Wow so this blog has been pretty quiet for the past couple weeks or so and for good reason - I've been off travelling again! At the end of July I spent a week in Norway on an Oak Hall trip with my mum and grandma. I'd never heard of Oak Hall before, apparently it is quite a well known Christian group that organises expeditions out around the world. I'm actually not Christian myself so the evening bible talks were a bit awks, but my grandma booked it and asked if we'd like to come along, and crikey I was not going to say no to Norway!
We landed in Stavanger and joined a group of about 50 people of various ages, with loads of people in my age group including people who turned out to live 5 minutes away from my student house in Leicester which was pretty ace! We stayed in this amazing remote cabin by the Skanevik fjord, right up in the mountains and a couple hours drive from anywhere, with huge grounds leading down to a pontoon for swimming and kayaking in the waters as well as access to trek over to a little nearby island. We were lucky enough to have beautiful weather throughout our trip with only a little rain - but mostly sunny hot weather!
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| view from our cabin |
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| lazing on our pontoon... |
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| waiting to take a dip in this glacier lake after a hike! |
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| Deceivingly cold water. |
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| Crossing the fjords in a ferry. |
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| The warehouses of Bergen |
We were kept busy with a few excursions - to Haugesund to pootle around the Viking area, to the second biggest city Bergen to investigate the fish market and check out the colourful waterfront warehouses, and a hike up a mountain to see a glacier and to swim in the glacier lake if we were truly Viking enough (freezing water but brilliant after a sweaty hike in 25 degrees C weather!)
Norway is an expensive place to visit, but it was manageable with this all-inclusive group holiday. Honestly the mountains were the best part of it - the cities weren't really anything overly special and quite expensive, so it was far better to stick around the remoter parts and soak in the amazing landscape.
I'm not sure if I'd partake with Oak Hall again - I mean it is a Christian holiday group and I felt pretty awkward missing the evening bible readings, but too uncomfortable sitting there for an hour listening to things I didn't necessarily agree with. That being said, I met some really lovely people and made a bunch of new friends which was cool - spending a week together with kayaking, hiking around islands, a hilarious barn dance and sitting out on a pontoon at 1am in the pitch black is a pretty good way to bond!
If you ever have the chance to see the Norwegian fjords, do it! The scenery is beautiful and you can have some amazing experiences out there.
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