norway
- part i
On a sunny blustery morning
in August 2004 ...
... the 'Fridtjof Nansen'
of the Norwegian Air Shuttle
AS threaded her way, with us on board, through the herd of
easyJet.com planes massed at Stansted Airport. An hour
and a half later we were landing at Bergen in somewhat calmer
but cloudier weather.
At the quayside we were
introduced to our home for the next six nights. The 'Nordnorge'
is one of a fleet of twelve ships, one of which daily leaves the
port of Bergen in the south and also one from Kirkenes which lies
beyond the Arctic Circle.
The Hurtigruten
service calls at 34 ports some during the night as well as day-time.
It is a scheduled service that carries cars and cargo, as well
as foot passengers, between these ports more economically and
speedily than land based travel through the rugged mountains and
around the extensive fjords.
Punctually at 8 pm, with
an extended blast on her hooter still echoing around the harbour,
Nordnorge slipped her moorings and gliding gently past the Normand
Cutter, being fitted out for cable-laying, swung into Puddefjorden.
The bright blue sky of England
but a memory as we thread our way along the waterway in the gathering
gloom of evening under increasingly threatening clouds. During
the night we became aware of the cloud's reality as the ship pitched
and rolled crossing the more open waters of Stadhavet.
Leaving behind the 'white
horses' we arrived to a damp morning welcome at Alesund - in reality
our fourth stop but the earlier ones had been during the night.
After a 45 minute stay we departed for a four hour leg of our
voyage, deep into the mountains ...
... along the Geirangerfjord.
Where the increasingly steep
and increasingly close walls revealed isolated homesteads, less
frequently clinging high up the steep hillside ...
... and more commonly perched
on a rocky protuberance just safely above the waterline. All seemed
inaccessible to vehicular traffic, but these latter ones at least
were accessible by water!
And then we were at the
head of the fjord which is accessible by road and where some of
our fellow passengers transfer to a smaller craft and thence to
a coach for a road tour through the misty mountains rejoining
the ship at Molde after dinner.
...
Through the raindrops on
the lens, two picture of the famous 'Seven Sisters' waterfalls.
A tiny dot of habitation is just visible in the LH picture, at
the top of the yellowish grass above the main rockface just at
the start of the trees above! Some position - some views!
A 30 minute stop at Molde,
famous for its festivals of jazz and flowers, where our excursionists
rejoined the ship and where we briefly encountered our Hurtigruten
sister ship on her southbound voyage.
Ships that pass in the night?
'Trollfjord' leaving port.
Continued
in Part II
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