Goodbye Beautiful Norway
Nordre Follo - 21st June
This is our last night in Norway before we head back across the border into Sweden for a couple of weeks. We have had an enjoyable time exploring the beautiful surreal countryside that is not too dissimilar to the bottom west of the South Island of New Zealand. Norway is the 7th happiest country in the world – I think it deserves a higher rating, but then again my judgement isn’t impaired by what I don’t know about government controls. I do know the cost of living is high for a tourist, but apparently Norwegians get paid well and have a great welfare system so they don’t perceive there is a high cost of living. Norway’s economy is heavily subsidised by their oil exploration, meaning they can not only remain independent from the EU (European Union), but can also build and maintain good road, tunnel and bridge connections to promote the country as a great tourist destination. Would we come back? Well, one of us is eyeing up the ski fields…
Today’s activities were very sober. We travelled from Stange to Siggerud on as many free roads as we could because being so close to Oslo the State just want to sting you for road tolls. Today we continued our descent from the cold mountains and appeared into large city madness before quickly escaping to our cabin in the forest where we can experience both the Norwegian woods and the warmer climate.
In the last week we have learned that Airbnb give you Commune/region area as the address of the property and not the town, so today we are actually in the town of Siggerud, Commune of Nordre Follo. Population not much, shops one, pubs none, petrol station none, church one but under repair wrap so that’s none, but it does have nice weather.
This is our one activity for the day; we went to Strandlykkja to complete a geocache. There was a significant WWII battle here in 1940. To stop the Germans advancing a bridge was blown up and the locals put together an improvised force. The contingent was not trained in warfare, however they had hunting experience in the local snow conditions, they wore white sheets to camouflage themselves in the snow and were well fed by the local butcher and baker. The memorial stone is for the 5 men who died, the view was probably nice once but now an iron and steel fence blocks out the noise and sight of the public road and the E6 motorway below (the photo of the view was taken from the top of a picnic table). The geocache was another tricky hide hidden in a fence post.
Today’s ABBA tribute is ‘Fernando’ (1976) for the young men of Strandlykkja who one day thought they were going to practice shooting cardboard cut outs and ran into a troop of Germans. They made history, had little causality and taught the Germans that the locals were prepared to fight for their liberty.
I was so afraid, Fernando
We were young and full of life and none of us prepared to die
And I’m not ashamed to say
The roar of guns and cannons almost made me cry
There was something in the air that night
The stars were bright, Fernando
They were shining there for you and me
For liberty, Fernando
Below are some photos that sum up the diversity of Norway from our points-of-view
