Bergen, Copenhagen

Bergen really lived up to the stories I had heard:

 

- It's way nicer than Oslo

- the train ride over is spectacular

- it rains 275 days a year.

 

On the train ride over I met possibly the one and only Norwegian with a thick (dirty?) kiwi accent. I was talking to the girl working in the cafe (if you don't have a seat reservation you end up spending a whole lot of time in the cafe) and turns out she had spent 6 months or so in Glenorchy and had developed a genuine kiwi accent, complete with kiwi slang like 'random'. quite funny I thought.

 

I had all up just under 2 days based in Bergen, on my first afternoon I caught a funicular (what the Welly cable car is) to a viewpoint and made my way back down the mountainside, and wandered the city for the evening.

 

It was raining on my second day, I made the most of it by doing a fjord tour called 'Norway in a Nutshell', it was well worth it and I got to see some pretty spectacular scenery. I must say though that if you have been to Milford sound or anywhere in Fjordland then the beauty of Norway's scenery loses a bit of its gloss.

What did crack me up though was all these Japanese and German tourists who were surrounded by this amazing scenery but were taking photo's of the seagulls around the boat! c'mon! get real.

 

Overall Bergen was a great town to visit, I wish I had a bit more time there to have a look around the city itself a bit more, but not this time.

 

I'm now in Copenhagen (I caught a couple of ferry's and a train to get here) and enjoying it. I've just spent the day cruising around the city with Jeremy, a Canadian guy in my dorm which was cool. Tomorrow I'm going to head to Århus and check out that city. A visit to Carlsberg brewery is also high on the agenda, maybe in a day or 2...

Narvik - Oslo in 24hrs, Oslo

I just had a massive 24 hour bus and train trip from Narvik to Oslo, I was only going to travel as far as Trondheim (knocking 7 hours off) I couldn't get the right night train to make that work, so i caught another one and went all the way to  Oslo, I had a rather sore neck this morning after sitting up all night!

 

So I arrived in Oslo first thing this morning and went out for a look around, the best place I went to was Kon-tiki museum about the Norwegian guy (Thor Heyerdahl) who sailed the balsa raft Kon-tiki from Chile to Polynesia, and the reed boat Ra II from Morrocco to Barbados. Quite a guy.

 

Tomorrow I am off to Bergen in the western fjords, the rail trip is apparently one of the worlds finest so I'm looking forward to that. I have a couple of days there and then I'm off to Denmark!

Northern Norway - Narvik

The rail line to Kiruna terminates at a Norwegian port Narvik in the Ofoten Fjord. This is where the Swedes ship all their iron ore to.

A surprisingly nice town, surprising because the guidebook introduced it with "welcome to the town that most Norwegians describe as their ugliest town", it would put many in NZ to shame.

 

In the harbour there are about 35 ship wrecks from WWII, the Germans tried to take the port (and iron) all for themselves, the allies bombed the hell out off them and destroyed the German fleet, which now lies on the seabed, as do a number of allied ships. I learnt all this (and more) at the first museum I'd been to without being dragged there by the parents.

 

I originally had high hopes of spending some time in the Lofoton Islands which border the fjord, they are by all accounts amazing. But due to being told it was too early in the season and the timing of accommodation further down the country I ended up high-tailing it south straight away.

 

 

 

Northern Sweden Kiruna & Abisko

From Tornio we headed down into Sweden, had a rather uneventful day & night in Luleå which consisted of trying to prevent further accomodation problems.

 

Northwards again, we made our way by train to Kiruna, an iron mining town in the Arctic Circle. It was cold and raining so there was not too much to see, there was a railways convention on, whoopie!

This was the point where Nathan left to head back to work in Stockholm, he jumped on a 20 hour train that took him back home, I marched onwards to the tiny villiage of Abisko.

 

What a place! The scenery reminded me of Fiordland and Queenstown, but with birch trees instead of beech. The town is right on the edge of a National Park, so i was obliged to go for a couple of hikes while I was there.

 

The (awesome) hostel runs dog sledding tours in the winter time and the owner Tomas keeps a pack of 53 Huskies, imagine feeding them!

