NORWAY
 Summer 2003

...after 3'914.5 km driving, 31 hours on ferries and completely broke, we are back home. Also a cool box loaded with fish, made it to Schlieren. The journey went without problems. Eight hours drive during the night for the 1'000 km, to Kiel. Arrival 06:00, all children where asleep. The 20 hours ferry ride to Oslo was pleasant and the buffet as good as expensive! The Youth Hostel in Oslo was, as always, perfect. The way from Oslo via Haugensund to Finnoy (530 km) took us over a 1'000 m high Ridge. There was still snow on the mountain slopes and it was freezing cold.

Finnoy proved to be a superb island and also the fisherman's hut on our camp site was acceptable. A little bit neglected maybe, but for a holiday with three kids quite OK. At least they could not do much damage. Fishing, after adjustments of our gear, was very successful. We never again returned empty handed and on good days we cached more than 30 big fishes, mainly Mackerels, Lengs and Torsks. Kurt became the perfect skipper. Crab catching was another popular activity among youngsters! Nancy was busy preparing the catches and did a great job! She was however not very keen to got to sea. To our surprise, she joined us once, on the last day.

The only two excursions brought us to Stavanger and another, to Bergen. Ferry charges and road tolls for "Fjord tunnels", make such trips quite expensive! Fuel prices, as well, are the highest in Europe! The relatively short trip (150km) to Bergen, was quite long due to 3 ferry crossings with a total sailing time of over 2 hours, each way. The weather in Bergen was appalling but the trip was nevertheless worthwhile.

On the way back we arrived at 16:30 in Kristiansand and had to wait till 00:00 for boarding. A very good dinner shortened this time. The 5.5 hours crossing proved be cold and not so comfortable, in the "sleeping chairs". We arrived a bit crumbled and tired in Hirtshals. There was not much to see of Denmark. It was raining like hell. Hamburg however was in the clear and after some wandering around we also found the hostel. Also here very clean and friendly. The breakfast buffet was splendid. Nancy was a little upset that it was a Sunday and shopping out of question! Next morning we departed Hamburg at 08:00 and arrived home at 16:00. All good things are coming to an end.

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