15th July 2024, 16:28
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| BHPian | |
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15th July 2024, 16:36
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| BHPian | |
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31st July 2024, 06:31
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| BHPian | |
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31st July 2024, 06:31
| #4 |
| BHPian | Day 0: June 30 2024 - Bringing home the RV!I started the day with some last minute shopping, as I wouldn’t have my car with me after I’d picked up the RV, and driving the RV to the local supermarket to get groceries and other supplies seemed like overkill. The last minute shopping included a car mount for my Garmin Virb camera, a purchase that more than paid for itself during the trip, as it made it possible to get some fantastic videos. Also bought an extra umbrella, because the weather report seemed to indicate lousy weather for us in Norway. As soon as I was done with the shopping, I hit the motorway, and the bad weather pretty much started right then. The pouring rain meant slower progress than normal, and it also meant that my pre-driveoff briefing was going to be much truncated, as it was still chucking it down, hard. I got a whirlwind tour of the equipment onboard the RV, and instructions on the basics; the fuel hatch, the water hatch, the toilet cassette hatch, and the 220 V electrical input hatch. The owner reminded me again that this beast ran on diesel, not petrol, and reminded me not to end up filling diesel in the water tank or vice-versa. He mentioned that it had happened once in the past, when a renter had actually filled the water tank with diesel, requiring expensive cleaning and replacement of parts. I was pretty much soaked to my skin, despite having an umbrella, by the time I’d backed the RV out, parked my car in its place, and gotten back into the RV. The journey from there to my house normally takes an hour and forty-six minutes flat, but it took almost a whole hour more, prompting me to make an unscheduled stop at a Max burgers outlet on the highway as I was famished. I made a final stop at a Max much closer home, so I could pick up dinner for my family too, and had my first experience of reverse parking with the RV, which you can see from the picture below, was not a fantastic job.  After reaching home, the first big task for me was to ensure that I figured out the best possible way to securely install the child seat. Now since the seat height in the RV was much taller than in a standard car, the support leg of the child-seat was dangling in the air, as it couldn’t reach the floor, despite maximum extension. The best solution to this was to take away the cushion entirely, and mount the child-seat directly on the wooden seat base. I then used a ratchet strap to further secure the seat till it was totally immobile.  In case you haven't used a ratchet strap, or have one but don't know how to properly use it, here's a great guide on how to use a ratchet strap. If you don't own this, I highly recommend getting at least four of these and putting it into your car's boot, as you really don't know when you'll be in a situation when you need to really secure down something, and the ratchet strap is your best friend for that! After installing the child seat, It was already close to midnight and we’d barely gotten a few things into the RV, so I realized that we’d have to do the bulk of the packing the next day, so our plan for an early departure was pretty much toast. Coupled with the forecast for bad weather, this was an extra dampener, but we had the RV and we were leaving the next day! Refueling notes and mileage stats: I'd made a refueling stop to ensure that I'd topped up all the fuel I'd used up getting to Linköping from Södertälje, though it wasn't a huge distance. - 18.9 L x 18.5 SEK = 350 SEK (Ingo, Linköping, Sweden) - Closing mileage: 134963 km - Mileage clocked during the day: 156 km - Total mileage on the trip: 156 km Last edited by Aditya : 31st July 2024 at 07:10. |
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31st July 2024, 06:38
| #5 |
| BHPian | Day 1: Linköping, Sweden, to Töcksfors, SwedenSince I’d taken way longer than we’d expected to bring home the camper the previous night, we’d not been able to do much inroads into the actual loading, and this took much longer than we’d factored for it. We’d planned to leave after breakfast, but lunch time was upon us, and we’d still not left! We left at 1400 hrs, and drove straight to Max, the local burger giant in Sweden, for burger meals for all of us.  Hurray, we are finally ready to roll! An unfortunate navigation error on the way to the motorway, when we started in earnest meant that I’d added another 30 minutes of delay to our already much delayed start, so it was clear that we wouldn’t be crossing over to Norway and driving for an hour or more within Norway as we’d planned. Instead, we skipped our first stop point and tried to chew through as many miles as we possibly could. We made an unscheduled stop to tighten a rattling sun-roof hatch that was threatening to come loose, and used that opportunity to fix a snack for our kid. We arrived at Pizza Hut, Karlstad, for dinner, at a quarter to eight, instead of arriving there for lunch, as we’d planned. Here's my son who's really pleased to have got his very own RV, the gift of the day from his mom, who'd planned on giving him a gift each day of the trip, to ensure that he was in good humor! The gift would be either a toy, or a new picture story book.  