This summer my family and I spent a week in a house on the edge of the Lysefjord on the south western coast of Norway. My mother and I had spent an entire headache-inducing Saturday scouring the internet and fretting over the choices, eventually selecting a hutte, rather riskily, for the view. More specifically, we chose it because the view could be admired from some rather comfortable looking leather sofas in the lounge - out through the cathedral-esque windows. My father, whom we’d been trying to enthuse to take up the fishing opportunties, said: “It doesn’t look very close to the water”. Winning him over was not made any easier by the fact that the descriptions were in Norwegian and there was reference to 4,444 “trappen” which sounded suspiciously like the Afrikaans word for stairs. We later found out that the 4,444 stairs were in fact a nearby tourist attraction. Needless to say they did not make it onto the site-seeing agenda.The ability to admire and enjoy Norway from indoors was particularly important as we had no intention of going out in bad weather. I should clarify that bad weather for our mostly Antipodean family covers: rain, sleet, snow and temperatures below 12 degrees Celsius. In the end we had none of any of that lot until we got back to England.
During the course of our journey from the Ryan-Airport at Haugesund to our hutte, and in particular when we are waiting around shivering in the Stavanger bus stop for our vehicle to be delivered, we couldn’t help but note that there didn’t seem to be any graffiti. None. There we were, in the middle of one of the biggest towns on the south west coast of Norway, in surely one of the most likely spots, and there wasn’t so much as a “bollocks” to be seen. In fact we were so pleased and delighted by this observation that it remained an all holiday conversational point (“Ooh, not like in England," we remarked on more than one occasion) that eventually burgeoned into an obsessive hunt for spray-painted obscenities. It was with a fair amount of glee that I eventually spotted a very clear “fuck you” on the highway near Haugesund. (Hoorah, the Norwegians teenagers are also disconsolate.)
The car we were waiting for had been hired through a company who specialised in second-hand vehicles. Carhire in Norway is discouragingly expensive so having found one that the met all requirements (will carry five adults plus luggage, costs less than purchase of new car) was both surprising, and for the quoted price, suspicious. We waited in a patch of sunlight for a good hour before a short blonde-haired cheery-cheeked gentleman turned up with a maroon red, 1986 Volvo that hadn’t seen a bucket and cloth since the early nineties and hinted heavily at lax Norweigan MOT regulations. We were given a quick what’s-what overview by the owner, the main topic being which flashing warning lights on the dashboard we should ignore. The steering wheel had the shiny polished look of a surface that seen extensive prior use by sweaty palms.
No sooner had we set off than we immediately had to stop to fill up with petrol as the owner had very carefully explained to us that he’s put in exactly 6 litres (how empty was it before?) and that we would require 1.2l of petrol for every 10 kilometres that we would like to drive. The flashing petrol warning was evidently the one dashboard light we should not ignore.
Things went fairly smoothly for a few miles and then there were complaints from the back seat passengers who were being engulfed in great wafts of carbon monoxide. After much investigation we worked out that opening the front passenger window created some sort of back draft through the rust cavities in the boot, sucking the exhaust fumes into the car. The counter intuitive solution to survival in this Volvo was therefore to keep all the windows firmly shut.
The next obstacle was a ferry crossing where we got a bit confused about which queue we should be in. I got out to ask the neighbouring car whether we were in the right place and an absolutely lovely lady greeted me with enormous smile, leapt out of her vehicle and practically hand drew me a map to our end destination. “Goodbye, thank you, welcome to Norway, have a lovely trip, call me if there’s anything else you need.” Good lord. Once on the ferry we’re were still confused – unsure about whether to leave the vehicle or not. It turns out that you can do what ever you like. As we’d come straight from England, this was our first experience in self-regulation. Not being provided with clear and explicit instructions on precisely what to do in a given situation proved rather dizzying (particularly as we all remained in the fumigated car).
By the time we’d crossed from Lauvvik to Oanes (a tiny village at the mouth of the Lysefjord) the conversation had swung around to the absence of litter in Norway – well aside from the rubbish in our car which included a Lion’s membership badge, two pencils, three bulbs, 4 ferry receipts, 2 pens (one with out a lid) and some sweet wrappers. Later we are able to add to the list when in a moment of reckless abandon my father lifted out back seat and discovered a pair of dirty socks.
