We awoke this morning to the sound of a car engine running. There was a group of 4 men who had been fishing for the night and had just returned to their car. I imagine they had the engine running to try to thaw themselves out after a nights fishing. Pretty inconsiderate though to run your engine at around 4.30 am when there are motorhomes nearby where people were clearly trying to sleep.

We set off for Bergen at 8.30. We soon arrived at the ferry port at Sandvikvag for the ferry which would take us to Halhjem. It turns out this ferry route is regarded locally as a part of the E39 highway between Bergen and Stavanger so consequently the road ends abruptly at the ferry terminal. We paid our fare of 303 NOK (£28) at a booth on the way in and joined the queue. It wasn’t long at all before we drove onto the ferry for the 40 minute crossing. I have to say it’s all very efficient and not at all stressful. The locals must use this ferry every day and it makes for quite a pleasant break from driving during your journey.

We were soon on the road again heading for Bergen. In fact it took us less than an hour. We made our way to a motorhome parking place which was listed on the park4night app but although it wasn’t full, the pitches with electricity were! We cheekily emptied the toilet (yuk) and filled up with drinking water before driving away in search of a better place to camp. I knew of one further up the road which was a proper holiday type campsite. Before we got there though, we saw another one and pulled straight in. This turned out to be 285 NOK a night so we decided to stay 2 nights. After buying 2 Bergen tickets at reception we went to get the bus into the town. The Bergen ticket gives you free public transport travel and discounts on various attractions.

The journey into town involved changing half way for the tram. The whole journey took around 40 minutes. Bergen was nothing at all like I expected. The pretty multi coloured wooden buildings you see in all the photos are old well-preserved facades but house very expensive shops selling all kinds of touristy type souvenirs. From hand knit woollens to cheap and tacky troll figures.

The thing was, I was expecting these buildings to be on an old historic jetty of some sort but instead they’re part of a bustling port where everything else is pretty modern. Right across the other side of the water lies the modern city of Bergen, and its way bigger than I was expecting!

I’m not complaining because I really did like the place, just that it wasn’t the least bit what I expected. Considering it was a Sunday, the place was very busy, nowhere more so than the fish market where you could buy all manner of fishy foods. There were large tanks full of the biggest crabs I’ve ever seen just waiting for their moment in the pot. Lynne wanted to buy them all and let them go. Trouble is we would have had to re-mortgage the house to do that and then they would most likely have been caught again. I don’t think your average crab knows the meaning of the words “run away crabby”.

We sat and had dinner in the area called Bryggen which is where the old wooden buildings are. Lynne had a beet burger and I had a proper burger and also 2 beers. That came to the equivalent of £48, not cheap and certainly not the best burger I’ve ever had. We were plagued by wasps the whole time and one decided to go for a swim in Lynne’s beer. She saved him but he definitely seemed too pissed to fly when he came out. Personally I would have squashed him but Lynne gets all on her high horse about Gods creatures and that kind of nonsense.

As I write we’ve just returned from a second day in the town where we just mooched round for a while. Lynne bought a padded coat because there seemed to be a cold wind in the air but then the sun came out and it was really warm!😳

We took a trip up the funicular so that we could see the spectacular views over Bergen. It truly was spectacular and we spent a good hour and a half marvelling at the magnificent view. From up top you could see there were 3 large cruise ships in port which explained why everywhere was so crowded. The photo you see above is a panorama of 7 shots stitched together in photoshop. Really quite tricky to do as they were taken without using a tripod. Yes, I know, no one wants to know but if I lapse into photography bore mode every now and then you’re having it. OK?

This last shot is of Lynne clearly defying a local by law that forbids the presence of witches at the top of the hill. It was ok because she’d left her broomstick at home anyway!

PS. You’ll have to look closely to see the no witches sign to her right!🧙‍♀️

Today we spent on the road heading towards Bergen. We drove up the 41 onto the 134 which took us west and then south again to the 39, boring I know but I needed to give the whole story some context. This journey took us through some of the most spectacular scenery I’ve ever seen. You could convince yourself you were in Wales or Scotland but everything is on a scale I never even dreamt of before!