Post dinner, we started again, and I’d by now decided that our final stop for the day was going to be the free RV parking lot at the Töcksfors shopping center right on the border, a place frequented by Norwegians who cross the border to shop there to take advantage of the cheaper prices on the Swedish side. Here's me looking a little bemused in this picture, but happy nevertheless to be back on the road, and in motion! Note the ultra-minimalist cockpit. There wasn't even a USB outlet for me to use, let alone an infotainment screen. And note also the 5-speed gear shifter  I used a converter to power my phone from the 12V cigarette-lighter holder, as it served my navigation needs. You can also see my Garmin Virb mounted with a suction-cup mount, in this picture. Shruti, my wife, was the primary occupant of the passenger seat alongside the driver's seat, whenever she wasn't seated next to our son, for feeding him etc, and she used that vantage position to take some great pictures which included some sunset shots, as we rolled through the Swedish countryside.      Töcksfors, our stop point for day 1, was incidentally the place where I’d planned for us to stop on the penultimate day of our journey, so the stop point was something that I was already well aware of, and I knew we’d not have any issues stopping there for the night. Töcksfors, being right at the border, also meant that it was our last chance to fully fuel up the vehicle with diesel at a substantially lower price in Sweden. After the fuel stop at ST1, Smedgatan, where the fueling gun’s auto click-off wasn’t working (it was unable to pump any volume without it automatically clicking off), I just fueled up what I assumed had been burned off. If there was another fuel station within Sweden before we crossed over the next morning, I was going to try again to fully top off without overfilling the tank. After fueling, we drove into the RV parking behind the Töcksfors shopping center at 2345 hours. We were almost a full 100 km behind our planned stop for the day, but this is where we would stop for the night. The beds were made and all of us turned in tired, but looking forward to the next day. Here's a video summary of the day. Refueling and mileage stats - 34.17 L x 18.34 SEK = 626.68 SEK (ST1, Smedgatan, Sweden) - Opening mileage: 134963 km - Closing mileage: 135360 km - Mileage clocked during the day: 397 km - Total mileage on trip: 553 km Last edited by Aditya : 31st July 2024 at 07:11. |
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31st July 2024, 06:38
| #6 |
| BHPian | Day 2: Töcksfors, Sweden, to Groven Camping, Vinje, NorwayAfter a good night’s sleep, all of us woke up refreshed. Here's a glimpse of what our sleeping accommodations looked like, in the RV.  That's the driver's sleeping quarters Here's where my wife and son slept.  And this was my mother's bed.  Breakfast was cooked and consumed, the child-seat was reinstalled and we rolled out again, straight to the last gas station on the Swedish side of the border for a slap and dash. The auto click-off worked without issues here, and it took on nearly 17 liters of diesel before it clicked off. The float needle was all the way up to F. We’d stopped almost right on the border, so we’d cross over real soon. In fact, when we did get to the border, it came so fast that by the time I clicked on my Virb camera and it came on, we’d crossed the toll sign that marked the border crossing. There was a sign as soon as we crossed over the border that clarified how the speed limit worked, in a nutshell. Driving speed in any built-up area was 50 km/h, and the default speed would be 80 km. Any other speed limit would be explicitly stated, but the default speed (80 km/h) wouldn’t be repeated often, as is the case in Sweden; it’s supposed to be understood. If there was a sign that said 60, it would begin a special speed zone of 60 km/h, but when that special zone ended, there is just a sign that shows 60 crossed out, i.e. end of the special zone; there is no second speed sign noting that the speed limit is now 80 km/h; that part is implicit. Now, I wasn’t aware of all of this when I made the border crossing, but after a bit of driving on Norway’s roads, I was able to figure it out. I still prefer how Swedish signs are more explicit, but this works too, I guess. I’m not sure how long the longest of tunnels are in Sweden, but they are not particularly long. In Norway though, there are lots and lots of tunnels, and most of them are long. Some of them are long, and a few are really, really long! Before long, on Day 2, I came to the 3.8 km long Nordbytunnelen. It was the first time I’d been in a tunnel so long, and it was a new experience for me. Over the next few days, I got to experience more tunnels than I ever even wanted to, but the thing is that no two tunnels are exactly alike, and they all have their own unique traits. The lighting type/strength, width, speed limit etc are all quite different. While on the subject of tunnels, our first destination of the day was in fact a highly unique tunnel, the Drammen Spiral Tunnel aka the Drammen Spiralen, which is a 1.65 km helical tunnel which is basically a really, really long and unbroken left turn all the way to the top. Driving up the Spiral was an interesting experience, and I got to experience it in both directions. Here’s the video of me climbing up the Drammen Spiral Tunnel; the camera was pointed straight ahead which works great for driving on normal roads, but here, since we were in a continuous and sharp left turn, it would have been far better had the camera been angled more to left, as it would have been able to capture the other lane inside the tunnel also, and not just my own lane. At the top was a spacious parking lot with slightly extortionate parking rules. The only parking option meant the purchase of a parking ticket for 50 NOK which was valid for 16 hours. Even if you only wanted to stop for an hour, you had to cough up the parking for the full 16 hours or risk getting a rather stiff parking fine, so coughing up was the only real option. The good thing was that it afforded a great view that reminded me of the view over old Paris, from the top of Montmartre. We grabbed a few pictures, filled up our 10L drinking water can, ate our meals, and drove on towards our next destination which was to be a Spar supermarket in the town of Vinje.     