Norway 2012

Shortly after we got underway, the ship passed an old lighthouse of distinctly Scandinavian design. I stood out on the front of the ship, drawing several comments and disbelieving stares from my fellow passengers as stood in my t-shirt playing with the settings on my camera whilst they huddled inside their big parka-jackets. That isn’t to say I was unaffected by the conditions on the front of the ship; the wind soon had my eyes streaming (jacket won’t help with that), and I will confess I would have become quite uncomfortable had I spent much more than the 5 or 6 minutes that I did outside.

We followed this up with blog catch-up time, accompanied by a lunch comprised in part of the provisions we had bought at Trondheim, followed by a hot snack from the ship’s cafe’.

Later, around 16:30, the sip passed through Straight, the channel is just 42meters wide at its narrowest point; Polarlys having a beam of 19.5m. A group of Sea Kayaks scrambled to the side of the channel dwarfed by the scale of the Hurtigruten ship. As we passed beneath a bridge where a man stood waving, the fog horn sounded to alert vessels beyond the approaching 90 degree bend of our approach; I couldn’t help but wince at the thought that he was probably half deafened. We spent some time reading in the forward observation lounge on deck 7 (or 7-forward, as I insisted on calling it). The less impressive peaks of the part of Norway appearing to file past the window in an unending procession. It was still strange to be at sea, but seldom have land on only one side.

Neither the pretty nuances of the view, nor our reading could hold our interest for very long though, and soon we became quite drowsy. Having troubled ourselves to rise early for Trondheim we decided to take a nap around 18:00, and didn’t rise until the ship was docking in Rørvik around 21:00.

By the time we scrambled up on deck (one of us with more reluctance than the other) the ship was already beside the quay. As we walked out on the sun deck I greeted Hans, a retired German man to whom I had chatted previously, and introduced him to Chris. Hans is well travelled and his adventures had, many years previously, taken him to Wales. He wears around his neck a small stone engraved with a dragon and an inscription in Welsh. When he had showed it to me previously I had been unable to make out the inscription whilst it was around his neck. He had now transcribed the inscription onto paper and asked me if I could translate it. It reads something along the lines of “the order of the red dragon” (as best I could translate it).

Rørvik is a small settlement at the approximate centre of a cluster of small islands, it is on these islands where most of its denizens dwell. A long bridge connected the town to the adjacent island, and the harbour was filled with the comings and goings of local ferries and small boats.

As we moved off again, at the end of the ship’s 30 minute stop, we were afforded a great view of MS Trollfjord as she prepared to get underway. She is another of the very new Hurtigruten ships and had occupied the berth just ahead of us. As we headed on a local man and his child in their small semi-ridged boat came along side and began to play at riding the large wake left by Polarlys, adding a flourish to our brief stop.

After the ship left Rørvik, we headed to the ships cafe’ to get the journal up to date, and partake of an ice-cream sandwich (at 18Kr the cheapest snack sold on board and no risk of melting!). Chris had a short voice call with Abi, the lag (so I understand) was significant. I said, you’ve given the game away now haven’t you; you were smiling when you talked to her, so you must really like her. Chris claimed that he was simply thinking of a nice hot cup of tea, but I think I’ve rumbled him.

When the WiFi went down we took up some seats by the windows at the bottom of the atrium, but were soon lured up to the piano lounge on deck 7 by the melodies floating down through the atrium. A stray thought about tales of sirens came to me, as we were drawn in my music whist at sea.

She has just opened her set with Journey’s don’t stop believing. The pianist is entertaining, although I amused by the way her accent occasionally sneaks through (she is currently rendering Englishman in ‘New Yoork’ (‘o’ before ‘r’ in Norwegian words generally being pronounced similarly to the ‘oo’ in look). At the end of the performance, we got to talking with her; she recognised us as “those guys who boarded at Geiranger” and added that “you looked so tired”. She is from Bulgaria, but has lived in Lillehammer, Norway for 6 years. She already speaks Bulgarian, English and some Danish but agrees with us that Norwegian is really hard (still struggling as she does after 6 years of living here). I note it here, so that when I return home having barley advanced my Norwegian skills at all, this may weigh as evidence in my favour. We exchanged stories of travels including her tale of an exotic and mysterious place called ‘London’ that she visited for a few days once; another reminder that strange cultures and wonderful sights are all a matter of perspective.

We chatted until the ship entered the narrow channel to the harbour at Brønnøysund around 00:40, at which point we were all drawn away to windows. We gazed down upon the low-rise buildings of the town from our position high on the ship; the whites and light pastel shades of the buildings (built on stilts right out into the water) contrasted beautifully against the dark yet shimmering water of the fjord. We chanced heading out on the sun deck and found the night was mild (considering that just a few hours from now we would be crossing the Arctic circle its self). All in all a restful day.

At 07:26:35, whilst we were still soundly sleeping in our cabin, the ship crossed the Arctic Circle.

We went up on deck to watch as we passed the southbound Hurtigruten MS Kong Harald.

We found that we were once again amongst tall peaks, rather than the undulating but lower lying areas that had been typical of the region known as the Western fjords (which were less impressive).

The sun shone brightly and it was warm enough to be on deck in a t-shirt and open sweater even whilst we were underway. Only the snow, which in places came right down to the shore, belied the fact that we were now in the arctic.

After taking in the view for a while we headed back to our cabin to get our gear ready for disembarking at Bodø. Ere long, an announcement regarding a “small ceremony” that the company like to conduct each time their ships cross the Arctic Cirlcle on the sun deck. When we returned to the deck the assembled passengers were asked to call out for king Neptune, and on queue “king Neptune” (who has a face that looks remarkably like a latex mask) appeared on the deck to the amusement of all. Neptune explained that if we were very, very lucky he might conger a proper storm for us, because he felt bad that we had to deal with such bland ‘good’ weather. The head tour person then explained that the ritual requires that we each have a ladle of ice-water poured down our back, followed by a shot of a strange (and strong) Norwegian wine.

We endured the ladle, but neither of us being drinkers, the wine went un-drunk.

We skulked back to our cabin, and finished sorting our gear, which we then stowed in the ships luggage room, near the gang way freeing us to go out on deck before we left the ship. As we approached the “city” (though it seems odd to apply the term to a place with around 40,000 people, including suburbs etc) by sea from the south, the first thing that struck us was the largest flat area that we had seen since Oslo, which was occupied by the NATO air station and the commercial air port’s runways. The harbour seemed busy, with all manner of strange vessels; one small boat seemed to be under steam power, whilst another larger ship had large cranes built upon it.Leggi altro