Unfortunately in a world where there are countless numbers of waterfalls all waiting for me to point a camera at them, for the most part it was absolutely hammering it down with rain and blowing a howling gale. There were a few moments where I seriously thought we were gonna get blown of the road. It was a constant fight to keep the van in a straight line. Not a pleasant drive at all! I kind of made my mind up to come back this way if we can. Having said all that if I could have stopped every time I wanted to to photograph another glorious waterfall we would still be there now (two days later).

We did come across one called Langfossen which comes down the side of the mountain and passes under the road into the lake/fjord? You can’t begin to imagine the size of this thing, it’s the biggest fall I’ve ever seen after Niagra. No photo can really do it justice. I went to the bottom to get as much of it in the photo as possible, there was a Japanese guy down there who didn’t speak good English (my Japanese is limited too) but we managed to agree this place was fantastic! As I said no photo will ever do it justice but I had to have a go as the rain had briefly reduced to a steady drizzle. In fact I’m not sure it hadn’t stopped raining and what I was seeing now might have been mist from this enormous waterfall.

Not very long after this we started looking for somewhere to stay the night as I was pretty knackered now. We still drove another couple of hours till we found a picnic area that didn’t have any signs forbidding camping. We settled down for the night but were slightly concerned when a car with two men and one woman came and parked next to us. They actually didn’t do anything wrong but I thought it odd that 3 people would stop and have a roadside picnic (till it pissed it down again) and then sleep in a small car. But that’s exactly what they did and good luck to them. The car was pretty steamed up in the morning and I couldn’t help thinking they must have been frozen. I suppose we need to get past the paranoia that comes from living in Birmingham in the UK. Trouble is if you study the news back home it’s too easy to think everyone’s out to rob you. In the meantime we were joined by two other motorhomes who also spent the night there. Happily we survived the night without being raped and pillaged, so upwards and onwards to Bergen!!

Well, we woke this morning and much to my surprise Lynne said she’d had her best nights sleep since whatever it is that she did to her shoulder. So we decided to carry on and head for the ferry to Norway. After I went to the shop and got my 4 free bread rolls (part of the deal for stopping here) we made our way to the ferry port at Hirtshals. We actually checked in before time. That has to be a first for us! We were soon on the ferry and on our way. The ship, boat, or whatever you call it was surprisingly quite luxurious and we found seats and prepared for the 4.5 hour crossing.

After an hour or so we decided to go and look at the duty-free suspecting it might not be exactly cheap. We were right, everything seemed really expensive. The beer was dearer than we had paid for it last night at the petrol station. We did however buy a bottle of gin though, for no better reason than it had a hare with antlers on the bottle. Pretty sad eh? Well we all have our foibles and we’ve probably got more than most.

Lynne also bought a shirt which was relatively cheap and that was about it as we decided to pass on the various very expensive packs of sweets!

When we returned to the seats we had left jackets on by way of keeping them for ourselves we found ourselves surrounded by 9 or 10 Norwegian pensioners. I was instantly struck with a nasty case of old bagraphobia. They all seemed to like the sound of their own voices and especially the woman behind me who if I sat back in my seat I would get her laughing her old lungs out about 6 inches from my ear! There was one old guy who had a way of speaking that put me in mind of Red Indians in the old cowboy films. I though it was just me but Lynne said it just at the moment I was thinking it! Spooky or what? Unbelievably we put up with this for the better part of an hour until we saw land start to appear on the horizon and used it as an excuse to move and watch our approach to Norway.

‘We were soon on the road having landed at Langesund and it didn’t take long to hit a traffic jam. Along the way I’d noticed a rattling from the back of the van and Lynne went to investigate. It turned out to be a roof light at the back and in the process of trying to close it, coupled with me breaking as the traffic in front had stopped she managed to wrench her shoulder and set herself back again. It had been going so well and now we were at each other’s throats again!

