Hurtigruten; Thursday, 17 January, 2008

It had been a bumpy night, and it was obvious in the morning that whilst I had slept there had been a bit of movement (my phone had slid off the side of the table, across the cabin floor and to the bottom end of my bed, which made switching off the alarm a little more difficult and consequently any attempt to go back to sleep impossible. Sadly for me I had decided that it would be a good idea to get up early, have a shower, pop into Trondheim and deposit my luggage and come back to the ship before Breakfast. Consequently my alarm went off at 6:30

I duly got up, showered, finished packing, checked with the person on ship reception that I was OK to get off and then get back on again for Breakfast and headed out into the crisp winters morning. I felt surprisingly sprightly, which was good as virtually the whole of today would be spent travelling, and a considerable lot more than I had planned. When I had originally booked I had about 45 minutes to spare in Bergen to change planes, tight, but with Norwegian reliability easily doable. Then the flight times had changed, the flight to Bergen had slowly got earlier and the flight from Bergen later, in the end I was looking forward to about two hours forty minutes of flying and three hours thirty minutes of sitting around in a small airport which I new didn’t have much in the way of facilities!

I followed the signs leading from the harbour front through a maze of streets heading towards the town centre, after about 5 minutes of walking I emerged at the back of the Nordkapp which was moored up behind the Nordlys, still I would know for the return leg. It was about a ten minute walk to the station where I quickly located the left luggage lockers and dropped off all my luggage and unnecessary stuff (like books and laptop) and once I had locked the door realising that I had left my hat and gloved in the locker. I couldn’t be bothered to pay another forty krone so I decided that as it had been quite mild on the walk down to the station it would remain that way. Thankfully I was proved right, but walking around town in just a jacket with no hat or gloves it became obvious quite quickly that I was being mistaken for a local as I was offered Credit cards and asked directions.

I walked back to the Hurtigruten by my improvised short cut route, which did envolve dodging a couple of fork lift trucks, but as other people were walking this way I felt that this was probably acceptable good practice. After my last breakfast aboard I disembarked again to join the morning sightseeing tour. The tour is run for passengers off of both boats, with the southbound passengers (of which I no longer was one) having to be rushed back at the end of the tour to make the 10am departure. As so 90 minutes after waking up and officially before the crack of dawn (but this is Norway in winter and dawn is a lazy thing not bothering to slide out of bed until the other side of ten.) we set off for a tour of Trondheim.

The first hour we went on a coach tour around the city centre and main sights, and then up to a view point over the city where there were some stunning views of the pre-dawn city. After taking in the views here and then a bit of a further drive we arrived, on the dot of nine at the Cathedral where we had a guided tour.

The Southbound passengers (and Northbound passengers who didn’t want to walk) were whisked back to the ship and I had a bit of a further wander around the city, now with the streetlights out and a warm winters sun in the sky (which as odd as all the thermometers dotted around the city insisted that it was –1).

An hours wandering later I found myself back at the station where I brought a ticket to the station next to the airport and picked up my luggage from the locker. I settled into the train for the half hour journey to the airport, which had the added treat of the penultimate stop…

Just to the south of the airport, is a small town. To the Norwegians the name is insignificant, but on a cold winters day, with snow lying thick on the ground, the photographic potential of a wintry scene in Hell is just too much to miss. I now have a photograph that I will print out and use the next time someone tells me that “that won’t happen until Hell freazes over” I can produce and say it already has! (I would like to repeat, for those who have not already picked it up from earlier comments and postings, I am not a nice man!)

Værnes station is located almost at the end of the runway of Trondheim airport (or to give it its full tame Trondheim Lufthaven Værnes), and it is obvious that soon this will be an important integrated station that links to the city centre. At present the train service is hourly, and you have to walk down a long corrugated iron tunnel to get to the terminal building! Having checked in I went through security and waited for my flight. It left on time, I had been hoping for a bit of a delay, so that I didn’t have so long to wait at Bergen. I was doubly disappointed when it landed five minutes early and proceeded to pull straight up to a gate and start off loading fast. Doubly dissapointed when I found out that the flight back out of Bergen was delayed by an hour.

So here I was, sat in the international departures lounge (occupying about the same space as a single gate room at Gatwick or Heathrow) draining the last remnants of the battery in my laptop, trying to avoid reading my book as I knew I only had enough of it left to last the flight. Looking up I saw a picture on the wall of the Trolfjord, and there in the middle, paying a visit during summer time was the Nordlys, clearly identifiable and a reminder that despite all the travelling I had been to some spectacular places.