Now, thanks to the late start on Day 1 and the fact that we’d finished Day 1 with 100 km in the arrears, we were running significantly behind the original plan. As per the original plan, we were supposed to arrive at the Spar supermarket in Vinje just after midday, but we’d now arrive past nine in the evening, if we didn't make any more stops, but we really needed to make at least one or possible two stops before the end of the day. If we wanted to catch up to the original plan today, we’d again end up driving till or past midnight, and I quickly ruled this out. We’d been on the road for just over two hours since the stop atop the Drammen Spiral, and I decided to swing off the road to do some active planning. The place where we stopped was luckily enough a small town called Sauland, which had amongst other things, a Spar supermarket! I told my family that I’d needed some time to go through the options and that they were free to step out and explore the town, click pictures, or shop, while I decided on the course of action. Now, it’s a bit of a cliche that one can click a camera anywhere in Norway and it’ll end up looking really pretty, but Sauland did nothing to dispel this cliche! If anything, it helped to reinforce it. What we didn’t know was that the Heddola river runs right along Sauland and just behind what appeared to be at first glance a boring supermarket building, was a lovely river! My family members took some photographs and recommended that I take a look around too. I took my son and plinked some pebbles into the clear waters of the Heddola river, and it was really wonderful to see his innocent joy at something so simple!  Mom, standing by the Heddola river.   What of the planning then? Well, I briefly considered the prospect of taking a completely different route other than the scenic route we were on, to get directly to Flåm, but that option too would mean driving till close to midnight, and we’d also lose out on the scenic drive. I decided then that the best option would be to continue on the original route and make it to Spar in Vinje, and find a place nearby to crash for the night. We reached the town of Vinje just after 10 PM. The ample sunshine even at that hour meant that my son wasn’t sleepy in the least, so I took him for a stroll and played with him for a bit while my wife fixed dinner for all of us. To my relief and happiness, I found a full service campsite called Groven Camping and Cabins barely five minutes away, and after a brief phone call, managed to confirm that we were welcome to use their facilities and pay for the same the next morning before we checked out.  Groven Camping and Cabins was a charming full-service campsite. We’d begun to run low on our water stores, so the first thing I did upon reaching was to dump the greywater (water from the sink and showers, not the toilets!) and refill the fresh water tank. I also emptied the toilet cassette for the first time, after rewatching a helpful youtube video. It really wasn’t as icky or gross as one might think it is. After this, we connected to mains power for the first time, so we could run the more powerful electric heater as the temperature had started falling sharply. We made our beds and slept. Here's a video of me dumping the greywater: Helpful video explaining how to empty a toilet cassette. Safe to play the video as they demonstrate with a clean/unused cassette  Here's a driving summary of the Day 2 of my trip Fueling and mileage stats - Refueled: 16.52 L x 18.59 SEK = 307.11 SEK (Gulf, Töcksfors, Sweden) - Starting mileage: 135360 km - Closing mileage: 135649 km - Mileage logged during the day: 289 km - Total mileage on trip: 842 km Last edited by Aditya : 31st July 2024 at 07:11. |
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31st July 2024, 06:38
| #7 |
| BHPian | Day 3: Groven Camping, Vinje, Norway, to Stegastein Viewpoint, Aurlandsvegen, NorwayWe had elected to end Day 2 of our tour at Groven camping, in the town of Vinje, a full 150 km behind our originally planned stopping point at Eikhamrane campground, after crossing the town of Odda. In order to be able to make it to Flåm in time for the Naeroyfjord tour from there, we’d need to hit the road not later than 0800 hrs, but hey, what’s a couple of hours between family members!? Despite the best of planning, reality is often different, which is why need to be able to think on our feet and be able to recompute alternatives on the fly. By the time we hit the road, it was 1000 hrs. The camp grounds that had been full of RVs late in the night looked almost desolate in the morning, when we pulled out. Only a couple of RVs still remained, and they probably intended to spend more time in Vinje or nearby, while we needed to push like the blazes, to get to Flåm before the 1500 departure time for our prebooked cruise! It would be a 289 km trip, and per Waze, it would take us just under 5 hours. After about half an hour of some really spirited driving, I found that I’d barely knocked off a minute from the estimated arrival time. The terrain was such that driving very fast was not going to be a good idea; the roads were too narrow and the turns were sharp and blind. At that point, I realized that it wasn’t going to be possible to do a non-stop dash all the way to Flåm, driving for five hours. I asked my wife to ring up the cruise operator to whom I explained our predicament. We were on our way, but I didn’t think we’d make it in time for the cruise. The operator was sorry to hear about our troubles, but was firm that we couldn’t get even a partial refund. However, if we could make it to Flåm before 1630, there was a chance that I could speak to the personnel of the later departing vessel, and if they had vacant seats, they might allow us onboard, for the exact same cruise, albeit a later departure! We thanked her for her help, and told her that we’d try our luck with the later departure! At least now, we had a realistic chance of making it, if we kept our stops to a minimum number and length! As we rolled along the incredibly beautiful Haukelivegen, we came across a place where several cars and RVs had stopped to take pictures of the snow-covered mountaintops. We decided to take a quick bathroom break and photo-stop, and push on without further stops, at least till our fuel stop.    