We drove a long way in stony silence. There are a lot of new roads under construction around Langesund and pretty soon the satnav was trying to send us down a road that didn’t appear to exist! So I carried on, thinking it would eventually recalculate and find a way. Unfortunately it spent the first hour trying to divert us back to the original nonexistent route. However I was unrelenting in my quest to Ignore the bitch in the satnav and she finally gave up and we could see we were at last on the road to Bergen.

As we drove I started looking for places we might be able to wild camp for the night. One soon presented itself, it was a small picnic area with no-no camping signs and it was right beside a lake. It was only after we’d been there half an hour or so that I realised there was a dwelling on the hillside directly overlooking where we were. We still decided to chance it and soon we were joined by a German couple who proceeded to cook their dinner on a camping stove outside.

Anyway, we were never disturbed at all so all in all a first nights wild camping success.

 

Day 2 in Aarhus. Lynne was awake in the night at about 1am. I woke to the sound of her crying in pain. She was trying to move but couldn’t because of the pain in her neck (No, not me, again). I think it panicked her that she couldn’t move and ended up crying which in turn panicked me. It was then that I started thinking maybe we should head home. In my mind I thought that with two days of almost solid driving I could get her home and to a doctor. So far we hadn’t had much luck trying to see one in Denmark. After a short visit to the loo she managed to get back to sleep. It took me rather longer as I lay awake wondering what to do for the best.

So, following morning we went to reception at the camp site and asked about how to find a doctor. They gave us a number to call. Whoever answered the phone wasn’t too helpful though, saying the doctor couldn’t see us and no, we don’t have another number you can call! That’s a big thank you for nothing!! So, not quite as easy to get treatment in Denmark as in the UK where it seems anyone can walk in and see a doctor, have surgery, etc etc!

Having given up on that we decided to take it easy for the day so that Lynne could completely rest her shoulder. It was about 1.45 pm I decided we should make a move and drive to Hirtshals which is where we will get the ferry in the morning if we decide to carry on. So that is where we are as I write. A petrol station forecourt in Hirtshals. We have power and we stocked up on beer, so all’s well with the world except Lynne is still not comfortable and we don’t really have a clue what we will do in the morning.

Watch this space!

Well, we arrived in Aarhus Tuesday afternoon and checked into a site about 9 kilometres out of the town. The people in reception were very nice and spoke good English. That made a change as in northern Germany we found not many people did! We had intended going into town but at 4.00 pm we made a half-hearted walk for the bus and then decided it  could wait till tomorrow. Lynne is suffering with pain in her neck and feeling a bit low so I understand her wanting to relax.

Unfortunately the following morning she was worse and we started looking at the possibility of finding a doctor. In the end she decided just to take painkillers and see how it goes. We walked toward the bus stop intending to go to the town. As soon as we were out the gate I could see we had just missed a bus and had no idea when the next one would come along so we started walking and wouldn’t you know it, in-between bus stops we missed another!

By now we were approaching a huge Ikea store at the side of the road into Aarhus. Ooh we could go and get a toilet roll holder she say’s. Now now, lets not get carried away with all this fun we’re having shall we. Yes, we went into Ikea to buy a toilet roll holder! How frigging sad is that? It took ages to find and I was slowly losing the will to live but eventually we exited Ikea and you guessed it, yes, it was chucking it down with rain!!

Long story short, we made it into Aarhus on the number 117 bus and headed straight for the open air museum. It had stopped raining and was actually quite pleasant as we made our way there. There are buildings in the open air museum that would have been built-in the 1600s. You can see representations of life in 1927 as well as a small district depicting 1970s Denmark. I don’t quite know what I expected but I was slightly disappointed to find that a lot of the houses were reconstructed after being moved from other parts of Denmark. I had seen photo’s and always thought it was a genuinely old, pretty part of the town. I took photos but the only one I really liked at all was one I managed to get without any of the many other tourists in it.

Nevertheless it’s a fascinating display and we spent a good couple of hours wandering round.

Aarhus was proving to be a bit of a disappointment all round really. From first impressions during the bus ride of particularly uninspiring urban neighbourhoods dominated by miserable looking apartment blocks on the outskirts of town to some pretty drab area’s nearer the centre. I really had wanted to like it because our only reason for visiting was that my mom (who’s no longer with us) was born here but so far I wasn’t loving it!

