Long day of driving today! I had breakfast early and checked out of my hotel in the centre of Kiel at 08:30. My destination today was Norway.
First task of the day was to get to the supermarket, to buy enough food to get us through our 3 night stay in Norway. I set the sat nav for Eckernförde where there was an EDEKA which would have everything I’d need. The total cost only came to €16 for mince, bread, milk x2, cheese, onions, apples, chicken and a paper. Who knows what the same would have cost in Norway!
Next stop was to Glücksburg, up near Flensburg, where there is a castle: once home to the House of Schleswig-Holstein-Sondeburg-Glücksburg. Prince Philip, who originally had Danish and Greek royal titles, is part of this royal house.
From there I headed North in to Denmark: The first passport check since Dover – but I was waved straight through. I stopped for about 10 minutes in the Danish border town of Kruså – my last stop before heading for the ferry.
The drive up through Denmark was fairly uneventful. Denmark is just…flat…for miles. Nothing of interest to see. Just miles and miles of motorway. Lorries slowed things down at times – as did all those caravans. I overtook plenty of Germans who looked like they’d packed enough in to their cars to last them for years. Some of them couldn’t even see out their back windscreens with all that stuff crammed in to the back. A lot of them had estate cars with the back seats folded down, with the entire back of the car packed full of their holiday supplies.
I got to the Danish port of Hirsthals with plenty of time to spare. Filled up with Petrol (about 500 kr) and then went to check-in. Within 20 minutes the ferry had docked and was unloading – prior to us boarding. Most of the travellers were Norweigan, but there were also lots of Germans, a few Dutch, about 3 other GB cars, a handful of Polish, French, Danish, Belgian… (I’m spending too much time looking at their numberplates again). One German driver came up to me and commented: “Oh wow, you’re from Great Britain, this is a long journey for you“.
Travelling on the fast ferry – the HSC Fjord Cst – the crossing took just 2 hours 15 minutes. By 19:30 I’d disembarked the ferry and was on the way to the Airport to pick my sister up. Coming off the ferry and getting my first glimpse of Norway made me feel like I had travelled. The scenery was different – it wasn’t flat. There were mountains! The road markings were different – as they are with every border I crosss when driving abroad.
Yet Norway felt more different, for some reason. Yellow road markings for a start. I don’t think I’ve ever seen those outside of Greece before. Plus… the speed limits. Out here, they’re lower. Forget doing 130km/h on the motorway: 80km/h was the fastest I could do (that is the case in much of Norway).
After my sister’s flight got in at 20:30 it was straight to the house – we were there within half an hour. Mum and Dad were already there and showed us in before we started unpacking the car. Finally, I can get to things at the bottom of the boot again!
As we settled in to the house for our first night together as a family since I left home a week ago, Dad cooked spaghetti bolognese using some of the ingredience I bought in Germany earlier in the morning.
I’m in Norway for 3 nights, so I’ve got a few days off long drives – before the week long journey home starts on Sunday.
Gute Nacht (Or – in Norweigan – God natt).
FH.
Today’s Mileage: 318.3
Accumulative Mileage: 1254.6