Here's a video clip of the drive along Haukelivegen. We rolled into Røldal, where I fueled up and my wife fixed sandwiches for all of us to eat while we rolled on! There were road repairs and new surface laying work going on in many places, which meant that there were temporary signals where we needed to stop till traffic from the other side had cleared up. A safety lead vehicle would then escort us from the stop point to the place where the roadworks ended, whereupon it would turn back and do the escort duty in the opposite direction for the waiting traffic there. After this, we came to a section where Haukelivegen became really narrow and we joined a long procession of vehicles making their way slowly to the other side. We also caught sight of a few sheep at this point, which my wife took pictures of.  There were so many small waterfalls along the route that we stopped counting them!  At this point on the trip, the novelty of long tunnels had already long since worn off; I'd much rather take in lovely sights than to have to negotiate a long and boring tunnel, but they also meant a straight stretch where I could go to the max allowed speed and hopefully make some good progress. Tunnels are your friends when you are short of time, for sure! Our next stop was at the spectacularly beautiful Låtefossen waterfall. We knew we didn’t have much buffer time, but not stopping was not an option. It was just my wife and I who hopped out, took a few quick snaps and rushed back in!  It was 1245, and we had another 3 hours of driving to do before we’d reach Flåm, which meant that it would be a close thing even to make it to the later 1630 departure, but I wasn’t going to be fretting all the way there. I’d do my best to drive us there in time, but if we didn’t make it in time, or they wouldn’t take us onboard, Flåm was still a great place to spend the night in, but I didn’t want to dwell much on the Plan B, for fear of jinxing our Plan A! The route was just beautiful and we drove right along the Handanger fjord, and later, the Naeroyfjord.  On our way, we encountered the famous ‘Roundabout in Tunnel’ and went across the majestic Hardanger Bridge, before finally making it to Flåm, with minutes to spare, for the ferry. We made it to the queue on time, and the ticket checker allowed us onboard after inspecting our tickets for the previous departure. We thanked her and got on with smiles on our faces! The relief was palpable, and I enjoyed the time on the cruise, relaxing with a non-alcoholic beer and some great burritos. This was the first time on this trip that we were moving when I wasn’t driving, and it felt both weird and nice at the same time!    The Nærøyfjord tour departs from Flåm and traverses the horseshoe shaped fjord till it reaches Gudvangen, where we alighted and boarded a bus that would take us back to Flåm, taking the same route as we’d taken while driving to Flåm, so we traversed that section between Gudvangen and Flåm for the second time of the day. We were back in Flåm by 1900. We shopped for some souvenirs, clicked a few pictures around the tourist center at Flåm, and decided to head up the narrow and hilly climb towards the famous Stegastein viewpoint.     I’d researched and found that there was a small parking area that had space for around three cars just a bit after the viewpoint, and that would be our halt for the night. If we didn’t manage to find parking there, our alternate destination would be the town of Laerdal. Laerdal was our original finish point for day 3, but that had been planned with the 1500 hrs tour and not the 1630 hrs tour, and we were already all tired and looking forward to sleeping, so we all hoped to be able to stop near Stegastein, if we could. The drive up the narrow, and winding path was exciting and I made it up without incident. These were the first narrow and steep hairpin turns I encountered on this trip, and the RV took them with aplomb, without the least note of complaint. It was 2130 hrs by the time we reached Stegastein, and it was sunset time, and simply phenomenally beautiful. The little one was fast asleep in his child seat, so the rest of us took turns to grab some photographs at the viewpoint, before driving up a few hundred meters in search of the elusive and secluded parking space.     While looking for that parking space, I found another hidden gem of a parking opportunity instead! It was a small clearing in the middle of a wooded area, with evidence of a campfire. The clearing was large enough for a camper or two small cars, and seemed both safe and silent. We locked up, set up the bed for the kid, drank some hot soup, and all of us tucked into our respective beds after turning on the gas-based heater, as it was going to be a cold night. Driving summary of Day 3: Fueling and mileage stats: - Refueled: 41.75 L x 20.79 NOK = 868 NOK (YX Røldal, Røldal, Norway) - Starting mileage: 135649 km - Closing mileage: 135946 km - Mileage logged during the day: 297 km - Total mileage on the trip: 1139 km Last edited by Aditya : 31st July 2024 at 07:12. |
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31st July 2024, 06:38
| #8 |
| BHPian | Day 4: Stegastein Viewpoint, Norway, to Laerdal Holiday and Leisure Park, NorwayWe'd ended Day 3 of our tour after stopping at the Stegastein Viewpoint, for photographs, before finding a place to stop for the night, only a few hundred meters away. The gas-powered heater had kept us warm through the cold night and we woke up well rested. I gave myself a much needed shave, hot breakfast was prepared and consumed, all of us freshened up and we were off on a marching foot, again, as we had another prebooked cruise to catch! Like the previous day, we were behind where we wanted to be, but here, we weren’t all that far away at all. We were a mere 40 km away, from where we’d planned to be at the end of Day 3, and just 50 km away from the ferry crossing we needed to make, in order to cross between Fodnes ferry quay to the Manheller ferry quay. This was however still an hour’s driving away. I’d originally planned to continue onwards from Stegastein viewpoint and