The hostel also has a Wood Sauna, which I decided to give a whirl. Interesting experience, a few mental pictures I'd rather forget but worthwhile nevertheless...

 

I thought this place was fantastic, if anyone is keen to go dogsledding in March next year give me a bell! You'll get to see the Auroura Borealis...

Koupio, Tornio and Hapeenranta. Miles of forest, killer squirrels, and accommodation troubles...

Fact: there are few to zero phone booths in Finland (it is of course the land of Nokia)

Fact: There are many many miles of boring flat road/rail track in Finland, you can afford to have big nights out if you can sleep in transit.

 

We bused from Savonlinna to Koupio. The accommodation we were hoping to stay at (winging it of course) apparently it turns out is not open yet for the summer season, we finally sorted ourselves out to stay at a camping ground which was fine.

 

We dropped our gear off at the camping ground and set off to catch the bus back into town for the night. On the way, Nathan spotted a Squirrel run across the road, I hadn't seen one yet so we proceeded to scare it into moving so I could get a photo. Nathan threw a rock into the scrub to flush it up a tree, all of a sudden there was the noise of something moving fast through the undergrowth - straight for me! My thoughts were "rabid angry squirrel" and I ran like a little girl, it was of course Nathan's rock. He made me write this.

 

Anyway, we went into town, had quite a big night out - watching a (good) Finnish heavy metal band play and then hitting the dance bars!

Early-ish in the night we decided to flag the bus and leave figuring out how to get home until later, when we were thinking straighter... This of course had disastrous results which I will not go into here, but resulted in us getting somewhere between 1 & 2 hours sleep.

 

So the next day, after what you could describe as a poor sleep, we put in our biggest day of travel, train/bus/bus all the way to the Swedish border. Somewhere in the region of 10 mind-numbing hours travel, at the end of which we found our prospective accommodation booked out. We eventually  found a place to stay but not before being swarmed by thousands of bee sized mosquitoes, those things are vicious, clothing and hair are no obstacle.

 

So we settled into our B&B for the night making the promise to plan accommodation ahead from now on!

 

Savonlinna, Finland

On Thursday morning we jumped on a train to go to Savonlinna. This was an experience because we didn't realy know how our railpasses worked and if they were valid on the particluar trains (it turns out they weren't) but we got there and didn't have to pay anything so sweet!

We stopped at a place called Lappeenranta thinking it would be good sight seeing. Don't always trust that guide book. The main attraction the town had was some giant sandcastles down by the bay. These were still under construction so they were a bit of a let down, but still cool enough.

Back on the train and we made it to Savonlinna, what a place! I would draw comparison to Wanaka, with a big medevil castle!

This was a great place to stay, we were only there one night but I could have easily spent more time there.

Usual story - sightseeing (through the castle), wandering aimlessly through town, watching life go by...

We went out of course and had a pretty reasonable if low key night out in a great little town.

Helsinki

I should mention the whole time we were in Finland the temperature was hovering in the region of 25-30 degreesC. (thats just to make you Kiwi's jealous)

getting off the ferry first thing in the morning we had a day to explore Helsinki, we spent ages wandering somwhat aimlessly though the city looking at historical buildings and looking for things like supermarkets.

This is the main Cathedral.

We also spent a lot of time chilling on the grass watching life (girls) go by, it seems everyone was doing the same thing - all of the seats outside the cafe's were lined up in rows facing the footpath.
Later in the day we made our way to our hostel on Suemonlinna Island, this was a Swedish fortress made to (unsuccessfully) repel the Russians.
Our hostel was nice enough, but quiet, so we went to explore the Island, and watch the girls.

Sunset over the city, looking from the ferry to our hostel, very nice!

We went out for the night, Nathan was the one who got quite drunk that night. We met some cool people but going out on a Tuesday night in any city is a recipe for "quiet".

The next day we pretty much did the same stuff. That night we went out to watch the Finland vs. Belgium football match at a outdoor beer garden with a massive screen. The atmospheere was pretty cool and I ended up yarning to an old Finn sitting beside us half the night.

