Through the snowy mountains to Oslo

19/4 – Train trip to Oslo, seven hours spent very comfortably on a good train with stunning views starting right from the moment we got through the very long tunnel straight out of Bergen Station. We travelled for a little under an hour alongside the upper reaches of a fjord with one of their enormous bridges (which reminded us of the island-to-island bridges in Japan), a couple of fish farms, small groups of a dozen or so houses, and several tunnels so it was always a surprise as to what we’d see when we got out into the countryside again.

When we booked our original cruise which would have taken us from Bergen to Stockholm, the first stop being an opportunity to do a ship excursion on the famous scenic Flam railway, I was determined to do that. However we changed to the Trade Routes cruise due to the Russian itinerary changes and that meant Flam was off the menu. I looked it up as a day trip and although it was do-able, decided against it since we would see plenty of scenery on the day train to Oslo and had seen the fjords from land and sea. The day trip was offered by several companies, and it was a pre-booked DIY thing where the company provided train tickets to one place, a bus ride to Flam, the scenic railway, and then a two hour cruise down the fjord – all day and expensive, so decided to give it a miss and we haven’t regretted it.

So on the way today we’ve seen fjords for a start, one with a little island in the middle, a bit of snow on the mountains around the edges. Houses were mostly white with a few red, not the mixture we’d seen in Bergen, and mostly wood. The roofs have frames near the bottom, a snow-stop thing for safety. However there were some glass and wood ‘boxes’ which wouldn’t have been out of place in the new hilly subdivisions in Nelson. The water was like glass. We noticed again the huge grey granite cliffs rising straight up from the water (Milford Sound on steroids), and the giant cracks which would have been caused by water turning to ice then expanding and cracking I guess. There are houses on the waterline down below the train tracks, no road access, could see jetties and a few boats tied up – that’s isolation and I guess we have the same in New Zealand too. The fjord turned into a river with houses strung along it, road access, some three levels – I saw one with its roof half caved in and all black, so fires still happen, and no fire brigade in the sticks.

Pete commented on the ‘slash’ (hasn’t that word entered everyone’s vocabulary since the north island floods and storms?) on the mountainsides. The trees at this time of year are a mixture of green pines and some other trees which are still waiting for their spring growth. From about an hour out of Bergen we were seeing snow on the tracksides and in the trees, we’d been told about a big snowfall a couple of weeks before that blocked the tracks. Following a river further up in some parts it was so still and smooth, then we’d see rough rapids.

An hour out of Bergen we stopped at Voss, quite a big place and the lake was very still with lovely reflections, and we’re pretty sure part of the surface was covered in a layer of thin ice. At that point it was 7 degrees outside, blue skies and sunny. And a question, why do you get on a warm train and keep your heavy puffer coat on for ages? And hold onto your roller bag for miles instead of putting it in the luggage rack, so uncomfortable. Some people dozed pretty much the whole way, though I have to say getting towards Oslo I was a bit sleepy. I’d had the laptop out and was catching up on the blog – multi-tasking because I can type and sightsee at the same time.

The higher we went, with views of smooth snowy mountainsides, and lower trees, it reminded me so much of the winter of 1969 when I was 13, we lived in Ohakune and my friend Kathryn’s father was the park ranger so had to do safety duty on the Turoa ski fields. We went skiing for several weekends, I was never very good or confident on the ‘nutcracker’ tow, but we had a lot of fun regardless, me using her old skis and we got freebie lift passes. Very happy memories of that year, and then they moved away and we couldn’t afford for me to go.

People got on and off at Myrdal, the jumping off point for the Flam railway and we were really into snow country after that – big nets on the slopes above the railway line, but even the odd cabin to be seen, and a little bridge over a cut with ski tracks leading to and from so cross country skiing is happening. Still lots of tunnels and in parts the train was under a sort of roof with big heavy supports. The train info in each carriage gives the height above sealevel at each stop. Plenty of snow ploughs at each station too. Can’t imagine why???? In tiny Finse the houses were in deep snow, some had been dug around and some were almost buried, 1222 meters, and people skiing right outside the train at 3 degrees celcius.

