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On the way to Oslo...
- Jul 4
- 7 min read
By Jon Newey - retired Architect, Blood Bike rider, Adventure traveler - with Tigger - Triumph Tiger 800 XRX
After two days and nights on the Iceland-to-Denmark ferry, Tigger and I find ourselves back in Hirtshals ferry port on the northern tip of Denmark. My legs still feel like they are on board a ship. My watch, phone, and satnav all say different times of day. Just outside the ferry port I pull into the car park of the Skaga hotel and flop onto a sofa in their reception. I stayed here ten days ago, but I’m not staying here tonight, I just need to borrow their wifi! There’s no signal at sea so I need to catch up on messages and I need to set myself up for the next few days of the tour. I go to Lidl to buy some lunch, then Tigger and I head over to the next town, Hjorring, where I’ve booked an Abnb for tonight. Hjorring is only 10 km away. I booked it that way because I need to be back at Hirtshals tomorrow for the ferry across to Kristiansand in Norway.
The two German guys I’ve been chatting to on the Iceland ferry speed past with a wave. They plan on being home in Bremen tonight. That’s a trip of almost 700km in one ‘iron butt’ session. Rather them than me!
Within a few minutes I’m at my Abnb. It’s a small timber cabin in the back garden of a neat house in a quiet up-market suburb. I park Tigger on the drive. He’s covered in mud and grime from his Iceland adventures. I suspect we’re lowering the tone…. Never mind. I unpack and set off for a stroll into town. Hjorring is a quaint wee place. There are narrow streets and half-timbered houses. There’s a bronze fountain in the main square showing a boy wrestling with a seal. Or is he riding it? Or catching it? The sun is shining so I stop to do a sketch. A little further on is a restaurant called Bastardos, where I get a tasty risotto.
Back at my Abnb I ask my host, Annalise, if she knows the story of the boy and the seal? She says she has no idea but she’ll find out an
d will message me. I don’t ask here to explain Bastardos…
When I wake the next morning there’s home-made crispbreads and home-made marmalade for breakfast. The ferry to Norway isn’t until noon so there’s no rush. I take my time. At the ferry port I check in and join the queue of other bikes waiting in line. They’re mostly Germans on GS’s, but there’s one Belgian on a big R1250RT. He says he fancies taking it to Iceland one day. It’s a big touring bike. We use them for Blood Bike shifts back home. They’re great for tarmac roads, but not the ideal bike for those roads in Iceland where the tarmac suddenly disappears without warning!
Today’s ferry is already the sixth ferry of this tour. I realise that by the time I get all the way round to Helsinki and take the ferry to Estonia I will have sailed on almost every major ferry route in Europe, with the notable exception of the one connecting France to Sardinia. Hmmm. I’ll file that thought away for future reference. Usual routine on the ferry: Up the slippery ramp, leave it in gear, Velcro strap on the brake lever, strap it down with the ratchet straps. Done. Up on deck I’m pleased to find that my ticket includes a bonus, an all-you-can-eat buffet lunch. I wasn’t expecting that but I’m not going to complain.
It’s a smooth crossing and four hours later we’re off-loading in Kristainsand. I’ve another Abnb booked here, just ten minutes from the ferry port. It turns out to be a room in a flat on the ninth floor of a tower block. I have to leave Tigger in the car park far below, tucked away under his invisibility cloak. I’m sure he’ll be fine. I can see him from the terrace. My host, Mia, is lovely. I hadn’t been planning to go into Kristiansand this evening but she makes the town sound so attractive that I decide to give it a whirl. And she’s right. The fishing harbour has been repurposed as a pretty collection of cafes and bars. Beside them there’s the Kunst-silo, a marvel of a building where a collection of disused concrete grain silos have been turned into a funky art gallery. Mia says she likes the building, and the new opera house alongside, but she wonders if the money could have been better spent on some social projects.
I sleep well. Feeling refreshed I renew my search for a shop that sells microphones (see ‘Difficulties in Denmark’ for details!). Hey presto! There’s a shop right here in Kristiansand that has the very thing that I need in stock. It opens at 10am, so by 9.59 I’m parked outside waiting. Success! I now have a new Rode ME mic to replace the one I lost. It will cut out the infuriating wind noise that I get with my video camera’s inbuilt mics. Hurray. Next stop, Oslo.
