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Sunday, August 26, 2007 Last night, I attended an informal musical gathering at the café above the Wrigley Sister’s music store in Kirkwall. People came with their guitars and other instruments and just sat around singing and telling stories. A group of people from Australia sang waltzing Matilda. One of the Aussie’s asked if anyone knew the name of the swagman? Answer: “Andy.” (And he tucked that jolly jumbuck…) The ferry back to Thurso left at 9:00 a.m. Although the trip is something less than two hours, the seas were much rougher than when I came out to Orkney. I started to feel a little queasy and decided to get some seasickness tablets for the longer trip to Norway tomorrow. Robert Carson, the son of the owners of the hostel, came by to take me to his scout meeting in the evening after dinner. Robert is the adult leader of Explorer Scouts who are boys and girls aged 14-18. They are part of the 2nd Thurso Scout Group. In the U.K., a Scout Group has units in all the age categories. The British scouting age categories are Beaver Colonies (6-8 year-olds), Cub Packs (8-10), Scout Troops (10-14), Explorer Scouts (14-18), and Scout Network (18-25). All are coed. A town may have more than one Scout Group, for example, Thurso has two, the 1st Thurso Group and the 2nd Thurso Group. Robert’s Explorers are in the 2nd Thurso Scout Group. At their meeting there were three girls and three boys, and two adult leaders. They met in their own Scout Hut, a small building that used to belong to a construction company. I showed the scouts pictures from the World Jamboree and they were quite interested. Along with many other scout groups in the U.K., they participated in the sunrise ceremonies commemorating the 100th Anniversary of Scouting. The unit was making plans to attend a “Scout Rally” on Loch Ness, and had to complete registration forms. The rally sounded like what we call a Camporee back home. It would be a weekend camping trip with about 200-300 scouts attending, and they have lots of activities planned for the participants. I enjoyed talking to the scouts. One topic was the differences in driving age and instruction in the U.S. verses in the U.K. In most cases they have to be 17 or 18 to drive in the U.K. We also spoke a little about politics; they were interested in our upcoming American presidential election, and we also spoke about the movement to further increase the independence of Scotland from England. Scottish independence was an issue in their recent elections. After meeting with the Explorers, Robert and I drove to a leader’s meeting at the 1st Thurso Scout Hut. It was sort of an executive committee meeting for leaders from units in the county of Caithness. I had a chance to speak to this group about the World Jamboree too. A 18-year-old Network Scout who had attended a Moot in South Africa had a slide show of her trip that included images of Mafeking where Baden Powell served during the Boar War. Some people regard Baden Powell’s experiences in Mafeking as the true start of scouting because he organized and used boys to serve as message runners and to help in the campaign in other ways. Some people say that B-P formed his ideas about training scouts from the experience he had with boys at Mafeking. Monday, August 27, 2007 I’m off to Norway tonight.  The
ferry leaves at 10:00 p.m.; a couple of Norwegian women at the hostel are
also going on the ferry, and they have offered to give me a ride to the
terminal. However, they changed their mind because their car was too small
for our luggage. So I took a cab to the terminal, and managed to get rid of
all my coins in the process. You can’t generally exchange coins, and I’ll
have to buy Norwegian Krona when I get to Bergen.There were quite a few people returning to the Faeroe Islands at the ferry terminal. The ferry, a Danish ship, will continue on to the Faeroe Islands, and Iceland after stopping in Bergen, Norway. At the terminal, I had a chance to talk to some other passengers from whom I learned that there would be a large group of accordionists on board our ship, and if I wanted, I could stay up all night to listen to them perform. After a security check, I boarded the ship, M.V. Norrona, belonging to the Danish Smyril Line. Again, I was impressed with how new everything seemed. The ship was much larger than the ferry to Orkney. I had booked a couchette, really not knowing what a couchette was. The couchette turned out to be a small room with nine bunk beds, three on each of three walls. There were five such rooms in a section that pass cards to enter. It was not crowded, and I wound up sleeping in a room with only one other person. The Norrona had features like a cruise ship. The ship had a restaurant where passengers could buy individual meals, and it also had an all-you-can-eat buffet restaurant where an amazing array of food could be purchased. I suppose people could book a passage where the food was included in the fare, but my fare did not include meals. The ships also had a fitness facility with a pool, hot tubs, and exercise equipment. There were several bars, and lounges, and an enclosed and open sun deck. As my luck would have it, the seas were gentle, and although I took a couple of sea sickness tablets, I probably did not need them. I slept soundly, awoke around 7:00 a.m., and arrived in Bergen around 4:00 p.m. Tuesday, August 28, 2007 Bergen is Norway’s second largest city, and has an old center near the harbor with very colorful wooden buildings dating back to the 18th century. I  t
was strange and quite nice to see green forests and wooden houses after the
moorlands and gray stone buildings of Scotland. It didn’t take too long to
walk to the hostel, but I stopped at the first ATM to get some Norwegian
money. I was told that Norway is one of the most expensive European
countries, and I think it’s true. A Coca Cola, for example, costs close to
$4.00 for a 20-oz bottle. I am saving a lot by buying groceries and
preparing my meals, and hostels, although more expensive than those in the
