Travelling.
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| Leaving Burghead |
Why are British trains always late? It was a bit better than my last sleeper trip to London that arrived six and a half hours late but I still arrived and hour later than scheduled on Sunday.
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| Tree nursery at Newton |
It started well enough with a walk to Elgin, as there are no buses on Sundays and the train to Aberdeen was nearly on time. Apart from the overcrowding and lack of air conditioning on the train to Edinburgh that one wasn't too late either but the "express" train to London was half an hour late starting and then lost another half an hour by the time it arrived. Not a major problem but a nuisance as it was 23.00 by the time I got to the hotel at Heathrow.
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| An Airport terminal |
I was too keen to get to the airport on Monday morning and got through check in and security much too early and then spent most of the day sitting airport terminals. I knew that I had a long wait in Oslo for the connection to Narvik but the time still dragged. Like all airports it is too far from Oslo to make it worth going into the city so I just had to do French lessons, eat expensive food and watch the crowds, I could have been in any airport in the world, they're all the same.
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| Flying into Oslo |
It was a bit of a shock after all the good weather recently to arrive at Narvik airport to 12⁰ and rain, but it was only a short walk to the hotel after a long wait for my rucksack.
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| A very grey Narvik airport |
I woke up at 00.30 and looked out to daylight, brighter than when I arrived. The next morning it was still overcast but dry as I walked back to the airport to get a bus for the hours journey to Narvik.
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| On the way to Narvik |
From Narvik there was a rail replacement bus to Abisco that left in the early afternoon so I had some time to wander around Narvik look at the sights and buy some gas.
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| Narvik |
I spent some time in the Narvik war museum which has an exhibition about the events in 1940 leading up to the German control of Narvik maintain the supplies of Swedish iron ore needed to maintain the war.
The exhibition finishes with the cold war and some interesting thoughts about peace and the current world problems.
There is an interesting old locomotive at Narvik railway station, one of the first to be used on the "Arctic Railway". Unfortunately I had to take a bus.
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| Norwegian huts |
There were a lot of wooden huts, cabins? Beside the numerous lakes many with no vehicle access, I wonder if they are used all year round?
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| Abisco |
Abisco is really a winter sports venue although there were quite a lot of people about and I imagine that it will be busy during the summer holidays. I got a cheap windowless room to myself in a hostel that specialises in winter tours and had a meal in another rather more upmarket hostel where there was a crowd of people watching World Cup football.
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| Moose was on the menu as well as the wall |
I'm looking forward to starting the walk tomorrow with no more public transport for a while.