take the more scenic Bjørgavegen, to the lovely and quaint town of Lærdalsøyri, but decided in the end to descend down Bjørgavegen instead, and take the world’s longest road tunnel, the 24.5 km long Laerdal Tunnel, as I would be able to get rid of nearly half the distance to the ferry at the max allowed speed in the tunnel (80 km/h). It had rained the previous night and early in the morning, so I had to take the descent on the narrow Bjørgavegen slowly, and it took me 18 minutes just to get to the bottom. Here’s the video clip of my descent. I didn’t want to speed it up as I wanted to show the actual speed, but do speed it up while playing, if you’d like! The drive through Laerdal tunnel was a bit surreal; even though I’d already seen and driven through several long tunnels already, this 24.5 km monster tunnel was something else entirely! The lighting inside the tunnel could have been better, I thought, but it was more than passable. Almost immediately after exiting the tunnel, we caught sight of the Laerdal Holiday and Leisure Park, the place where we’d come back at the end of the day, to spend the night. We reached the Fodnes ferry quay at 0940, only to see the ferry begin to glide away, but it was not a big deal, as it would be back to pick us up within twenty minutes. This however did end up eating into our buffer time.  After the short ferry crossing was another hour’s driving, before it was time to board the second ferry of the day, from Hella quay to the Dragsvik quay. Balestrand was a mere ten minutes of driving away from Dragsvik quay. I found a suitable place to park the RV, and we made it to the Balestrand marina, the starting point for the fjord and glacier tour.      The destination for the fjord and glacier tour was the small Norwegian village called Fjaerland, on the Sognefjord. Fjaerland, also known as Mundal, was originally part of the Sognefjord municipality, before getting transferred to the Balestrand municipality. It’s an idyllic town filled with book shops, often called a book town.       Upon reaching Fjaerland, a waiting bus whisked us away to the Norwegian Glacier Museum, a modern museum with informative films and literature about glaciers. There was a life-size model of a polar bear and a mammoth, which were popular among kids, to take photographs with.   We spent around 40 minutes there, before the bus took us to the Boyabreen arm of the Jostedal glacier. My mother, a retired middle-school English and Geography teacher, had taught about glaciers and icecaps to hundreds of students, but she’d not imagined that she would one day get to see a glacier in person, with her own eyes, standing right before it!   Seeing my mother enjoying the sight of the glacier was profoundly satisfying to me. I really missed my dad at that moment, but took heart that my mom was now taking in these sights on behalf of him also. This entire trip was something I’d planned to take both my parents on, but my father passed away in January this year, after a short battle with colon cancer, so it was just my mother who was on the trip with us. The entire trip has been a trip of many firsts for all of us, my mother’s first ever trip of any kind without my dad beside her, a first ever road trip of this length for any of us, first ever RV trip etc. The journey back to Balestrand was pleasant and uneventful. Over the boat ride, I realized that we’d officially concluded our onward journey into Norway, and everything from this point would be our homeward journey, back to Sweden! We were just over 800 km away from home, at this point, and we would try to take in more sights along our way, as we sought to bring the curtains down on this fantastic trip. The last couple of days had been a bit stressful, as we’d all had to hurry through, foregoing rest stops and rushing through while trying to dash across some phenomenally beautiful countryside. My mother would have probably had it harder had we made more stops and she’d had to get down and climb back onto the RV many times, so it was probably not all that bad from her perspective, but when (not if!) we do another RV trip to Norway, we’ll ensure that it’ll be a longer journey, without such time constraints. Doing the fjord cruises on this trip was good, as we too didn’t know how much we could plan and execute on our own, but with the information and experience gleaned from this trip, we can definitely plan even better and do things entirely on our own pace. More stops? Check! Longer stops? Check! Many more points of interest? Check! Might even be great fun to do a multi-RV trip with more friends. The possibilities are endless. Thanks again, @14000rpm, for introducing me to the possibilities that get unlocked with RVs! The trip to Lærdalsøyri was now a mirror-image of our earlier journey to Balestrand. A short ten minute drive to Dragsvik quay, and a short wait for the ferry to Hella later, we’d arrived at Hella, where a one hour drive to the Mannheller quay awaited us. The weather gods had done everything all this while to ensure that we’d had the best possible weather conditions for all of our trip, but now that we were merely on our way back, they decided that we could manage on our own! Cue, heavy rain! I’d driven the RV to Linköping, from Södertälje, in pouring rain, and that journey had been hard, but the experience I’d gained then made it a lot easier for me to handle the rain now. The visibility in the RV’s cockpit is just amazing as no spray from the road reaches up to the windscreen, which is very unlike a low-to-the-ground vehicle, like my Octavia. The additional workload due to the rain was actually a welcome one, as it helped me stay focused and avoid drowsiness, and before long, the hour’s drive was up, and we were at the Mannheller quay. Another short ferry ride later, we were at the Fodnes quay. Laerdal is a very beautiful and quaint town which merits spending far more time in, than what we actually did. Before we realized it, we were already at the Laerdal Holiday and Leisure Park. The park was full of RVs and cars. The reception was open, and the person cheerfully provided me a map of the camp, with my parking spot, shower & toilet facilities, and greywater dumping area all marked out neatly. I quickly inspected the shower and toilet facilities, which were really clean and fresh. They were also very close to my designated parking spot. I quickly moved the RV from the temporary place I’d parked it, to its correct slot. I connected to the mains power, let the others know where the toilets and showers were, took a couple of pictures, and started setting up the beds for the night. We ended the day precisely as per plan, both time-wise and location-wise, for the first time since the start of our trip. Driving summary of Day 4: Fueling and mileage stats: - Starting mileage: 135946 km - Closing mileage: 136128 km - Refueling: None - Mileage logged during the day: 182 km - Total mileage on the trip: 1321 km Last edited by Aditya : 31st July 2024 at 07:13. |
