Norway, Bergen to Trondheim

By now we had realised that we needed to be driving a fair bit of distance each day to reach Nordkapp (the top of Norway) in good time. Everything is simply far too expensive for us to be hanging around for long when we have such a distance to cover.

On this particular leg of the journey, we were planning on driving through the world’s longest road tunnel as we thought that would be a pretty cool thing to do. We chose to drive up to the Stegastein viewpoint near Flam with the intention of coming back down and going through the tunnel to continue our journey. But that didn’t quite go to plan. The steep mountainside road was very narrow, parts of which didn’t even have a barrier, making for a very nerve-racking drive and there were a few times that I had to cover my eyes. Obviously, Richard was driving, not me. I’m definitely not brave enough for that! The viewpoint at the top made it all worth it and it was incredible to see how high up we were. But the thought of having to drive back down that road didn’t fill either of us with much joy, so instead, we continued on over the top of the mountains.

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We are glad we did, as 20 minutes later we were all playing in the snow, with our shorts and t-shirts on as it was still a pleasant 18 degrees outside! We sure weren’t thinking we’d be playing in the snow on this trip.

Our final destination that day was in a big rest area right by the most gorgeous fjord, it felt heavenly and it was stuff like this that we had dreamed of! We played outside and ate dinner outside, making the most of admiring the beautiful scenery and for the 2^nd time in Norway we were treated to the wonderful sight of wild dolphins swimming. Unlike a lot of other stops, we didn’t rush off that morning and instead we lounged about, cooking up homemade pancakes and ate them outside.

But then it was time for a full-on afternoon of driving. This time along the national scenic route 5 through Johnsberg national park. The driving dragged on and we struggled to find a space to park for the night. The kids were getting a bit fed up at this point, but we pushed on and eventually found a lovely spot next to some ferocious waterfalls.

It was an early start the following morning as we were all set for an exciting day. Richard had been super organised the previous night and laid all our clothes out, even putting his tea bag in his mug ready for his morning cuppa so we could get on the road as early as possible. We were heading to the Geirangerfjord, one of the most well known and busiest spots for tourists so it was wise to get there early doors. As we started driving, it soon became apparent that there was A LOT of fog. The Geiranger Skywalk is Europe’s highest fjordview at 1500m above sea level, but for us there was no view at all, just white fog all around!

We stayed for an hour hoping that it might lift, but had no such luck. So, we headed back down. Jack did manage to find another troll to take a photo with though.

Further along we wound our way up Eagles road through 11 hairpin bends to see another viewpoint over Geiranger. The view down was still absolutely stunning, so we didn’t miss out completely. And of course, we took the chance to capture a family selfie.

More amazing scenery lay ahead of us as we made our way to Trollstigen, an impressive road that stretches along the landscape. There was a viewpoint at the top, which gave us a pretty cool glimpse of the road below that we were about to take. It looks like a pretty crazy road, but compared to the first one we did, it was relatively easy for Richard to drive down.

Trondheim seemed to be a big city, so we decided to avoid a trip there and instead we chose to make tracks further north.