We arrived to a roaring fire and candle lit lounge looking out over the aforementioned view. We were very, very pleased (to be out of the Volvo). My father observed that it looked like it might be a long way down to the water.
We spent our first full day in Norway getting stocked up on overpriced groceries. The entire shopping expedition is an exercise in ooh-ing and aah-ing at the cost of a mere can of this or that from which my father and uncle quickly excused themselves, only returning later to ensure we’d not forgotten the beer. In the afternoon we decided to go for a walk along the fjord. There was no path and so we scrabbled around for a bit slipping and sliding over the mossy surface of the grey rocks before eventually disconsolately heading for the road. Now in most countries you wouldn’t want to walk along the road, but in rural Norway, the lack of traffic, the beauty of the surrounding and the fresh clear air, means you don’t really mind. The road cut dramatically (and possibly unnecessarily – although were grateful for the pleasant gradient) through solid granite of several hills so that at times we were walking between two sheer vertical grey walls, only to break out again to a breathtaking view across the fjord.
Pulpit Rock or Priestekolen juts out 700m above the Lysefjord, looking, unsurprisingly, rather like something from which sermons should be delivered. It's hard not to make the mental connection to the well-behaved Norwegians – thou shalt not litter and so forth. The brochures supplied by our hosts described it as a taxing walk not to be under taken by anyone unfit but we decide to have a go anyway. Standing at the base of the trail looking up at the path disappearing into the trees above our heads, we bigged up our confidence by measuring ourselves against the other walkers. “Look, look at the little old lady (yes really) if she can do it, so can we!” The little old lady, who was sporting a walking stick (and I don’t mean the professional kind, I mean the wooden, required to move about kind), passed us within the first few hundred metres. And so it went.
At one point, I was digging around in my pocket for some sort of sugar supplement and accidentally dropped a tissue which was caught by a light breeze and drifted back down the path. “Oh, look!” said my Mom gleefully from behind me: “There is litter in Norway”.
The view from the top takes what little breath you have left, right away. It’s an awesome top of the world feeling, tinged slightly with vertigo.
Aside from admiring the amazing view we spent a great deal of time over lunch remarking on the fact that there were no safety barriers, children were clambering around freely all over the place and some people were even dangling with their legs over the edge. “Well, you wouldn’t get this in England.” We all agreed that we felt much less likely to throw ourselves over the edge given that we were not being restrained from doing so. We were clearly starting to warm to the principles of self-regulation.
Where ever we went there were healthy ruddy-cheeked remarkably friendly Norwegians carrying anything from canoes to bicycles to entire families on their bodies. Even the woman serving up chips in the sweaty kitchen of the ferry was polite and well spoken, I imagined her running home across the mountains after work. The whole country feels like one enormous American summer camp (well without all the snogging and drinking and getting killed off by a guy in an ice hockey mask).
Without too much persuasion, our host agreed to rent us his boat for the day for a little jaunt to the neighbouring fjord and some fishing for my father along the way. As it turned out we weren’t that far from the water and so we were able to convince my father without too much difficulty. The boat, disappointingly, was not one of four gleaming white racing beauties tethered up at the jetty below our house, but rather the grey plastic contraption moored alongside them. After some scathing remarks from my father regarding the size of the engine (he has his own boat at home) and the number of people we’re insensibly trying to fit into such a small craft, we set off. This was the second most embarrassing vehicle we had thus far commandeered in Norway.
We chugged along at a leisurely 3 miles an hour out towards the mouth of the fjord, out beneath the enormous suspension bridge at the mouth, towards the open sea. Our host had complained extensively to my father about “the Germans” who apparently come out to Norway, get in the boat and go to sea where they get into trouble because they are not wearing life jackets. We were therefore not going out to sea in our ill-fitting life jackets. Round the corner we found the water in the neighbouring Frafjord a little rougher and the scenery marginally less pleasing to the eye. Our journey was further complicated by the ferries, which roared past at fairly regular intervals. We had to keep turning our little Tupperware boat into the wake to avoid being tipped over (like a duck in a bathtub) into the water - which I’d temperature tested and loudly confirmed as being uninvitingly cold.