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31st July 2024, 06:38
| #9 |
| BHPian | Day 5: Laerdal, Norway, to Töcksfors, SwedenWe started our Day 5 feeling well rested. The showers and toilets at the campsite were clinically clean, just as they had been, at Groven camping, where we’d stopped two nights ago. Both the water pressure and temperature were great, and I enjoyed a longer than usual shower. The rain that had accompanied us from Balestrand the previous evening had now fully cleared up, and the sun was coming out. We often hear the expression low-hanging fruit, but here we got to see some low-hanging clouds, which were below the height of the hills that surrounded us, and they looked both ethereal and mystical.      After our breakfast, we decided to visit the Borgund Stave Church, a church that dates back to the late 11th century, making it one of the oldest surviving churches of that era. By the time we reached the church, we’d caught a small pocket of rain, so it was just my wife and I who got out and took some pictures, before resuming our drive towards Gol.     The weather was now great, the road surfaces in many of the segments freshly laid, and we made brisk progress. This section of the drive was probably the first time on this trip that we were not driving right alongside any fjord, instead getting to see some lovely hillside. On the way to Gol, we came into a slightly bigger village called Hemsedal, where we caught sight of a fuel station with the lowest diesel price we’d seen on the entire trip! My friend had warned me about wildly fluctuating fuel prices in Norway, and he’d not been kidding. I saw prices that varied between 20.33 NOK per liter at Hemsedal, to 24.95 NOK. We decided then to stop for fuel, and we were happy to see that there was a fairly big supermarket right beside it. I told the others that this would be our lunch stop. I took my son with me and visited the supermarket, where we bought some fresh watermelon for the after-lunch, some beer and cider for a celebratory drink after crossing back into Sweden later in the night, and some chocolates. Every village in Norway apparently has a story of its own, and Hemsedal was no exception. When I looked up Hemsedal later, after having returned to Sweden, I found that the village turns into a winter wonderland of sorts, and is a very popular destination for skiing. The pictures from winter times showed a completely different place! We happened to see a Norwegian fireman there, and since my son is crazy about firetrucks and firemen, we of course needed to stop him for a quick chat and a picture! My son was super shy around the fireman, but as soon as he’d left, he was gushing about the ‘brandmannen’ (Swedish for the fireman) who had his own ‘brandbil’ (firetruck)!  Having eaten and fueled, we resumed our journey towards Gol, and beyond. We decided that our final stop in Norway would be Honefoss, a waterfall and a hydroelectric power station. On our way there, we came across another stave church, in a place called Godarike. Godarike, we read up, is a viking-era themed campsite, and the stave church we saw from the road was a replica of the original Gol Stave Church, which has been moved to Oslo. This replica was build and consecrated as a church in the 1980s, so a new building, but still well worth the stop to photograph, as we couldn't see the original Gol church on this trip.   We pulled into Honefoss just after 7 PM, and the light was of course still very good. Finding a parking place though, was not an easy task. After some driving around, I finally spotted a place close enough to the waterfall, to park the vehicle, and we all went out for some pictures   After the stop at Honefoss, we were going to drive all the way to Töcksfors, without stops. I missed an exit on the highway that would have put me on course towards Drammen, and instead ended up driving towards Oslo city, a less scenic route than the one via Drammen, but it wasn't a big deal. My wife helped to reroute us so we skipped the inner-city traffic chaos and we ended up exiting Oslo from the outer ring itself, negotiating some high-speed tunnels through the Oslo area, the fastest and the best-lit tunnels we’d experienced on our Norway trip. The light was now waning, and the roads had gotten slower after leaving Oslo behind us. My wife, whose eyes are far sharper than my own, was able to spot a gigantic moose by the side of the road where I just spotted a stopped car. I was able to pick it out only after she pointed it out to me. Unfortunately though, I wasn’t able to get any pictures before it stepped back into the woods it had come from, but the satisfaction of having sighted the undisputed King of the Scandinavian forests out in the open, was ours. It was just a bit after midnight, when we crossed the border into Sweden, bringing our adventures in Norway to a conclusion. We’d arrived in Töcksfors, the same place where we’d stopped overnight on Day 1 of our trip. I'd logged 384 km during the day, the second highest single day tally on the trip so far, after the 397 km I'd logged on Day 1.  The temperature was dropping fast, so we made bed and turned on the gas-powered heater while my wife fixed us some hot soup. I drank both the hot soup, and my cold beer, and called it a night. Fueling and mileage stats: - Starting mileage: 136128 km - Closing mileage: 136512 km - Mileage clocked during the day: 384 km - Refueling: 32.04 x 20.33 NOK = 651.37 NOK (Shell, Hemsedal, Norway) - Total mileage on trip: 1705 km Driving summary of Day 5: Last edited by Aditya : 31st July 2024 at 07:14. |