U.K. are around $30 a night without any meals.Wednesday, August 29, 2007 My first order of business this morning was to find the Hurtigruten ferry agent to book the next leg of my journey. Hurtigruten runs a ferry up and down the coast of Norway. The ferry stops at about 34 towns along the way and takes a week to complete the journey. I booked a passage for three days and two nights from Bergen to Trondheim, about a third the way up the coast. I anticipate seeing fjords and other majestic scenery on this trip. After taking care of travel arrangements, I rode the funicular up the mountain near Bergen. The view from the top is grand. Trails through the forests start just a little further up the mountain, and I walked on a bit. The city of Bergen is deceptive. From the harbor old town area Bergen does not seem very large; however, from the mountain, it’s easy to see how spread out the city really is. One of the places I did not get to see today was the resistance museum, Theta. It’s located in a second floor room in one of the old warehouse buildings on the wharf, but for some reason it was closed. Norway was under Nazi control during the war, but the resistance was active, and people escaped to Scotland in really small boats like the ones I saw in Lyness, on Hoy in Orkney. I did get to see the King Hakon’s Hall, the mediaeval castle that had to be rebuilt after a Nazi controlled Dutch ship loaded with ammunition exploded in the harbor during the Second World War. As in much of Europe, the castle was meticulously restored, and is one of the royal sites in Norway. The hall itself is a very large room with stone walls, a timbered roof, and a large table along one side for the royal family and other dignitaries. Royal receptions, concerts, and other special events are held in the hall. In the late afternoon, before going back to the hostel, I stopped to taste some food at the fish market. They sell several kinds of smoked fish and other seafood, and it’s all very good. Thursday, August 30, 2007 The ferry leaves Bergen this evening at 8:00 p.m., so I had most of the day to sightsee. I walked through other sections of town, and wound up visiting the art museum. Norway’s most famous artist is Edvard Munch, but his work is modern and not to my taste. The museum had some interesting audio-visual presentations in their contemporary section. There was a display in which a large plaster object shaped like a Mickey Mouse head had a video projected onto it. It made the thing look like a green alien monster’s head complete with a bulbous nose and a big mouth and eyes, and it talked and made weird face contortions. On my walk, I passed statues of Norway’s great musician, Edvard Grieg. On some of the statues he’s called “Ole Bull.” It sounds like “old bull,” but it’s just a name. The weather has been very good in Norway, but the temperature fluctuates as the sun goes behind clouds. In the sun, it’s warm, but in the shade it’s quite cool. I walked onto the ferry about 7:30 p.m. The ferry is the MS Trollfjord, and it’s the largest ship I’ve been on so far. It’s well equipped; besides all the shopping and eating places, there’s a library, and TV lounge. The sun deck has two open-air hot tubs. The ship will carry more than 800 people, but it has only half that many this evening. I slept in one of the lounges; I just took out my sleeping pad and sleeping bag and found a spot on the carpet to sleep. There were a few other people sleeping on chairs, but my arrangement was more comfortable, I am sure. Friday, August 31, 2007 I had a buffet style breakfast on the ship this morning; ate too much. After breakfast, I took out the laptop to work on this journal while the Norwegian coast glided past. The first snow-capped peaks came into view. At mid morning, I left the ship for a trip onto the Geirangerfjord.  Our
ship went into the fjord and anchored near the town of Geiranger, at the end
of the fjord. Those who signed up and paid for the excursion got on smaller
boats to go ashore where buses waited to take us on a nine-hour trip across
some of the most beautiful parts of Norway. The route took us over the
highest mountain passes and across several smaller fjords to the town of
Molde where we returned to the ferry. The Geirangerfjord is another one of the spectacular World Heritage sites. The king and queen of Norway celebrated their 25th anniversary on a high plateau above the fjord. Guests included heads of state, and celebrities. The event was televised throughout Norway. The dignitaries had to climb a mountain trail to the festivities, or be flown there by helicopter. The mountains are all snow capped, and we got out to play in the snow, and to build a snowman in August! We were told that the leaves would start turning color in about two weeks. The road going down the backside of the mountain pass is an incredible zigzag of hair pin turns. The bus had to back up to get around most of them. Of course, there are no guardrails, there are no shoulders, and the road is just barely able to accommodate two vehicles in a few places. I find that I am more anxious when someone else is driving, but this would be a fun road to go down on a bike. The older farm houses along the route have interesting roofs. In the old days, the Norwegians would strip the birch trees and cover their roofs with a layer of birch bark. Then to hold the bark in place they put a layer of sod on top of the birch bark. Grass and small shrubs actually grow on the roofs of the houses. Wherever the land is flat enough, and that doesn’t have to be very flat, there are farms. In one area we drove past large strawberry farms. Polish farm hands, in fact, entire families, come to Norway to pick the strawberry’s and other fruits and vegetables. Farm animals like sheep, goat, and cows roam freely, and often clog the roads. As planned, the ship met us in the town of Molde around 9:30 p.m. Tomorrow we should arrive in Trondheim, Norway’s third largest city, where I will spend a few days before traveling to Oslo, and Sweden.
Philip Sternberg |