However, after leaving the open air museum we walked back towards the main town centre and found a shopping area that seemed quite vibrant with lots of places to eat. We eventually sat down to eat at an outdoor restaurant on a street called Aboulevarden with a river running alongside through the town. It’s a bit like Broad Street in Birmingham with the whole street lined with restaurants. We sat and watched the seagulls raiding table for leftover scraps of food. Some didn’t wait for scraps though, and we saw one person lose a whole burger to a large gull. He didn’t seem interested in the salad part though so the floor was strewn with pieces of lettuce and cucumber when he finished! We had a really nice meal there although I was slightly taken aback by having to pay before the food was on the table, is that normal in Denmark? Not a clue but it seemed strange to me.

So the town redeemed itself in the end after we had wandered around these brighter areas and then down by the harbour. Of course the sun coming out made all the difference too. We started back towards the bus station as we were both knackered after so much walking. My iPhone says we walked a total of 11.5 kilometres today. Also Lynne was still suffering with a pain in the neck (no not me) so we made our way back to relax for the evening.

Just left Friedrichstadt in northern Germany. It’s a lovely old place with lots of waterways running through. We stayed two nights at a camp about 10 minutes walk into the town. It’s obviously a popular tourist destination as there seem to be coach loads of (mostly older) people turning up throughout the day. The camp seems to be on the edge of what I can only imagine is a flood defence. Like a huge mound of earth that runs for as far as you can see with a large river the other side of it. Maybe that’s what they call a dyke? Anyway it seems to be working well and I never once had to resort to sticking my finger in it!

Strange thing really, it’s a nice old place but kind of boring at the same time. The most exciting thing we did was to visit a model railway which was about half a mile out of the town. That was quite impressive specially since I’m a bit of a sucker for that kind of thing. Never did completely grow up, but then, who wants to? Lynne tagged along stoically tolerant of my inner child! I spent most of the time looking for small details like the scale model couple fornicating in the field, or the couple fornicating in a well-lit bedroom! Brilliant representation, the woman actually bouncing up and down whilst straddling the lucky little plastic man. One of the constructors obviously has the same kind of smutty mindset as me! Well, we’re only human!

I took a number of photographs none of which were particularly inspiring but I thought I’d include one anyway. In this image I was quietly pleased with myself for the way I managed to conceal a car park full of cars behind the flowers on the left. Trouble was just as I took the shot the rather large woman in the pink top walked into the frame! Totally ruined!! Still, she’s as much right to be there as anyone I suppose.

The only other exciting things we did was to go grocery shopping at the local Edeka which also housed the local post office where Lynne posted her letter to Ben. Living life on the edge like this, I don’t know how long I can keep up the pace. My last few weeks at work before retiring I had numerous people regale me with story’s of people retiring and then immediately dying. Brilliant, like they say, who needs enemy’s? The reason I bring that up is that we both seem to have started a slow deterioration as I now have a bad back, something I’ve never suffered before in my life. Lynne also has a stiff neck for some reason which has kept her (and me) awake at night.

Anyway, that’s Friedrichstadt, not much more to say really except maybe for the almost constant flocks of geese flying overhead presumably migrating south for the winter. Maybe they know something we don’t?

We’ve spent the last 3 nights in Stade in Germany. It’s a pretty little town with a canal/river running through and the usual pretty timber-framed buildings in the old part of town.

It took us best part of 6 hours to get here, a lot longer drive than I would have wanted. According to the sat nav we were within 15 minutes of arriving when we came to a road that was closed to traffic going in our direction. I took another turn thinking the sat nav would recalculate and find another way. Instead it tried to send us back to the route we couldn’t use on account of the road closure. Eventually I looked at the map and had to pick another location to head for so that we could approach Stade from a different direction. That worked ok except it meant driving an extra 20 or so kilometres.

When we got to the camp site in Stade the check in system was self-serve and a bit complicated. We eventually figured it out though, you just drive to a pitch then got to the machine and book however many nights you want and load a card up with money to cover electricity costs.