Yea! Finland win 2-0!!

To Finland - the Land of the Finns!

On Monday morning I caught the train to Stockholm with the Olds and Rebecca, we went our own ways at the train station they to see Stockholm and I to meet Nathan.

We caught the Viking Line ferry to Helsinki, its a massive party boat.

Our ferry

We got on board, looked around for a while, enjoyed the view of the Archipeligo, then went to duty free.

The view leaving Stockholm

Long story short, we had some beers, some vodka, I blew out about 9:30pm and went to sleep! What a chump!


Anyway, I woke up fresh for sightseeing (and buying some more duty free) the next day so eh! After all it was only a Monday night!

The Swedish Summer house

Ahh.. the Swedish Summerhouse...

It's old (but sound); it's painted barn red (as are say 40% of the buildings in rural Sweden); it is surrounded by trees and farmland; and it is near a lake (2 actually).

I'm not 100% sure if that description fits all summer houses, but it certainly does Clas'.

The weekend at the summer house was great.

It is about 2 hours east of Gothenberg in Småland outside a little place called Bor.

On the Saturday we went to the glass blowing region of Sweden (they have a whole region) that was pretty cool, we watched some guys make a jug (I know , whoo hoo!! - but it is pretty skillful).

This is a glass dish made at a little bohemian style glass factory

On Dad, Clas & I went Fishing on one of the lakes. We caught 9 fish in about 2 hours which is pretty good going by anyones measure.

We also did a lot of eating, drinking and generallyrelaxing . Oh and we played a game called Kubb - a sort of cross between forceback, patanque and bowling - good fun (google it).

that'll do!

UPDATE

Hey people,

sorry no news in a while, email has been hard to come by in Finland!

We're currently in Kiruna in northern Sweden, it's raining (first day of bad weather - 30ish every other day!).

Nathan heads back to Stockholm now, I'm heading to a small town called Abisko, I'll try and update the blog after that to fill in on details.

Trip has been a mixed bag so far, mostly good but a few cuve balls have been thrown when we didn't have accomodation booked! no worries booking aheaad from now on.

 

cheers for now,

 

Lucas

 

Hej,
Here are some pictures of Sweden.

This is the view from the wedding reception venue, at 4am. It is light here from about this time until about 10pm. When I get to the far north I'll be basking in the midnight sun.

This is the university library in Lund, I though it was a pretty cool looking building. there is free internet in all public libraries throughout Sweden (and I think Scandinavia) which is a bonus for the cheap traveller.

Just near the library there was this statue of an elephant. hmmm...

This is for the engineers out there, it is called the Twisting Torso, in Malmö. The building goes through a 90 degree twist from ground to roof (54 stories).

On Wednesday we drove north from Göteborg for a couple of hours to go to this place where there are thousands of rock carvings from the stone age. It is pretty crazy that they are still there after so long.

One for the kiwi blokes. I went to a 'museum of design' with Mum and Dad yesterday, they had a display that was focused on what makes a perfect shed. Of course the Swede's were more interested in how it looked and funtioned than the more important aspects of what tools are inside and 'can I fit my Holden inside?'.

This week there have been (literally) truckloads of school leavers driving around town dressed as sailors.

Last night we went to the local amusement park, this roller coaster is called the 'Kanon', becuase you launch off at high speed, this ride lasts all of 30 seconds so it was a bit of a blowout really. We did a bigger wooden one first which was really cool, it was massive, rickety and scary as hell. you should see Dad's face on the picture they take as you go around - pure terror, classic.

We're off to the summer house this afternoon for the weekend, it is a couple of hours east of here in the middle/south of the country.

On Monday we train up to Stockholm, leave the folks behind and meet up with Nathan, then we're off to Helsinki.

Sweden pt 1 Stockholm, Goteborg & Malmö

Hej!

 

I'm currently in Malmö, in the south of Sweden. I am staying with Ben King for a couple of nights and having a look around.

I have spent the morning in Lund, a small university city and am about to head out and see the sights of Malmö for the afternoon.

