re home on Sounion coast he’s still testing and it’s 30+! Truly many thanks and next time your in Greece come and visit…though we’ll pick your brain!!
You’re welcome. Greece might be a wee while bit we will make it back there, we really enjoyed the weeks we spent there. Jay
Jason, Julie, Jackie and Thomas
Please find below an article I posted for our van club in Australia re 3 way fridge problems:-
Fridge management – 90 litre 3 way fridge/freezer:
Upright 3 way fridges may not run all that efficiently sometimes so careful planning is required to get the most out of the fridge.
Before costly upgrades and or switching to compressor fridges is contemplated it may be worthwhile organising your current fridge as best as possible.
The following is what we have found works for us:-
On an extended trip we cryovac our chicken, seafood, meat and bacon and freeze them before we go and arrange in servings of 2/packet so they fit nicely into the freezer.
Bring the fridge down nice and cold before you start loading food into it.
If done properly we can fit around 12 meals into the freezer and we then put the frozen bacon on the shelf immediately below the freezer, then the dairy products on the shelf below that, working down to fruit and vegetables on the bottom shelf.
The idea is to open the fridge as seldom as possible and to keep the fridge as full as possible – it is the warm air from outside the fridge that is the enemy – when you open the fridge door the cold air gets dumped on the floor of the van and the warm outside air goes in – the fridge inside air temp can easily go up 8 or 10 degrees on just 1 opening.
Buy a wireless thermometer with a remote readout so you can keeps tabs on your fridge temp – Engel, Evakool and Waeco make them and they sell for around $30-$50 AUD.
As you use up fridge contents it is important to put something back in to replace what you have taken out, to prevent warm air being able to rush in when opened.
Have a few items on hand such as small drink bottles or Tupperware containers filled with water which you can put in the vacant spaces in the fridge – another suitable item for this is varying shapes and sizes of isolite material ( the white packing used for appliance transportation) – it can be purchased in thin slabs which you can cut to your own requirements.
Upright fridge door seals degrade over time and the fridge then won’t run efficiently and it is probably wise to replace the seals every 3-4 years – they are available from somewhere like Clark Rubber or online fromhttps://www.doorseal.com.au/ (no experience with these sites).
Fridge fans – they have been covered plenty of times on this forum, however if you don’t have them try to fit a shade to keep the sun off the back of the fridge and or remove the vents when stationary.
There are different types of 3 way fridges available in Australia – your fridge class should be stamped on the plate inside the fridge – the classes are N (Normal) for up to around 32 deg C, ST (Sub Tropical) for up to around 36 deg C and T (Tropical) rated to around 43 deg C. – the T is the class recommended for Northern Australia
Unfortunately I think Australia is used as a dumping ground for 3 way fridges and most that are imported by suppliers are the “N” class which are just not suitable for our climate in Queensland
For ideas on venting the fridge please log on to
http://caravanandmotorhomebooks.com/making-caravan-fridges-work-as-claimed/
The best source of information on anything 12 volt inc fridges, solar, batteries etc is Collyn Rivers – just google his name to find his publications
Great stuff, many thanks for taking the time to write this Rob and Krys, appreciated, Jay