When we walked into town the first night we came across a Mexican restaurant and couldn’t resist. Mexican food, few beers, what could be better?

It turns out the Satellite system is now redundant as it seems we’re out of range already. From what I can work out we can only get reception from 1 satellite and that only covers as far as the edge of Holland which is far behind us now!

I’ve fired off emails to Oyster and the dealer who installed the system, lets see if any of them come back to me.

Second night in Stade we walked into town and did some photography during the blue hour. There’s a little area that looks like a harbour and a boat with some weird blue figures on it. No idea what that’s all about. If you look to the left of the photo you’ll see a Marilyn Monroe figure in the window with the wind blowing her skirt up!

On the day we left we were driving through the camp site and there was an older German van just reversing out of his pitch. His wife saw us coming and went to tell him. At that point I expected him to wait while we went past. Unexpectedly he shot out instead and drove off. I soon realised why when we got to the queue for the grey water dumping space. He couldn’t wait to get out so as to be in front of us in the queue. The couple at the front took so long over everything we eventually had to wait 20 minutes or more to spend our two minutes dumping water! Very frustrating!

Got to Amsterdam at 12.30 pm. We checked in at the Amsterdam City Camp. It’s really just a huge gravel car park but with facilities and security. We had to settle for a pitch with no electricity though, so we had to use the gas to run the fridge. Once settled in we walked up the road to the free ferry which takes you into the town.

Leaving the ferry we found it still to be quite a long walk into the middle of the city. First impressions were that the place is very bohemian and the smell of marijuana everywhere. I’ve never done it myself and found the smell quite sickly!

We walked for ages and were soon starting to hate cyclists. In Amsterdam they’re everywhere. You literally have to have eyes in the back of your head! We walked for miles and naturally headed for the red light district which appeared to be a block of about 10 or so windows where the girls advertise their wares! I’m sure there must be more to it than we saw but a bit of a let down really and anyway Lynne wouldn’t let me have an advance on my pocket money so no “shopping” for me.

We walked back and headed toward the camp. Cutting a long boring story short neither of us much liked Amsterdam so we weren’t gonna stay any longer than we had to. We still walked pretty solid for nearly 6 hours.

To sum up, we didn’t like Amsterdam. It’s dirty, crowded, teeming with cyclists who all seem to think they own the world. All in all, a place I’d wanted to visit for a long time but ultimately a huge disappointment!

All Cannabis Cup Winners! SERIOUSLY?

When we left Ypres we headed for Utrecht. I set the sat nav for a campsite about 6 kilometers out of the town near a smaller town called IJsselstein. Everything went well ‘til we got close and we found ourselves driving through the narrow streets of a housing estate. None of the people seemed taken aback by a motorhome driving through though so we thought we must be on the right path as it’s as if they’re quite used to it.

So eventually we were out in the country and we could see the campsite off in the distance. Only trouble was we couldn’t see how on earth you might get to it. At that moment a, shall we say more mature lady came along on a bicycle and I said to Lynne wind down your window and we’ll ask if she speaks English. We needn’t have bothered, as soon as she was alongside she said “are you lost”?

Yes was the obvious reply and she proceeded to give us good directions on how to get to the campsite that we could see probably less than 300 yards away. The strange thing was that her directions which turned out to be correct actually entailed driving approximately another 5/6 kilometers!

When we got closer I stopped and looked at the sat nav and it turned out the campsite was in the data base anyway, duh! Should have been obvious really as it’s a special motorhome edition sat nav!

Once at the campsite we went to the office and entering I asked the man behind the counter if he spoke English, yes he replied do you? Right, every ones a comedian! Nice guy though and in no time at we were set up at the side of the river. The area is everything you would expect of Holland, very flat, and the one thing I’ve noticed is there are waterways everywhere. It’s an idyllic scene with boats drifting by and various water birds paddling around.

Unfortunately the idyll didn’t last long as soon after we arrived a boat turned up and moored directly in front of us. That would have been ok but on board the boat were a large Italian family with 4 or 5 children who spent the next hour or so jumping and diving into the water whilst screaming and shouting at the top of their lungs. Needless to say no one wants to stop children (bless em) enjoying themselves but this was no longer the peaceful haven we had liked so much when we arrived!