 

When I got to Sweden I spent a couple of days in Stockholm where I stayed with Nathan, we went out for a of drinks which soon turned into a 4am bender! good fun. Unfortunately I did not see too much of Stockholm on that trip, I'll be back for a few days in a month so I'll get a better look around then, it seems like an amazing city.

 

On Friday I caught the train down to Goteborg where Rebecca lives, I was lucky to get through actually, there was an airport strike which meant the trains were packed, and then a train crashed a couple of hours after I came through, shutting the line. I was of course blissfully unaware!

 

On Saturday I went touring around Goteborg with my parents and other sister Megan in the afternoon and then we had the wedding reception party on Saturday night. This was another big bender, we got home about 4am!

 

I head back to Goteborg tomorrow and spend the next couple of days are just going to be poking around the Goteborg area with the olds. On the weeekend we head to the summer house (everyone has one) and then on to Stockholm. I ditch the family at this point and head to Helsinki with Nathan.

 

Sorry there is no pictures in this entry, i might add some when I get back to Goteborg.

 

hej dä

 

p.s. to all those interested, it's not a myth - the woman here really are as beautiful as you think, and they love the kiwi accent!

Japan - Kyoto & Osaka

Well, the Japan leg of the trip is over. I'm currently in Stockholm at Nathan's flat (more on Stockholm later). Japan was a cool stopover, I found the language barrier a bit of an issue, but in general you could get the message across.

Kyoto was great - I arrived via train from Kansai Monday night about 8pm, I found my Hostel with pretty easily. The hostel was sweet as, they hooked me up with good maps which made finding my around really easy. I went out for dinner and had a bit of a wander around town - a couple of things that really took me by surprise was the number of cigarette vending machines and "slots" (gambling establishments, hundreds of machines each).

Tuesday morning I headed out sight seeing, I had a list of 3 temples I planned on visiting before heading back to Osaka for the night. First up was Nanzen-Ji temple, see photo's and comments.

This is a snake I saw on my way up to the temple, I didn't even soil myself!

This is me posing with a group of school girls on top of the Sanmon Gate at Nanzen-ji.

Next on the list was Kinkaku Temple, otherwise known as the Golden Pavilion. The top 2 levels of the pavilion are coated in gold leaf - the place really does glow!

The golden Pavilion

Another posing shot with schoolgirls. It was like I was a celebrity or something!

My final tourist stop was the Kiyomizu Temple, the temple buildings did not seem to be too amazing or anything, but the view was fantastic - it overlooks the whole city. There were literally thousands of people at this place, a bit overpowering for a simple country boy like me!

The gate building at Kiyomizu Temple

After the day's sightseeing, I busted off back to Osaka (which i travelled through on the way to Kyoto). My intention was to find a capsule hotel (New Japan Sauna and Capsule Hotel to be precise) and stay there for the night. things didn't quite go to plan...

I arrived in Osaka about 7pm, the information desk was closed, i didn't have a map. long story short, I walked around town for ~ 4 hours trying to find someone to give me directions/an internet cafe/somewhere to stay/... Eventually after getting some good directions I found the Hotel, only to be shoo'ed away (aparently it was full). I ended up sleeping in some bushes outside a train station...

So, in summary, Japan is pretty cool - go to Kyoto, it's awesome and friendly. Skip Osaka if you're short on time it's not quite so tourist friendly...
Overall - worth the experience, I'll go back!

BYO - Welly

Friday night was my big farewell BYO dinner for my Wellington mates (despite still being around for a week - not lost on some people!).
We dominated Masala for a few hours, Shorty gave a rather long-winded (but entertaining!) speech recounting the last few years he's known me, Carlos & Bennetts chipped in, and I tried to save a bit of face with a reply.
The majority of us went left dinner and hit the upstairs dancefloor at Establishment, here is a sample of the fine moves being put on:

Shake it!

Later in the evening we headed out looking for greener pastures, but ended up at Electric Avenue (as we always seem to do!). Things were a little more subdued by this stage of the night, Bennetts tried his usual "what's something silly i can drink out of a glass?" trick, this time with a flower.

Probably tasted a bit better than that time you drank the candle though, aye!

