Norway - day eight (Friday)

We left our lovely cabin this morning for a sightseeing drive to the coast.

Our first stop was to Rodven stave church. It was quite beautiful and you could smell the old timber.
We then headed off to the Atlantic road, a 9km stretch of bridges that jutted out over the ocean and linked at the smaller islands to the mainland. We bypassed the toll road and visited the small town (if you could call it that) of Scaret. We had a hot chocolate/tea thanks to our trusty flasks and travel mugs. Then we set off for our next stop, Bud. A fishing village on the coast. This was our first view of the Norwegian ocean. Quite different to our own, it was dotted with rocky islands and inlets. Bud also has a WW2 sight, Ergan Costal Fort.

Then it was on to Vevang and the beginning of the Atlantic road. All the pictures we've seen we're quite impressive, and indeed the big twisting bridge over the ocean was impressive but it was hard to tell where the bridges were as they had reclaimed land and filled sections with road. A little confused and disappointed we changed our route home so that we could drive the route again. Using the GPS map as a guide we were able to pick the different islands and identify where the 'bridges' were.

Before we made our second trip over the Atlantic road we climbed up on some rocks and enjoyed hotdogs for lunch (bread rolls, grated cheese left over from our narchoes the other night and these funny sausages they have here). We then drove a complete circle of the island we were on to go and see Kvernes stave church. It was good to get out and stretch our legs properly.

Back over the Atlantic road, a little less perplexed Andrew and I mapped our new route home. The original plan was to drive from Kristiansand (where we thought the Atlantic road ended) back down the roads avoiding the tolls and ferry crossing we'd done on the way over. Our new route included a toll (20kr) and then snaked around the fjord to avoid the ferry. It was a long drive (2hrs) raining most of the way but it was interesting to see the fjord and how it changed from the beautiful turquoise body of water to a dark and foreboding space.

We've just finished dinner (chicken mince, broccoli and rice) and the boys are washing up. We'll need to plan tomorrow soon but it's late (9pm).