Summer 2016 in Norway; Expenditures

Hey everyone.

This is my expenditures during my visit to Oslo and Stavanger. You can deduct any non relevant information such as walking pole. Hope this information is useful for your planning!


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Summer 2016 in Norway (Day 4)

Day 4 in Norway, third day in Stavanger.

Today we decided to walk around the city centre and its area whilst waiting for our departure in the evening.

Nearby at the hostel there's supermarket where you can buy groceries and cook it at the hostel. There's also halal shop next to it. Halal food is really a no issue here. I'm glad.

We started geocache in this city as well. You can look up caches that we found in from these tags.

There's a playground full of graffiti and also a petroleum museum you can go into. Not sure if it is free or not. We walked around the city centre, saw a lof of interesting graffiti on the wall. There was a small market in the middle of the square. Can buy some souvenirs here as well.

We also went to the Old Stavanger where there's houses of local people there. The houses are beautiful. Significantly this place had a huge accident from fire. They restored it and become beautiful again.

There's a canned fish museum in the area as well. I bought myself two canned of fish for lunch. NOK20 each. Not bad.

 
There's also concert house nearby. We walked all around the city.

Almost two in the afternoon we went back to our hostel to have our lunch together with naan and grab our bag. At 4pm we went to the bus station to catch a bus to the airport. Instead of getting onto airport express bus we use public bus number 2 and 42 by Kolumbus for only NOK33 for single ride of one hour compared to express will cost NOK100++. Its just that we need to change buses during middle of the journey. Along the way there was beautiful scenery.

We reached at the Stavanger airport after an hour. I love the lounge in the airport after the security check point. They have comfortable spacious sofa. In the international departure area they have comfortable sofa too. We flew with Norwegian flight number DY1336 to London Gatwick from Stavanger Sola for £36.40 per person. So cheap. Glad that found this flight rather than take a train ride back to Oslo Rygge, after found out that we need to take bus from Stavanger to another station.

 
Anyway, our flight took off at 8.05pm due to delay because of high traffic at London Gatwick. We reached destination at 9.00pm BST.

Thank you Oslo and Stavanger. Love your architecture, infrastructures and nature. We will comeback soon and will include Trolltungga in our itinerary,

That's the end of it!

Summer 2016 in Norway (Day 3)

New day.

Woke up at 6.00am. Packed all the food and drinks. Bought shawarma yesterday to eat on top of Kjerag. We walked for 10 minutes to the bus station nearby the lake. At 7.30am the bus took off from the station. Of course, we bought the ticket earlier before we get here. The ticket cost us NOK550 per person. There's no special discount its just that there's only one trip per day return by bus so it's better to book early. Bought at the same website at tide.no. Bus tour will only happen in the summer from June. You can check out on their website.

After an hour the bus stop at the restaurant in Byrkjedalstunet. It is a hotel as well. It was a former candle factory site. We were given 30 minutes to go around here, have a breakfast. We tried their pancake with home made strawberry and berry jams. It was so delicious! Plus the pancake was really soft. Love it.

The journey continued after the break. Along the way there's great scenery. There's still bunch of snow on the hillside as well, in the summer! The bus driver showed us the picture when the road opened for the hiking, the snow was really thick. It's like 5 meter depth. When getting closer to the destination the road is getting narrower. Better to be careful here. If you drive to the Kjerag you need to pay entrance fee. I forgot how much was it but since we were with the tour bus we don't need to be in queue to pay.

After an hour and half from restaurant we reached the car park area. They have restaurant and toilet where you can wash yourself and change clothes. The weather was nice when we get there but the dark cloud are seems moving in. But since we are here and already paid for it we're just gonna hiking up. The place was not crowded as in Preikestolen. But for sure it is longer than Preikestolen which is 4.8km long and almost 1km high when you reach at the cliff.

We started hiking at almost 11am. I was pretty scared at the beginning. With not so convincing surface which most of it are rock surface, you need reliable hiking shoes. Anyway, there's railing along the way up so if you have walking pole it may bring inconvenience, just like what happen to us. At the end we were just holding to the railings rather that use the walking pole.