It was so hard to stop taking photos, it was so beautiful. We marvelled at the (we think) power lines strung out through the snow and (now) smaller trees with the tree line obvious a bit higher, some pylons too, icicles hanging down from the granite outcrops. We regretted packing our sunnies in the backpacks, it was VERY bright outside, sparkling white and bright blue everywhere. Some of the houses had grass roofs, as the farmer said on Sunday, grass is ok as long as a tree doesn’t grow on it – and the sheep like to climb up on the roof sometimes too.

One town had a huge white hotel by the station, lots of big houses and lots of others extending for quite a distance. The lower slopes must be stunning in autumn with the trees losing their leaves, colours amongst the green pines. Each small station showed the height above sealevel and temperature, we saw such a lot of lovely Norway and had no regrets at all about not doing the Flam railway trip.

It was interesting listening to a guy behind us on the phone and his mixture of Norwegian and English, quite a few English phrases thrown in (hey bro, hello sausage, we should try that, that’s for sure, hard work, don’t worry, flexi schedule). We were told on the tour yesterday that language is about half and half Norwegian with a lot of English words, or at least English roots in the words such as street names Klokkegaten (street of the clockmaker), Scottgarten (where the Scottish people lived), and signs on shops even in Norwegian you could often work out what they were saying.

We had to stop at one place to wait for a (delayed) goods train to come through so they let us onto the platform to stand around with the sun on our backs. You should have seen all the smokers get out and light up very quickly! We chatted to an elderly couple, the man had told us at one stop to watch for a quick photo opportunity ‘only seconds’ outside the station, so we talked about that and travel. The lady was a research scientist, he told us proudly, who had made the breakthrough in isolating the HIV virus and continued with that work from the 1990’s I think, what an accomplishment. Announcements on the train were good, English and Norwegian, as was the information strip above each carriage door, with the time to the next station, platform left or right, height above sealevel, temperature and a ‘Welcome to this train going to Oslo’ each time we started up again. After that stop we followed a river, snow receding, but a lot of ice in the water in some parts and sometimes you could see quite thick ice broken off and icebergs up against the bank. I did see some cows and calves in a farmyard, I’ll bet they go inside at night, but they were enjoying the sunshine at lunchtime.

We’d got a roll and pastries at Bergen station (there was a small café on the train but the food was expensive for meals and fairly basic for snacks), bought a cuppa at 10, lunch and a cuppa at 1230, and the stop at that point was pretty much out of the snow, 170m above sealevel – or so we thought. Carried on for half an hour and we were in a well forested area with timber felling, lots more slash, some small mills and a couple of sizeable lakes completely iced over. There were a lot of fallen trees, very shallow roots, nothing like the enormous tree roots we saw that had been shaped to hold up ceiling beams and outside supports for above-ground walkways.

Around 2.15 we were into a bit of farmland, fewer trees, no snow, bigger towns and around an hour from Oslo saw a few dams on the river, apparently Norway’s power is mostly hydroelectric. The trip would normally last just under 7 hours, we had a couple more hold-ups waiting for oncoming trains to come through the single track trainline, and finally got to Oslo around 3.30. Got a taxi to the hotel which isn’t really far away but not inclined to drag three pieces of luggage plus backpacks. Got into a ‘discussion’ with a group of taxi drivers who were arguing the toss about who would take us and the general indication was that it was not worth their while. In the end one of them got someone from a different queue, he was happy to take us and obviously embarrassed about his colleagues, said they should take the fare, they are at the front of the queue. I must admit to having been a bit terse, especially when the first one, when showed my booking which clearly said ‘Thon Hotel Astoria’ pointed to the hotel beside the station, clearly labelled ‘Hotel Opera’. They don’t do themselves any favours.

We’re on the 7th floor down a very long hallway that felt like walking half way back to the station, reasonable size but with a double bed so we’ll have to snuggle up (first world problem). Had Thai for dinner three doors down from the hotel.

This was another really good day on our travels.Read more