A traveller friend recently exclaimed that the pound was killing them in the UK. Well, I can guarantee that a visit to Scandinavia will be carnage to any savings. Despite Norway being the world’s fifth-largest oil exporter, the price of unleaded fuel in Norway was a boggling AU$2.84/L, and marginally better in Sweden at AU$2.48/L. [...]
Category Archive for 'Norway'
In Transit to a Darker Place (Stockholm from Lofoten)
Posted in Lofoten Islands, Norway, Sweden, Van on Aug 8th, 2008
Right now, we’re driving to Stockholm (and the Taj’s inability to attain subsonic levels has forced us to concede defeat; we’re finally wearing earplugs). Lofoten was an awesome experience but once we conquered Vestpillaren on Presten, everything paled a bit and motivation dwindled. Preston is a really impressive slab of rock; clean and striking against [...]
Vestpillaren
Posted in Climbing, Lofoten Islands, Norway, Wales on Aug 7th, 2008
Vestpillaren: the most classic rock climb on the islands. It takes a fairly straight line up a 470m high, clean granite buttress called Presten, which rises almost straight out of the ocean, in 12 pitches. We were always vaguely thinking to do this climb in our time on Lofoten but once we saw the cliff, [...]
The Taj has behaved itself fairly well since its episodes of stillness in Wales. It seems the random cutting out of the engine is due to moisture entering the ignition system, and so far a shot of WD-40 into the distributor cap has got her going again (thanks Dad!). We’ve only had one instance of [...]
Connectivity Update
Posted in Lofoten Islands, Mobile Internet, Norway on Aug 2nd, 2008
Our satellite antenna is no good to us up here. Being so far north it is practically pointing into the ground when aligned, and in those places where a power hook-up is available for running it we are typically hemmed in by other campers and a mountain or two. So we rely on the free [...]
Lofoten Islands
Posted in Lofoten Islands, Norway on Aug 2nd, 2008
The Lofoten Islands are the closest thing to paradise I’ve ever seen: Snow-patched mountains and massive granite cliffs sweeping down to clear ocean and white beaches; hillsides full of wild blueberries, ripe for picking; 20 C, sunny days a lot of the time so far; free camping with views either out to sea or into [...]