The trail was difficult for us. It can be medium to hard level of hiking. Along the way there is a flow of river. I love rivers. After 2 hours of hiking and maybe half of the journey, we decided to turn back as the weather got really bad - strong wind and rain. Plus we need to go back at the carpark at 4.45pm for the bus. It is better to drive here rather than taking the bus as you can take your own sweet time to appreciate this beauty. Anyway, we bumped into another person she said she can't really see anything with this bad weather. Really unfortunate. We stopped for awhile and have our spicy korean halal ramen. It really help us to warm ourselves by eating super spicy food which it was not that spicy for us.

After 30 minutes we started to hike down. A bit of struggle. But we made it to the parking lot in two hours. We cleaned ourselves using the hose at the toilet. Then went into the restaurant nearby for hot chocolate and see the view below. Apparently we starter hiking at around 400-600 meter above sea level? I can't remember how high it was. It was written at the wall of the restaurant. There's also bunch of souvenirs you can buy from here. Warm clothes, key chains, fridge magnets, etc.

We are disappointed not to be able to conquer this cliff. Thought of standing on top of rock that sandwiched by the cliffs. Next time maybe. For sure we will comeback again soon. At 4.45pm sharp the bus left the place. We reached Stavanger around 7.00pm. We had our hot shower and sleep.

...To be continued

Summer 2016 in Norway (Day 2)

Can't really sleep well as the train stop, passenger in, passenger out and go. Don't really fancy to use earplug. Totally woke up at 5.00am. The sun is already out. Can see great scenery outside. Then comes an announcement that we need to get off from train because apparently there are some upgrading work or something ahead. So we need to take bus, obviously for free, to continue our journey to Stavanger.

An hour plus bus ride we made it to Stavanger bus station, nearby a lake. We arrived at 8.00am a bit later than scheduled. We walked all the way to our hostel which we booked from booking.com called The Pop-up Hostel. For one night they charge NOK500. We prepare ourselves for the hiking of the day - to Preikestolen or Pulpit Rock.

We walked again to the city and reached ferry station. We bought a ticket from website which includes ferry ride from Stavanger to Tau and bus ride from Tau to Preikestolen car park. All in for return costs NOK300 each person. Just show the ticket to the conductor and you're good to go. You can check them out at tide.no. 

In the ferry there's cafe where you can buy foods like sandwiches, snacks and drinks. But it's a bit of expensive and no halal food on board. So it is better to pack your snack and lunch before going to Preikestolen. The ferry ride won't take long. About 30 minutes or so it reaches destination.

Immediately when it open the gate we board on the bus. From Tau to Preikestolen most probably took another 30 minutes to reach destination. There were some sort of guide at the time we're on the bus. According to the guide they will have a longest underwater tunnel for car in the region set to be completed in 2019, so there will be no more ferry. It's bit sad that they will abolish ferry service.

Almost noon, we started to hiking up to Preikestolen. It was a hot day, good day to hike! At the beginning it was a bit hard because of the steepness. But it get easier and manageable. There are a lot of rock path so you might want to take care of your knee because of the hard impact when walking. Good shoes which good in grip and soft sole should be fine. Additional equipment like walking pole will be helpful. There were a lot of people hiking up and down during this hour, so don't let the trail clogged by stopping in the middle of the trail. Step aside and let people past by.

After almost two hours of hiking we made it to the top! The view was super totally amazing! There were a lot of people on the cliff and do the hanging feet... I just couldn't do it. Too scared. But to see the view from up there was totally amazing. Blue sky with blue water and green and grey surface. Subhanallah moment. Thank you god for this opportunity to see your beautiful creation.

We found a peaceful spot where there are less people. Have to climb a bit more. We spent about two hours there, printing the scenery into our mind. Breathe the clean air... Well there are some people who smokes, peed and do BBQ up there though. We hiked down and it was not really easy as I need to take care of my knee because the day after we want to hike up Kjeragbolten! It took us about 1 hour and 30 minutes to reach parking lot and just in time to buy souvenirs and board on the bus. Although you bought the ticket earlier there is no fix time. You can just board any time you want but keep aware of the schedule. 

We reached Stavanger again and immediately look for halal restaurant to eat. There are several of them, just like in Oslo. It is a bit pricey here. In London you can get £3 of kebab but here the price is around £8. Have to ready for that. But we were too hungry so we ordered some kebab and some rice with it. Eat those at the hostel.

After the dinner we had our hot shower and sleep to recharge for tomorrow's hiking.

...To be continued