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31st July 2024, 06:38
| #10 |
| BHPian | Day 6: Final day!The final day of the trip was now upon us! There's a small lake, right behind the RV parking lot at the Töcksfors shopping center, and it's a pity we didn't do a picnic breakfast by the lake. It's a great place to stop, whether for an overnight halt, or short one.  This was also the second day since we’d last stopped to top up our fresh water and dumped our waste water, so we’d have to watch our water usage. We had a half-full 10L can of water for drinking, which we could top up while stopping in Karlstad, Sweden. After breakfast, the kitchen would in effect be closed, as our lunch stop would be at Pizza Hut in Karlstad. Much as I love Sweden, driving on a Swedish motorway was now a profoundly boring and underwhelming experience, after having been pampered with amazing sights along the Norwegian countryside for the past week! The speed limit though, was thankfully higher than in most parts of Norway, with 120 km/h and 110 km/h being the norm on Swedish motorways. I kept myself to just below the posted limit at all times. For the first time since the start of the trip, I actually began to notice the absence of cruise control on this beast, as it had not mattered in the slightest bit on the twisting and rolling Norwegian countryside. We pulled into a gas station in the Varmland county, for our first fuel stop after leaving Norway. I’d only fueled up around half a tank’s worth of fuel when we’d stopped in Hemsedal in Norway, as that was more than enough fuel to get us into Sweden. During this trip, my experience with the auto-shutoff at the fuel pumps has been iffy at best, with it not working as it should for at least half the times, and it didn’t work here in Varmland county either, so I just had to hold the gun squeezed till I knew we had at least three quarters worth of fuel in our tank (45 liters), before driving away. We stopped in Karlstad, for pizza, and topped up our water bottles there. I took a picture of the high-pressure water hose at the gas station next door, to contribute to park4night, an app that had served me so very well, both while planning the trip from the comfort of my own house, as well as when we were in Norway, actually needing to find alternate stop points while improvising on our plans. Three cheers to park4night! Here's the picture I contributed to park4night, of the water refill point in the Shell gas station in Karlstad, Sweden.  I rang the RV owner asking if it might be okay to drop the RV back to him the next day, instead of later the same day, as we were all tired and the weather was not exactly looking good in the evening, for the eventual drive from Linköping to Södertälje; the reply was a sympathetic but firm no, which meant that I’d have another 150 km of driving, and in crappy weather to boot, after we’d gotten home, finished unpacking, cleaning, and completing the waste water dumping and toilet cassette cleaning for the last time on this trip, at a campsite in Linköping. For this reason, we decided to drop the final stop at Örebro, and drive straight home. The excitement of a trip and the eagerness to get to see and explore new sights is something that really reduces driving exhaustion and fatigue, but now that the sightseeing part of the trip was long-since over, I just couldn’t wait till I could be back home. This part of the trip was also now no longer on the 110 km/h motorway, but the much slower 80 km/h state highway with numerous camera-enforced speed checks, so I didn’t even have the option to floor it and make good time. A further point about these speed cameras; each and every speed camera has a warning sign that alerts motorists about the camera’s presence. All that the authorities are interested is to ensure that you get off the gas and slow down in that section, and as long as you do that, they are happy. The intention is never to earn more revenue from the fines, so you’ll therefore never find a hidden speed camera. The police of course do conduct random speed checks here and there, but none of the fixed speed cameras are hidden or meant to entrap motorists. This, I find, is in start contrast to the police in my home state of Karnataka, where a traffic cop triumphantly emerges from his hiding place behind a tree, with unhidden glee at having caught another victim off-guard. Driving on what seemed like the never-ending 80 km/h road, I now for the first time wished that I was not the only member of the family that could drive, and mentioned it more than once I think, to my wife, hoping to nudge her into starting her own journey towards getting a Swedish DL, but that’s going to be a different adventure in itself, as and when that happens! For now, though, I was the only driver for all of us, and I just needed to ensure that we all got home safe. Barring a stop for a hot cup of coffee, and another for a pee stop for all of us including the kid, we lumbered on, and after what seemed like an eternity, we pulled into our street, and parked on the street. I switched off the engine, unbelted, and sat still for a few seconds; we’d taken on what seemed like an impossibly challenging quest, and had come through victoriously, with our heads (and memory-cards!) full of the most amazing sights. What a feeling it was! The kid was fast asleep, and my wife carefully gathered him and tucked him into his own bed in our house, put my mom on standby duty, and got down to the task of unloading the RV, while I cleaned up. We worked as a team, and before the hour was up, we’d carted away all of our belongings and put everything back as it originally was. The fridge was emptied and cleaned, the counter-top was restored to its gleaming state, pillows fluffed, and finally, I was ready to roll off to the campsite.   