Day 30 - Stavanger to Kristiansand

We woke to heavy skies and a fine rain. Before we left for our drive to Leif & Siri's summer house, Wendy took this photo of the oystercatcher's single egg in its 'nest' amongst the flowers. I have put 'nest' in inverted commas, because there is no nest in the normal sense of the word, as the bird lays its eggs directly on to the stones.

We took the main road south but, after a few miles of quite heavy traffic, we turned off on to side roads running through sheep-farming country. At one point, following a lone car, we climbed up over some hills and a thick mist descended.

It was a lovely drive through a landscape very reminiscent of Dartmoor.

As we came to the sea, the weather improved and we drove along a very rocky shore.

The road wound its way along the coast and then rose up into the mountains which were truly impressive. You could see how the glaciers from the Ice Ages had eroded the rocks so that they were no longer sharp-edged but smoothly rounded boulders.

We reached our first destination, the Helleren at Jossingfjord, at about noon. We looked down into the fjord from high above as the road dropped to the sea in a series of sharp hairpin bends.

The name Helleren comes from the Norwegian word 'heller' describing an overhanging rock. The buildings were from the early 18th century and had the intriguing feature that the roof did not need tiling as the overhanging rock protected the houses from rain.

As we were at the houses, Bob and Thelma arrived. They had taken the coastal route all the way from Stavanger. They left after a few minutes, but we climbed up to have a closer look at the cottages and to go inside. We then continued on our route south through great countryside.

We heard from Ahmad that he was waiting at the junction of the E39 and the minor road that led to Leif's house. Fifteen minutes later, we saw them and they followed us through narrow winding lanes to the very end of the road and the idyllic spot where the summer house is located. How's this for a place to spend your summer?

 

 

We arrived a few minutes after Leif had taken Eric and Kenny out in his boat to do some fishing. So while we waited for them to return, we relaxed in the sunshine down at the boat house.

The girls soaking up the sun.

Leif, Eric and Kenny returned but without any fish! Apparently, the mackerel weren't interested in being caught.

Leif then took everyone by boat on a fantastic tour of the coastal region, which included going past the lighthouse at the southernmost point of Norway. We also saw the oldest lighthouse in the world, dating from the early 17th century, and some beautiful communities situated in small coves.

The oldest lighthouse in the world, dating from the 17th century.

Leif's daughter's house on the waterfront.

We returned to the house where Siri had prepared a wonderful lunch for us all to eat in the boat house by the water's edge. It was a marvellous way to end our stay with them. How can we ever repay them for their kindness?

We parted after taking a photo of our hosts and then one of the whole group.

We left their house at about 5pm and drove the remaining 80kms to Kristiansand, from where we will take the ferry tomorrow to Denmark.

We checked into our hotel, another one of the Norwegian Thon hotels chain.

Our room was not much bigger than a prison cell, but it was only for one night and the bed was very comfortable. We went out for a walk down to the harbourfront where we saw the mega-yacht Ice with this helicopter on the stern.

 

We Googled it later to learn it is owned by a Russian oligarch, Suleiman Kerimov. The boat is just under 300ft long and is one of the top ten biggest private yachts in the world.

We watched it sail out of the harbour.

Then, we saw the Seacat of Stenaline arriving from Goteborg.

We walked up from the port to a tapas bar in the centre of the town. It was a lovely meal and when we left, we met up with Kenny and some of the others in the main square.

Kenny and a black marble statue, with DeeAnne and Thelma on the right.

We really liked the town and took a few photos on our way back to the hotel.

 

We have been in Norway for two weeks and have driven from the most northerly point, North Cape, to the most southerly. It has been an amazing experience which none of us will forget.

I looked at the car's odometer as we filled up with diesel near our hotel and the odometer read exactly 5,000 miles. That seems a fitting way to end our stay in Norway.