The fjord is also rather deep – a discouraging 450m in places. Heaven alone knows what manner of creatures might be lurking in the emerald green depths; especially when once considers the fluorescent-orange saucer-sized jellyfish that drift just below the surface – the food of LARGE fish. Unbelievably we had been offered scuba diving in the fjord, something, which is not only completely unappealing but also financially inaccessible to all but the wealthiest of visitors.
When we turned back, we did so into the wind. Each time we crested a slight swell, a small wave of the aforementioned icy waters of the fjord, spat up over the bow and into our laps. Soggy and rather cold we rounded the bend heading for home. A shining white boat of waving Norwegians zoomed past. They were wearing bikinis and shorts and looking positively tropical. I was wearing combat trousers, a long sleeved T-Shirt a roll neck jumper and the outer layer of my ski jacket - which it turns out, is not quite as waterproof as I’d hoped.
We had been forewarned about the cost of alcohol in Norway but we were not forewarned of the difficulties of procuring it. For some reason it is perfectly acceptable to for Supermarkets to sell beer but we couldn’t seem to find anywhere that sold wine. When we asked at the local supermarket where we could get hold a bottle, the cheery, ruddy-cheeked owner replied loudly that he could not sell us a bottle of wine and then in a more intimate tone enquired whether we’d prefer red or white? He strode off somewhere and returned with a bottle, wrapped discreetly in a plastic bag, tucked under his jumper. After all his effort and enthusiasm, we didn’t really feel we were in a position to refuse this £13 bottle of vin-de-rubbish. He looked quite pleased to see us back the following day.
That night we determinedly lit a barbeque out on the porch. Wrapped up in coats, clutching our beers in our hands, we huddled round the small tin excuse for a barbeque that my father was suffering the humiliation of having to cook on. We dragged the dinging room table round and set it where we could see the view while we ate our dinner. During the main meal I couldn’t help but notice some small little fruit fly like bugs hovering in a cloud around my end of the table. Of course now I would know them to be midges. At the time I naively assumed the harmless. A couple of hours later my face, neck, arms, hands ankles were covered in approximately 38 separate bites which didn’t stop itching until the day before we were due to fly home at which point they turned into pussy yellow apocalypse type sores. I resolve to never set foot in Scotland again.
The clutch on our Volvo was not long for this world and was the subject of a heated debate regarding whether or not we should chance driving up the road at the end of fjord which the guide book describes as having 27 “exciting” hair pin bends. My uncle, who has many years experience driving more able vehicles (namely four wheel drive land drovers) up passes in Africa, was for. My father, a nervous passenger at the best of times but currently battling with driving on the right hand side (visibly paleing at intersections), was against. In the end the questionable mechanical soundness of vehicle was the trump card and we didn’t go. When we returned the car the owner asked whether we’d done that particular drive. Without thinking I laughed and said: “Not in this car!” - apparently just the incentive he needed to discount our additional mileage by 80%!
The ferry glides past a never-ending series of abandoned farms, perched precariously on the hillside. The tales spun out by the ferry crew over the loudspeaker provided plenty of material for our search for naughty Norwegians. For example the giant boat slung round and stopped in a small cove famous because some vagabonds had fled here pursued by the mayor after they hadn’t paid their taxes. Naughty vagabonds. Naughty. Naughty. Further inland, we passed the notorious Hengjane where Heinrich not only fathered a child out of wedlock but also set up moonshine distillery. Luckily he was German. At Bratelli we’re told that the children used to have to be tethered to stop them from falling down. Now there’s something you wouldn’t get away with in England.
On our last day we decided to go exploring in the hills round Forsand to see an old reconstructed farm and look for somewhere to go for a walk. We found a lake and stumbled tentatively not very far around it before giving up and making our way back to the Volvo through great swathes of cloud berries. On the way down the hill we managed to disturb a flock of sheep who were grazing beside the road. They set off down the hill, the large bells around their necks clunking and jangling in a percussionist frenzy. “Goodness me”, said my Mum, even the sheep’s bums are clean!” I should contextualise this comment by saying that we’d recently been treated to a fifteen minute explanation from a farmer’s wife in the Peak District about what had to be done to sheep’s bottoms. We even saw a snake – Satan has apparently some how got into the garden of Eden.
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