I’d spoken to the campsite in Linköping where they told me I could empty the waste water and the toilet cassette, and refill the RV’s fresh water tank, all for a fee of SEK 60, which I thought wasn’t bad at all. I rang up a close friend in Södertälje and informed him that he’d have a guest for the night, as there was no way I wanted to drive my car back all the way to Linköping, after I’d dropped off the RV! I’d already eaten, so I told him that I’d arrive close to midnight and go directly to bed. He told me that it was okay as long as I agreed to stay for breakfast before I left the next day, to which I very happily said yes! As soon as the cleanup and water refill were completed in the campsite, I decided to fuel up before leaving. The owner had insisted that I topped up just before reaching his RV parking, so there would be one more fuel stop before I turned in the vehicle. The automatic click-off worked at the fuel station in Linköping, but it seemed to click off before the needle was all the way up to F, and I thought this might have something to do with vapor pressure or something, but I’m not sure. Not a problem in any case, as I would do a full top up later. It was pouring rain when I’d driven the RV to Linköping, and in a way, it was fitting that I drive back in pouring rain, I thought. The visibility from the driver’s seat, despite the pouring rain, was quite excellent. The spray from other vehicles just doesn’t reach up to what seems like my personal command center in space, and the only water that’s swept away by the powerful and adequate wipers was the rain water itself. I tried clicking on the radio, but the reception was lousy, probably due to the weather, so I clicked it right off. The whump whump of the wipers and the sloshing of the water was going to be all the music I had, on this part of the trip. I pushed hard, and the machine rumbled on. There was absolutely nothing in this vehicle that was not strictly necessary, and it didn’t lack a single thing that was indeed absolutely necessary, and was therefore the ultimate minimalist dream vehicle. It was kind of amusing to see smaller vehicles struggling to deal with the road spray and driving extremely cautiously, while I was pushing right through. In clear weather conditions, these cars who I was passing with ease would be passing me like I’d been standing! Here, in these terrible conditions, I was the one who had the edge. The advantage was comparable to the difference between a slick-shod F1 car and an F1 car on inters, in the wet! I’d reached Järna, just a handful of kilometers away from the drop off point, so pulled into the closest gas station, and this was another place where the automatic click off just refused to work, so I had to manually fuel up. I fueled up some 20 liters and checked the fuel gauge, but it was still not at F, so fueled some more. The automatic click-off in Linköping had clicked off a bit early, but it still took more fuel than I thought I’d burned off, on my drive, so it had certainly guzzled more diesel during my lead-footed drive from Linköping. The lower speed limits in Norway had meant that I’d gotten an excellent fuel economy, and I’d undermined that by a fair bit on the last 150 km of my drive, but I couldn’t care less! I made it to the meeting point, which looked like something straight out of a noir-movie or video game, in the darkness and with the rain. The only light other than that of my own headlights were the headlights of owner’s car, waiting in the same lot. There was no way the owner wanted to dirty up the inside of the RV by tracking in with his muddy boots, so he just leaned in from the outside, asked me if I’d done all that he’d requested with the cleaning, if I’d refilled the water etc, and that was it! We shook hands and I hastily gathered up my stuff. The mobile holder, which I’d fixed onto the AC grille refused to come off, and after a bit of a struggle, I decided to leave it to the owner, as my parting gift.  The speedo showing the final kilometer count. The total mileage I'd logged on the RV had been 2202 km. Getting back into my own car after a week of driving the RV, I was shocked by how low my seating position seemed with respect to the ground. I could barely see a thing in the pouring rain! My hand fumbled near the infotainment screen, trying to find the gear shifter, before I realized that it was not the RV I was driving. After a few minutes of struggling through the horrendous rain I made it to my friend’s place, and was out like a light within minutes. I don’t think I even dreamed of anything, as it was completely lights out, till I woke up the next day. Fueling and mileage stats: - Starting mileage: 136512 km - Closing mileage: 137009 km - Mileage clocked during the day: 497 km Refueling - 45.26 L x 18.34 SEK = 830.07 SEK (din-x, Långserud, Varmland County, Sweden) - 35.59 L x 18.34 SEK = 652.72 SEK (Ingo, Linköping, Sweden) - 27 L x 18.55 SEK= 500.85 SEK (Järna, Sweden) Trip stats - Trip starting mileage: 134807 km - Trip closing mileage: 137009 km - Total trip mileage: 2202 km - Total fuel (diesel) consumed in liters: 251.23 - Total cost of fuel: 4786.36 SEK - Fuel efficiency over entire trip: 8.76 km/L, 11.41L/100km Last edited by Aditya : 31st July 2024 at 07:14. |
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31st July 2024, 06:58
| #11 |
| BHPian | |
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31st July 2024, 07:15
| #12 |
| Team-BHP Support  | |
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31st July 2024, 07:30
| #13 |
| BANNED Join Date: Aug 2022 Location: Muscat
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31st July 2024, 11:05
| #14 |
| BHPian Join Date: May 2013 Location: Bangalore
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31st July 2024, 13:32
| #15 | |||||||||||||||
| Senior - BHPian  | Re: A BHPian-inspired RV trip to Norway Dude. Very nicely detailed travelogue. Great pix too. Quote:
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