The MesserSmith Adventures

  The day dawned calmly and serenely, with only the sound of the tide gently lapping on the rocks breaking the silence.  Until….yyyying ting ting ting….yyyyiiiing ting ting….pop pop pop bang …silence.  (Then more tinny lawn mower noises etc). It appears that Norwegian yoofs are just as inconsiderate and annoying as the ones back home. 😂. We think his trials-type bike was suffering from fuel starvation…but he kept on trying. He was close to suffering with ‘fuel starvation’ if Richard or John had laid hands on him! After a breakfast of Norwegian sausage sandwiches - (veggie Lynn had weetabix and fruit) - a couple of locals ventured over, looking at the Lynn and John’s motorhome’s numberplate and shouting “vive la France” and “we still remember the war” (ooooh blimey!). We had quite a long chat with them about all sorts, and the one guy had just come in from a fishing trip. He said he was going over to see the Thai ladies and give them crabs. Hmmmmm. Interesting. Then he of...

Bertie has not been himself. He has lost his sparkle and energy, preferring to take very short walks or sleep! He has been eating ok ….. but he just hasn’t been Bertie! So Lynn contacted a Norwegian vets practice today who said they would be more than happy to see him. We left the campsite after the usual emptying and filling practices and within 35 minutes we were parked up at the vets, and Bertie - who suddenly appeared full of vim and vigour (isn’t that always the way?!) - happily trotted in. Fortunately, Lynn had had the foresight to video Bertie’s behaviour so that the vet could see how he had been.  They asked us to go back on Thursday when they will have time to do a detailed examination…..and then asked Lynn if she had insurance….gulp! 😳😂. So the upshot of today is that we have until Thursday to explore the immediate area.  We left the vets, which had been on the outskirts of Trondheim and set off in a generally northerly direction towards Flakk  and, after pass...

It is a week today since we left home on our Great Adventure - and we have experienced so much in such a short frame of time, it has been an amazing journey so far and woo hoo! we have another 6 weeks to go! Tomorrow we are still heading towards the Arctic Circle and have more places to visit en route, thanks to information received from the site owner where we are staying tonight.  We have had a lovely, partly lazy day today - and by that I mean no driving for the boys, however we have all been doing chores, including clothes washing and drying, changing beds, checking oil and water levels on the bobils, emptying the loos and other stuff too boring to mention. Hahahaha! BUT!!! We saw a red squirrel today! He came so close to Lynn and I (I was holding Bertie at the time and tried to keep him facing in the opposite direction 😂), that we thought he wanted to talk to us. Talk about a Beatrix Potter moment. Magical. Lynn managed to get pics of him whilst he examined a box of Johns stu...

Today we  couldn’t find James Brown or the KLF so we took it to the bridge. And went over it before stopping for a cheese and ham toastie / salsa cheese toastIe / gluten free strawberry cake at the bridge’s visitor centre.    Drizzly day so we headed for the tunnels again.  Much to a John’s disgust. And a ferry too. Saw some Indians but no cowboys!  So easy on the ferries - queue up (short queues), drive on ferry, have pic of numberplate taken, van measured (I think they charge by the metre!!) drive off!  We next stopped at an indoor shopping mall where John and Richard had a wonderful time watching us browse, before heading off to do the food shopping followed by going back to the Bobils.  Lynn and I had a lovely (brief-ish) shop before getting a case of the guilts and heading back. 😂😂 The rest of the day was spent driving to our next stop at Orkland, at a campsite Hogkjolen Fjellcamp with washing machines and tumble dryers, and a huge Yurt with a f...

After a serene start to the morning , today was mostly bridges. High ones, curvy ones, blue ones and long ones. And the best bridge of all….the  Storseisundet bridge. But to get there….tunnel after tunnel after tunnel. Like UB40 said, “1 in 10” … and that was just the gradients.  It was rather overcast today although no rain, so the pics are not as good as we hoped; we have decided to re-drive the bridges tomorrow because they were just amazing. We have ended up camping on a private jetty overlooking rolling rock islands… Lynn even  spotted a Black Cormorant (aka ‘a Shag’ in New Zealand). Dinner was sausages, beans and mash. Perfect. And for dessert Frankske Sjokolafetroffler. Aka chocolate truffles 😂😂 A small glass of rose helped to lubricate the evening. The boys snoozed until dinner whilst Lynn and I reminisced about The Fish Stool Incident, eye patches and Jean’s crimplene tray cover. If you know, you know. 😂😂😂.   John has just reminded us that we need to fi...