We woke up in our tent with a bit of a cloudy day, but the cloud soon lifted and we had a another warm day. We drove back to the Freeway from our forest camp (we were only camped about 4km from it) and headed north. We needed to get more supplies in cheap Sweden before we got to expensive Norway. We stopped at a holiday town of Stromstad, just south of the border with Norway. In the nice town of Stromstad we found other people doing the same as us, stocking up before Norway. There was a large supermarket with camper vans and other travellers parked outside, buying cheap Swedish food inside.
After getting another few more days food (we have about 8 days), and petrol, we then drove north, and crossed the Norwegian border. At the border there was customs. We had 19 cans of cheap Swedish beer, and 2 cans of cheap Swedish meatballs, did that count as something we should declare? Luckily we didn’t have to answer the question as no-one on Sunday was manning the customs booth.
We paid our first of many Norwegian road tolls. 23Kr (about $4) at the border, and then about 3 more of another 23Kr-30Kr that will be charged automagically on our credit card at some future date. We got to Oslo and headed for our third airbnb accommodation.
This airbnb did not go as well as the previous two. The complication with Airbnb is you have to meet someone to get a key. In this case the owner was on holidays and we had to meet someone else to get the key. The someone else was in the middle of the city, and our experience of Oslo is it is very hard to go straight between two points. Oslo is a city of cul-de-sacs. Our mobile phone was sending SMSs but somehow not receiving them. The person we were picking the key up from was not totally sure where the apartment was. Anyway, all the running around took 4 hours. We eventually got into our very nice but sparsely furnished apartment at 6:30pm.
As for Norwegian prices? Well it cost $A2 to go to the toilet at Oslo Central Station. A good way of comparing countries costs is to compare the cost of fast food. The Big Mac index is used to compare living costs worldwide. A Big Mac meal in Australia costs about $A8, in Oslo it costs $A16. Fuel costs $A2.70 a litre.
Judy using the internet
Loading up supplies in cheap Sweden before reaching expensive Norway
Tents a bit big you could rent part of it out Greg on the first class deck thats were all the OLDIES hang out beware. big and nice looking motor homes did you note where they came from Norway very dear know road side veg stores how is the rubbish around camp sites have you Seen any one in Viking Armour going back to the moterhomes they look more sleek than ours
It’s the biggest tent we’ve ever had, Ron. We have had it for a few years and never used it. We brought it because it has a fully enclosed front bit and we thought we’d need it to get away from mosquitoes and other flying insects …. and we do! We haven’t camped at any official campgrounds or campsites, just found places on tracks in the forest. No rubbish where we’ve camped so far.
No Vikings yet, but we’re planning on going to see a Viking ship tomorrow.
That motorhome in the photo is one of the biggest and fanciest we’ve seen. Hate to think how much it costs to fill their fuel tank. Most of them are smaller, more like the other one in that photo. Have only seen about 2 camper trailers.