From the retail park we’re straight onto the E18 motorway. It says it is a toll road but I’m unclear if the tolls apply to motorbikes. I don’t think they do. Anyway, we swoop through tunnels and over bridges for a couple of hours before turning off for a lunch stop. I switch Garmin to ‘no-motorways’ and the second half of the route is spent on the glorious ‘32’. It’s a twisty road through a World Heritage Geopark. There are warnings about moose on the road. There are rivers, lakes, trees and mountains. Lovely stuff. Eventually we drop back onto the E18 for the final few clicks into Oslo. Oh-oh. Now I remember why I usually avoid big cities. There are roadworks, lane closures, nose-to-tail traffic. Motorbikes whizz past me in the bus lane. Am I allowed to do that? (I Google it later and yes, it’s OK in Oslo). Eventually we turn off into a leafy residential area and pull onto the drive of tonight’s Abnb. It’s nothing special but it’ll be fine. The host doesn’t live here and there are lots of guests coming and going so it feels a bit like a hostel. That’s OK. There’s a supermarket not far away where I buy food to cook. Oslo’s an expensive place to be so I don’t plan on eating out while I’m here.
In all I spend three nights in Oslo, two at the Abnb and one with a Norwegian biker called Kurt. Kurt is part of the Bunk-a-biker network, so that’s a freebie. While at my Abnb I use the passenger ferry that goes across the harbour to visit the city centre.
I visit the twelve-storey museum dedicated to the art of Edvard Munch. Twelve storeys! If you only know him for his image ‘The Scream’ then you have another 25,999 images still to experience. Most of them depict different stages of disease and death. The exhibitions are very interesting, but they are not a joyous barrel of laughs! I visit the Oslo fortress and stop to make a sketch.
I take a trip out to ‘Gneis Lilleaker’, one of Oslo’s top climbing gyms. It is one of two owned by Norway’s well-known climber Magnus Midtbo. I manage to climb all the green routes (no pressure if you’re ever out this way) before my fingers refuse to hold on any more. Finally I visit the exhibition of Thor Heyerdahl’s Kon-Tiki raft. Wow. Now there’s a mad adventure if ever there was one. In 1947, at the age of 33, Thor and a few friends built a balsawood raft - with no prior experience - pushed it out into the Pacific Ocean from the coast of Chile and waited to see where it would take them. Tahiti, as it turned out, 100 days later. No back-up, no life jackets, no satellite phones. Thor didn’t even know how to swim. Crazy stuff.
On my third day in Oslo I move across town from my Abnb to my Bunk-a-biker host. When I get to Kurt’s place he welcomes me in, and shows me where to park Tigger in an underground garage. Kurt’s an interesting man. Ten years ago he set off to go around the world on his bike, a DR650. Well actually he set off to go to Thailand but when he got there he just kept going. The full RTW trip took him five years in all. It included three engine rebuilds (don’t get any ideas Tigger!) and multiple mini-adventures. He’s full of great stories. We pass a happy evening wandering through Oslo as he shows me some more of the sights. Back at his flat we pore over a few maps. Kurt’s originally from Lofoten in the far north of Norway, so he shows me where some of the interesting roads and campsites are. Local knowledge – so useful!
Kurt’s wife, Sas, is a chef so the next morning’s I’m treated to a fabulous breakfast. I won’t need lunch today but I’m given food to take with me none-the-less. Today I’m heading a short distance south to Fredrikstad to visit a friend from Scotland who lives there. For me this is a bit of a holiday in the middle of my trip. We go wild swimming (very Norwegian), we eat ice creams on the beach, and we catch up on each other’s major life events.
By the time I’m ready to move on I’ve been in the Oslo area for five days. It’s been great, but I need to move on. I’m supposed to be going north and the clock is ticking on my Schengen-Area 90-day limit….
Tigger miles in 2023 = 8,024
Tigger miles in 2024 = 6,259
Tigger miles in 2025 so far = 4,017 (=6,428 km)
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