The "best" part

Day 20 - Flamm
It is not very often that I wake around 2.30 and (a) it is light outside (b) we are in a Norwegian Fjord (c) it is cold & clear (d) there is snow on the hills/mountains .  Well I did this morning and pleasingly the water was calm as we carried on up the fjord.  Went straight back to sleep after waking Vivian and then woke again just before 4.00 and took some photos of the daybreak.  Repeated the above around 5.00 and eventually got out of bed and ordered tea around 6.00.  The sky was clear and shortly after we stopped, as we had reached the end of our little finger off the main fjord and we were at Flamm.

After a little while we noticed the ship reversing, probably about half a kilometre, this, we assume was to allow the Holland America ship to get past and berth at the only berth in the port.  (Correction - We have subsequently established that we temporarily docked to allow the passengers with the 7.00 train excursion to disembark!).   We were relegated to sitting offshore and using tender boats.  I was tempted to say "anchored" but that would be technically incorrect.  Although we are only some 200 metres from shore, the fjord is around 1,000 metres deep - they'd need a lot of anchor chain.  Instead we are running our stern thrusters to keep us stable.

Thankfully our tour is not until midday, so we had a relaxed breakfast (what's new) followed by a decent coffee and eventually went down for tender tickets at 10.45.  Our meeting time was 11.45 on the pier ashore, and I think that most of our tour and other later tours did the same thing.  Anyway we wandered around the port part of Flamm - population just a couple of hundred people, before going back to the pier to find that they were already  loading the coach so we got straight on and we actually left 15 minutes early.

Flamm is popular for it's scenic railway journey up through the mountains.  The ship's tour was booked out, as I mentioned earlier, so this bus trip is much the same, but as it turned out, better in many respects. We travelled on the main highway (16) Oslo to Bergen, which incidentally is the road we are looking at across the water from our stateroom.  The road is generally narrow (even by NZ standards) and our trip took us through 9 tunnels, the longest being 4.5 kilometres. 

We zigzagged under huge power pylons which run from the underground power station across the country to Oslo. This 1 power plant supplies 40% of the electricity needs and is fed from rivers and streams uphill (rather than lake storage)
The longest on the overall route (we turned off just before it) is 45 kilometres long. All the tunnels are simply cut through the granite rock, with minimal lighting etc.  However the government is embarking on a project to both widen all the tunnels in Norway and also line & paint them - just like Johnstone Hills tunnels!!! 

Although the road we travelled is a major tourist route, thankfully traffic was sparse, given the hairpin bends and narrow tunnels.  Unfortunately we had an incident coming back, where 2 buses were passing, we connected with the upper side of the rocky tunnel and the bus now has a gouge down to the insulation.  Clearly the Norwegian love their tunnels and there are 2 mammoth projects underway - 1 is for a ship tunnel ( not kidding) to enable ships to go from one fjord to another without having to go out to sea. The other one is a suspension tunnel which will float under the water to enable ships to go over, but other than being connected at each end, the rest would have done from of flotation system.

We continued along for about an hour  climbing 2,000 feet to an area of Osterbo, where we stopped at the new Tramping Club premises for coffee & Norwegian waffles, which are more like a crepe, but were delicious.  The return trip was along the same route, with a side trip to the "main" town of some 2,000, with an historic church.   The weather has turned out fantastic, clear but quite warm - roughly 20 degrees.  We have been extremely lucky as it has rained for the last month and snowed just 2 days ago, hence traces remain making it most picturesque.

Had a late room service lunch at 3.00 and in no time it was dinner again.  No show tonight, an early night was called for as we continued sailing out if the fjord.  Tomorrow promises a similar day in the northernmost fjord we are visiting.

Day 21 - Andalsnes
OK, I was awake around 4.00 and looked outside, where it was light of course but we were still at sea.  Stayed sleeping until 7.00, by which time we were happily sailing up the fjord.  The countryside is somewhat similar, but beyond there are two mountains, which looked more like Switzerland or Canada or Alaska or NZ!  I was worried for a bit as some cloud descended, but by the time we docked at 9.00, clear skies abound.  This is a relatively new town having been extensively destroyed during the war by both sides.

We have a train trip after lunch, so usual morning activities, except we needed a trip to the Pursers Office to sort out an overcharge!  Just as well I check our bank online as I saw an extra charge by Cunard on Sunday.  It was the internet again - when I purchased our next 120 minutes on Saturday afternoon they decided to add it to the previous cruise.  The issue really is that we are "Gold" on this cruise, which gives us 2 hours internet free. 

Now someone less generous than me might suggest that this was a deliberate error to deprive me of the free time.  Well, can you really think of another reason?  After trying to fob me off with "see Internet Manager ", she eventually went out the back to see the Finance Manager who agreeed to the refund.  Why oh why do Cunard do this? We have heard so many stories during these cruises where they were charging passengers twice for their cruise "by mistake"

But that aside, it is lovely sitting in the cafe looking out over the fjord, drinking coffee and updating this.  We will probably have a quick bite of lunch as we need to be in the lounge for our tour by 12.45.  Looking really good outside and generally similar conditions to yesterday.  As it turned out, yes temperature was 19-20 degrees and little in the way of wind.  Excellent!  All the winter gear we brought is staying in the suitcase.

It was an excellent trip, with modern train through the valley to a little ski resort village of Bjori, where we then boarded a coach for the return journey, stopping a couple of time for photo opportunities - and of course souvenirs.  Great scenery,  which we compared favourably with the Rockies trip.  We toured with our table-mates, Derek & Sandra from UK and they were great fun (as always). We were back just in time to close up the ship & cast off.  We are now headed back down the coast to Bergen tomorrow and then regretfully it is full steam ahead for Southampton.

4 photos from Flamm & 5 from Andalsnes.