Anyway all’s well that ends well and they departed after emptying their bilge tanks or whatever you call them. I have no idea, they might have been filling up with clean water for all I knew. It involved use of a large pipe anyhow! I don’t think we were the only ones that breathed a sigh of relief when they went anyway!

Close by was a boating club restaurant and we ate there that evening. Food was good and the drink too, I might have had slightly too much and I went to bed as soon as we got back. The van was like an oven and even with a portable air conditioning unit at the foot of the bed blowing directly on me bits it was almost impossible to sleep. As I said, almost. I actually did sleep until woken at about 1.00 am by Lynne bouncing around (no nothing like that smutty). I soon realized that we were in the middle of a storm and the wind was threatening to wreck the awning which we had left out as there didn’t seem any likelihood of the weather changing.

So I scratted around to put on a pair of shorts and ran outside to try and get the awning in. Lynne had to hold it while I wound it in. She was quite a sight in her nightie. The only consolation was that most of our “neighbors” were all frantically doing the same as us in various states of dress (undress). I don’t know how the chairs didn’t end up in the river but we saved them and it saved us packing everything up next morning. Literally as soon as we got back in the van it absolutely threw it down with rain. At least it cooled things down a little and sleep was easier afterwards. Not a big surprise that we couldn’t sleep previously as it had been 35 degrees during the day and didn’t seem to have cooled too much in the evening till the storm came!

Tomorrow it’s off to Amsterdam. Somewhere I’ve always wanted to go, let’s hope it lives up to expectations!

We left Bruges and made our way to Ypres. The journey was uneventful and took a little under an hour. We arrived at the campsite at about 12.05 pm. First check in was 12.00. We timed it perfectly and within 15 minutes we were set up for the night.

Within the hour we walked into the town of Ypres. On the way in you have to pass through the Menin Gate. This is a memorial dedicated to the British and Commonwealth soldier who were killed in the Ypres Salient of World War 1 who’s graves are unknown.

Lynne and I wandered around looking at all the names inscribed on the many walls. It certainly is a sobering and thought-provoking experience to see so many names all killed on the western front. We, perhaps morbidly I’m not sure, both found ourselves looking for men of the same name as ourselves. I think Lynne found 1 Goulden but I couldn’t see Wildman anywhere.

Later we found the memorial register nicely preserved in a small space behind what looked like a brass door. It’s there for anyone to see and seems to have been well respected as you’d hope. Having looked through the register I found there were indeed 4 men (people) by the name of Wildman which left me wondering might they have been distantly related? Maybe something to look into in the future. Lynne found 5 Gouldens in the book. 

This image was taken later that night after we had attended the Last Post ceremony which has taken place every evening at 20.00 since 1927. Except during  WW11. Even then when Polish forces liberated the town the last post was sounded that evening in spite of the fact there was still heavy fighting going on in other parts of the town!

We walked around the town which again is beautiful. The architecture is stunning and incredible if you remember the whole place was bombed to bits by the Germans during World War I.

As we walked back to the campsite we passed a pub which looked like it was showing football on TV. We were only booked in for 1 night here but I thought maybe if we were still here for a second night we could watch the Villa game against Hull City. Cutting a long story short we did stay a second night and after attending the last post ceremony for a second time we walked up to the pub which was called The Old Bill. Unfortunately they were showing Belgian football so we didn’t bother stopping for a drink. All’s well that ends well though because the Villa won the game 3-1. Great start to the new season.

So our stay in Ypres was thoroughly enjoyable which is why we stayed an extra night. A large portion of the second day though was spent sitting around drinking and reading. It’s still unbelievably hot. As I write we are in Holland and it’s 34 degrees.

To sum up, I think everyone should pay a visit to Ypres. It’s a truly sobering experience. Judging by the English registrations we saw everywhere we went it seems like half the population was there anyway. The camp site might as well have been in England as they were almost all British!

Finally one more image to add. Ypres by night. Like I said, beautiful!