Bergen & Voringfossen
Falling over
''Went flying trying to step up onto a slimy rock. Got mud all up leg, arm and trousers. Very angry. Eventually calmed down and went back to the lake to take photos of berry trees.''The good thing about keeping a diary is that you can read back stuff like the above and be amused at what a pillock you actually are.
Rach struggled to hide her amusement as much as she could at the time of the above incident, as she does every time I trip or fall, which is way too often. When I failed to catch her after she fell off the roof of the van a day later, I was a total gentleman and kept a stone cold poker face.
It had been raining an awful lot in recent days, and the ceiling of the van had started leaking a bit by where we installed the fan. Rach got up onto the roof to fill in any gaps she could find as a result of (my) poor sealant work around the vent. Once finished, she went to climb back down which, without a ladder, is a bit of a tricky task. She started by lowering a foot onto one of my shoulders. Then, presumably thinking that the job was done, she chucked herself off the three metre high roof, over my head, and down onto the damp grass, where she landed on her bum. Nutter.
Bergen
We made it to Bergen in two pieces (one each). Park4Night had done us proud once more - nice location, right on the harbour and only a 20 minute walk into the city. There was also a chinese really close by which, once again, we tragically did not order from.Bergen is superb. We preferred it to Trondheim because it seemed to have a little more going on. It's full of history (it used to be Norway's capital) and is full of picturesque streets, odd shops and unique bars. Its colour is a light blue. Do you have a mental colour assigned to places, like me? Come on, get involved.
There is a really interesting historical part of the town called Bryggen, which lines one side of the city's harbour. It's full of museums, shops, restaurants and bars, housed inside buildings made entirely of wood. In fact, the whole district seemed to be constructed of wood, even the pavements and tight alleys between the buildings, which were painted in yellows, browns and oranges. Where my head gets light blue from, I don't know.
We came across a bric-a-brac shop - the most crazy shop either of us had ever been in - just FULL of shit. Every centimeter of the place from the ceiling to the floor was covered in absolutely all sorts, from vintage mini-binoculars to non-vintage old DVDs; you could barely walk around it. It was ran by an eccentric, eccentric-haired guy in an eccentric thick grey woolen jumper, who was carrying even more crap into the 'shop' as we were browsing. We wondered if maybe he was just a lunatic hoarder and we'd actually just walked into someone's living room and started pointing at their many, many, MANY ornaments.
On our second day in Bergen we had a look around the beautiful 12th century church and took a trip up to the Floyen mountain top for some brilliant views of the city and fjords beyond. It was possible to walk up there, but Rach insisted we get the cable-car up, for a reason I can't remember. I'm glad she did though, because on the cable-car I saw a woman who looked exactly like Richard Attenborough.
Making the trip up was worth it not just for the views, but also the stroll in the woodland which covered the mountain. The moss which covered the trees was so thick and long, it looked like grass. First Richard Attenborough lady, now grass moss - it was lookalike day!
When we got back down to earth we attempted to buy something from hoarder man's crazy shop - a couple of these little badges we'd found. I was in the middle of haggling with him, and haggling quite well I thought, when all of a sudden he told us to get out of the shop to make room for some other punters who had showed up. I would love to say this was a genius sales tactic, but I can't really, as we were now outside in the street and no longer in a negotiation.
Later in the day, I briefly relinquished navigating duties to Rach. She struggled to navigate us to H&M, which was four minutes away on foot, so I took over again and successfully navigated us to a bar. A really nice bar too apart from the fact they were playing Atomic Kitten. They're always playing frothy 90's British chart stuff in Norway. It's a bit odd.
Falling over again
We left Bergen and headed east, to see a famous old wooden Stave church from the 12th century. In the early 90's (1990's) it was burned down by a Norwegian Black Metal band. Typical. Why can't these Black Metal bands just behave instead of running around making a nuisance of themselves? Others seem to be able to. I mean, when was the last time you had to call the police to your street to move on a loitering London Philharmonic Orchestra? Never, that's when.Later that evening we found ourselves parked up near a waterfall. On the way back from the waterfall I fell over whilst looking at a tractor, which has to be the most childlike thing any adult has ever done. I'd really done my ankle in this time but it didn't matter to Rach - she was gone. Pure hysterics. I couldn't blame her really. She'd turned around to find me lying literally flat on my face, with my phone in the mud about five metres away. Then, after watching me get back to my feet, she finds out I fell over because I was looking at a tractor? How do you not laugh at that?
I hobbled back into the van. Within two minutes I compounded my agony by stubbing my little toe on the heavy detachable table top which was leaning up against the wall. My foot was clearly in extreme danger with me awake so I went to bed immediately.
Thankfully my ankle/foot wasn't too bad the next day, so we visited Voringfossen, a huge waterfall and major tourist attraction. The views of the waterfall from the viewing platform above were incredible. We wanted to do the hike to the bottom but couldn't find the starting point and it was pissing down, so we decided to leave it for the day and come back tomorrow.
We found a nearby deserted campsite - another self-serve place - which sat at the bottom of an amazing mountain valley. The entrance to the site was violently bumpy, which caused all the cupboards to fly open. Rach's treasured teapot, bought for her as a leaving present by her manager at Yell, fell to the floor and smashed. She was gutted. We soon discovered that this wasn't even the entrance - it was round the corner - which inspired me into an extended round of effing and jeffing.
Hike to Voringfossen
The hike was great. Not too tough, but hard enough to get the heart pumping, and the scenery was genuinely hard to believe at points. There was also a lot of climbing over massive wet rocks and walking along fairly narrow ridges above a rushing river below, which was quite hairy given the trouble I'd been having just walking on normal pavement recently. There were painted red arrows along the route so that you knew which way to go; it would've been so easy to get lost without them.As we got closer to the waterfall we had to cross a rickety bridge which would only carry one person at a time (or so we'd read), and the final approach was a scramble across an incline over hundreds more wet rocks, some of which were loose when you landed your foot. Anyway, long story short, Rach is dead.
I'm joking of course! We got there fine and the waterfall was quite a sight. Have to say though, the main fun was in the hike itself, which is weird because they always say that it's the destination that's important, not the journey. These philosophers do talk bollocks.
After the hike we drove on to a tiny little town called Odda. A strange one - it was like Touchwood in Solihull, only surrounded by mountains and lakes. I tried to buy some beers but all the shops stopped selling it after 8pm. From about midnight, loads of local kids started bombing around the town in their loud cars. This lasted for about four hours. All of a sudden the alcohol ban made sense. Although, if I was the town mayor, I'd make the sale of alcohol to all over-17's mandatory 24/7 in an attempt to get them out of their effing cars.
In the morning, we woke up, as you do, and Rach gave me the latest installment of her dream opera. In this episode, a robot had visited the van to wake us up. Apparently, it went: ''Hello Rachael and Sean! I am so happy to meet you!'' She did a nice robot voice for me, which I appreciated.
Next up, Oslo.
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