{"id":24129,"date":"2016-09-26T11:31:47","date_gmt":"2016-09-26T10:31:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ourtour.co.uk\/home\/?p=24129"},"modified":"2021-07-22T19:13:05","modified_gmt":"2021-07-22T18:13:05","slug":"into-antarctica-oslo-and-the-fram","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ourtour.co.uk\/home\/into-antarctica-oslo-and-the-fram\/","title":{"rendered":"Into Antarctica! Oslo and the Fram"},"content":{"rendered":"

Zagan the motorhome’s being encouraged to leave Norway by the deep grey clouds spilling heavy droplets onto his roof at\u00a0Bogstad Camping<\/a> (N59.96516,E10.64168<\/a>), in Oslo. We’ve spent 10 weeks travelling Norway, from Nordkapp<\/a>, Senja <\/a>and\u00a0the Lofotens\u00a0<\/a>in the Arctic, down the wonderful coastal Route 17<\/a>, before the long E6 south<\/a> to Trondheim<\/a>, over the twisting Trollstigen<\/a> to the towering\u00a0beauty of Geirangerfjord<\/a>, up narrow roads to the best campsite in the World (probably) at Briksdal<\/a>, more twisting roads and ferries before going up and over the longest road tunnel in the world at Laerdal<\/a>, out for fish and chips at Bergen<\/a>, rounding Hardangerfjord<\/a>, chilling out with salmon in Sand<\/a>, climbing the fearful (for me) powerfully beautiful and fierce Preikstolen<\/a> and finally swooping and hollering around the fast coastal roads up to Oslo. What a ride folks, what a ride.\u00a0The Norway experience has been sensational.<\/p>\n

\"Zagan

Zagan at Bogstad Camping, Oslo. There are loads of motorhomes here, but we’re pretty much alone in the ‘no hook-up’ area<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Loads

Loads of folks were spending their Sunday morning Nordic ‘summer’ skiing outside the campsite<\/p><\/div>\n

Yesterday we took a look at Oslo, only a glimpse of course, but enough to get a feel for the city, and\u00a0we got up close with an iconic piece of history, the ship which took Amundsen to the Antarctic during\u00a0the race with Scott to the South Pole. The gathering autumn’s also serving to usher us a little way further towards the equator, although we’re heading for the UK before we do,\u00a0so Zagan’s solar panel will get a good taste of Northern Europe’s winter\u00a0gloom this year.<\/p>\n

Bogstad Camping’s a few miles out from Oslo, and Oslo\u00a0itself is well spread out\u00a0with several of the big sights being miles apart. Although it’s not a huge city, with only half a million folks living here (about the same population as Sheffield), we’re glad we bought 24 hour transport passes from the camp site reception (100 NOK each, about a tenner) rather than individual tickets, as we we took five journeys each yesterday. Charlie could have come with us, we saw plenty of dogs on the busses and the metro, we opted to leave him in Zagan so we could go inside and see the Fram. Not wanting to leave him too long always constrains what we can see and do in a day, but we gave Oslo a fair shot, having already read up in the Lonely Planet<\/a>, and consulted Trip Advisor’s reviews of the museums and galleries.<\/p>\n

Waiting for the number 32 bus outside the campsite reception, we had the luck to get chatting with Bronwyn and Keith, a New Zealand couple travelling in a fifth wheeler, which I was amazed to hear was made in Wales<\/a>. Coming from Christchurch, they had first-hand experience of the devastation of the earthquake there in 2010. Keith’s description of it had me slack-jawed, as I sat with him in his living room watching a falling road out the window. The black sand Christchurch stands on was liquefied that day, coming up from cracks in the earth like magma; Bronwyn had shifted tons of the stuff from their property. Later on, when we came back from the city, we sat in their cavernous slide-out and were treated to wine and nibbles and stories of travelling and working abroad. Keith’s a software developer and makes lots of use of\u00a0the\u00a0iBoost\u00a0WiFi antenna<\/a> attached to the outside of their home on wheels.<\/p>\n

\"Keith

Keith and Bronwyn’s British-Made Fifth Wheeler. An incredible vehicle it is too.<\/p><\/div>\n

Into the city, we jumped off at the Operahuset, the\u00a0new Opera and Ballet House, finished in 2007 at a cost of a mere half a billion pounds. The building is a wonder, a wedge of Italian marble and white granite, dipped at one end into the sea and rising at the other for a view of the city’s skyscrapers and the cranes standing tall over various other enormous building projects. Walking all over the thing is the order of the day, really pleasant and enjoyable on a late September Sunday, with just enough folks around for company. Cracking.<\/p>\n

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