Norway is a mountainous country.

the fiord

Waterfalls

The boat that sailed up the fiord

Keeley's new headgear

Flam

Snow-capped peaks

Norway is a mountainous country filled with majestic mountains, snow-capped peaks, rushing river rapids, long icy lakes, deeply gouged fiords and forests of fir trees, all of which we saw or passed through travelling from Bergen to Oslo by local train, bus, and intercity train. We also drove through a swirling snow storm- the highlight of the trip!

We were scheduled to catch the intercity train, but because of work being carried out on the track through the mountains, buses were put in place to ferry passengers over, but mostly through the mountains. The tunnels were long and narrow, hewn out of the solid rock, and not smoothed or concreted or bricked as tunnels would normally be, but just left as they were drilled. They looked like they were one lane wide but several vehicles passed us travelling in the opposite direction. I don't know how as I just closed my eyes as they flew past. Obviously locals and quite accustomed to it! The track was open yesterday so I suspect the heavy rain last night may have caused some washouts and/or landslides.

All of us except for Stacey were all allocated second class seats. I don't know why as we have first class rail passes and the first class carriages were all but empty. I was following Lorelle to the front of the train, and ended up finding Stacey. I didn't even know she wasn't with us! I sat down with her to eat some camembert, and didn't even realise I was travelling backwards- the train was so smooth! Before we knew it, we had arrived at Oslo, and straight away booked our seats for Copenhagen tomorrow on the 1pm train. Had to pay the 17 euro surcharge for the Gottenburg to Copenhagen leg, which I was hoping to avoid. C'est la vie!

Keeley and Kiryn were almost collected by a tram travelling fast and cutting the corner even though they had a green walk light. I, of course, was trudging half a block behind, and didn't see it happen, but everyone else did. Our Oslo Budget Hotel is not so budget. We have a lovely large room with a flat screen TV on the wall ( which we haven't even turned on!) and our own bathroom. Who cares if you have to shower over the toilet?

Ben, Stacey's friend, met us and took us on a walking tour of Oslo- so pleased I went. He knew so many interesting things about Oslo and Norway in general, that it made the walk worthwhile although it must have been more than 3 kilometres! We stopped and had dinner at a restaurant serving traditional Norwegian Thursday night fare: bacon dumplings, salted lamb ( like corned beef!), boiled potatoes, mushy peas, sausage- very filling winter food- washed down with a bottle of Ringnes non-alcoholic beer (disgusting- tasted like pure malt!)

After a very heavy sleep ( must have been the non-alcoholic beer ),  I woke up late, and just had enough time to repack my bags, ( I have cut down to just 2!) and toddle along to the post office to post all our extra clothes home. I know everything there is to know about posting parcels back to Australia- we were in the post office an hour! Wrote postcards and posted them off while we were waiting!  Starving by this stage, so had a Burger King cheeseburger for brunch ( it was midday!) and hopped on the train to Gotttenburg in Sweden. After a very long 4 hours, we arrived in Gottenburg to change trains to Copenhagen. Keeley bought us Subways to eat on the train which was just as well as we didn't get to Cabinn City Hotel until well after 9pm. The seats on this train were very comfortable and it didn't seem to take very long at all even though Elizabeth and I had to sit backwards, we didn't start to feel sick until towards the end of the trip- thank goodness. Fortunately our lodging was only 200 metres from the station and is immaculate- small but functional rooms- mint green linen and furnishings AND a balcony!

Our cute room

A cuppa before bed