Polar Challenge Blog

Today was always penned in as a day of rest and so eating up the miles in their hundreds yesterday ensured that today was indeed a day of rest, having said that, where we are now gets dark at about 11:15pm and gets lights again at 3am. Last night we were pitching tents in dusk without the needs for light. There was the most amazing purple sunset though sadly screaming down Norwegian roads isn’t the best time to stick a camera of of the window to take a shot.

Around 11am we went into Oslo with Rory to try and find a place that would repair his punctures. Eventually we found a place and they were horrified that Rory used inner tubes and said they could fix the punctures if he didn’t use a inner tube. So Rory said OK and they fixed them. Rory then asked the price and the guy turned round and said “Nothing, think of it as a present” and he wished us good luck for the journey. He was genuine to, these little 3-wheelers create so much interest over here that everyone just wants to look at them, wave at us and take photos.

We then went to look at a medieval fortress and getting there we parked up. A lady, dressed in military uniform told us we couldn’t park there and she had three other people with her, two of which were dignitries from the Ukraine. What status they had in the Ukraine to get a military escourt of Oslo we don’t know but they were fascinated by Rory’s Bond Bug and wanted their photo taken with it. In each country we have also been getting people to sign the bonnet of our car with a permanent marker pen and so we asked the Ukraine dignitries if they would like to sign the bonnet. The officials taking them around looked a little shocked at first but both dignitries signed the car with huge smiles and with a hand shake off they went.

After a bit of sight seeing in Oslo we also came across a film being made. I took a few shots of an old Rolls Royce next to a huge ship with “Viking Oil” on the side and was asked politely to stop taking photos. Maybe they were concerened I’d use them as promo shots?? Back at the camp site where Geoff gave “New Blue” a full service. She has been running superb though every now and then there is a slight cough which we are not sure if it is dirty fuel or not. Best of all this camp site has wireless Internet access so I can sit in the tent and send emails. The mobile dongle we have is costing a serious fortune so to get a camp site with Internet access is great.

One thing I didn’t mention yesterday was our school-boy amusement at certain words over here. We think “fart” means speed as in Sweden there are signs along the side of the road that state “Min Fart” and when you drive passed they light up with a number. We wasn’t sure if this indicated the mimimum amount of times we had to pass wind and the faster we went the higher the number of minimum farts. Perhaps the biggest commotion was caused when we passed a sign saying “Bastad”. It seems this is a little town though when we passed the local camping ground we had to howl with laughter at a grey caravan that had in huge words along the side “Bastad Camping”.

The evening was spent drinking non-alcoholic beer (that’s all they sell here) and having a barbeque, we are not 100% sure what we are eating but thanks to Ivan the chef, it taste OK. Tomorrow, it’s back on the road again for more driving.

Elvis

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 11th, 2008 at 10:07 pm and is filed under The Journey. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.