Last stop for the night was BK (of course) and then home content after a great night out.

Thanks to all who came out and I hope you all had as good a night as I did.
I'm looking forward to heading off on my trip, but nights like this one really make me realise how good I have it here in Wellington, with so many good mates around.

Travel Itinerary

I don't think I have actually said what I am doing on my travels...

 

I leave Wellington in a couple of Monday's (21st), final destination London (who would have guessed?!!) in July.

 

In between I am stopping over in Japan - Kyoto/Osaka - for 2 nights, then onwards to Sweden for 6 weeks or so.

While in Sweden I'm going to go to the second reception for Rebecca's wedding (see previous post) and do a bit of travelling around Scandinavia. My mate Nathan from the halls is going to travel through Finland with me for a while and then I'm going to solo it up through Finland and back down through Norway and Denmark.

Finished Work!

Well, yesterday was my last day of work with Beca in Wellington, so I am officially unemployed for the next couple of months. It feels good!

I was given a greenstone "adze" necklace for my going away present which was pretty cool and good for travelling (especially good for getting into the Walkabout pubs in London!)

I've got a few admin things to do before I leave and a bit more of my trip to sort out, but I'm all set to jet off.
I'm having a massive BYO dinner with 35-odd mates tomorrow night - it's going to be huge!

Rebecca's Wedding

Last weekend was my sister's wedding down in Bannockburn.

I flew down on Thursday morning to help finish the organising and was immediately put to work!

Thursday night all the family went out to dinner with the Swedes - it was good to meet all of Clas' family finally. 17 Swedes came over for the wedding which is pretty impressive.

Friday (the 13th) morning arrives, the day of the wedding. We're all up at 7am to get things sorted. The first snow shower blows through at 8:30am - the southerly has arrived! There's nothing unlucky about Friday the 13th though right?!

Luckily by the time of the ceremony at 4pm the rain and snow had passed and it was actually sunny - although bitterly cold. The ceremony was great, there was about 80 people crammed into the little Bannockburn Church.

The Happy Couple

The reception was held at the Golden Gate Hotel in Cromwell. There were some good, and pretty heartfelt speeches - none more moreso that that of my dad's. after the speeches and (excellent) meal everyone started ripping into it and before long everyone was up on the dancefloor. The band were actually really good - the were called Nova (or something like that) from Dunedin.

The next day we had a BBQ lunch at home, all the wedding guests and neighbours were there and the stragglers (the Keans & and Brent "the moth" Hill) stayed around until 11pm.

This is my parents house

On Sunday I went and biked the Rail Trail from Clyde to Alexandra with Mum, Rebecca, Ana, Lena, Margarita & Inger.

The Clyde Bridge

Mum kept on falling over all the time which was quite funny - except the time when she fell over on a raised boardwalk - she managed to brace herself against a tree but unfortunately Margarita who was following close behind and also took a tumble right off the boardwalk. She put on a brave face but it must have hurt!

Not a bad spot for a picnic!

Rebecca and I had to rush off halfway though the ride so i could catch my plane (we were not making lightning pace). A quick ride from Alex to Clyde (15 minutes - pretty good) and we were off to Queenstown.

So, this was my last trip home before I head off overseas. Mum & dad leave in a couple of weeks, I leave in about 5 weeks. We meet in Goteborg for the 2nd wedding reception.

Abel Tasman Kayaking Trip

I got invited on this trip in early January, because i was saving to go overseas i was hesitant, but then i thought "what the heck! why not!"

Going to the Abel Tasman is one of those "things you should do before you leave New Zealand", seeing as I hadn't done most of those other "things you should do before you leave New Zealand" I decided to go for it.
I'm very glad I went, the company, weather and the surroundings were spectacular. It was just what i needed to break up my last few months of work.

More photos can be found on my ringo site - follow the link off to the right.

Wellington Sevens 2007

We went to the sevens this year as dominoes. The Wellington Sevens are quite a unique experience - 2 days in a foam rubber suit with 21 of your mates amongst thousands of people partying hard.

Below are some of the crew in their kit, above is my attempt at a panorama. More photos can be found on my ringo site.