Achingly beautiful pictures of Norway all seem to include a person standing on the edge of Pulpit Rock (Preikestolen) gazing to the fjord below.

We'd read up on it but it seemed it was going to be too challenging for us and it was located much further South than we intended to go. Then fate took a turn. A facebook post showed that an Australian friend we made in our 2011 travels in Europe had moved to Stavanger, the city closest to Pulpit Rock. Through facebook messaging she invited us to come and stay. She also said of course we could climb - she had every faith in our ability.

So now we had a plan. The execution of this plan however did not go at all smoothly!

Norwegian Air tickets were bought over the internet to fly from Oslo to Stavanger for the same day we were flying from Longyearbyen to Oslo so that we would not have to overnight in Oslo but just continue our journey. Being that we travel with cabin luggage only and we were going from one part of Norway to another, a 55 minute transit time seemed plenty of time. WRONG on all counts!

Last blog post I mentioned there was a story and here it is.

After buying our duty free wine in a shop in Longyearbyen our first hint of trouble arose when the wine was not sealed in a duty free bag. No, we were told, you have to pack it in your checked in luggage. Well that was a first in all our years of travel. That was the point, in hindsight, we should have cut our losses and decided we didn't need wine! The transaction had already gone through though, so we thought we 'll just check our luggage all the way through to Stavanger, it won't make any difference. WRONG!

On arrival at the Longyearbyen airport, and presenting our tickets we were told several alarming facts:
No, we could not check our luggage all the way to Stavanger
No, we could not get our boarding passes for both flights
Yes we would have to go through passport control at Oslo (!!)
Yes we would have to pick up our luggage then recheck it in and get boarding passes
Possibly we would have just enough time to do all this

After a rather nerve racking flight thinking about how we needed to run through an unknown airport, we ran off the plane and pushed our way, at times rather rudely, through passport control then Avan raced off to find the luggage carousel while I bounded up the escalators to get new boarding passes. The Norwegian Air Staff member admonished me and said there was no time to check in luggage but gave me the boarding passes. Frantically looking for Avan with both backpacks I surveyed one of the busiest airports I have ever seen! We were getting down to our last fifteen minutes when we reunited and pushed our way through security. And here's the cruncher - we still had the wine and couldn't take it through! Donating it to the security staff we made an epic dash for the gate following the signs that helpfully said that our gate was the furthest possible gate away. " allow 10 minutes to gate no......" We had less time than that up our sleeve.

What a sight we must have been - two sixty plus people, harried, desperate, puffing and panting as we ran with our backpacks and our massive red coats from our G Adventures trip! At last the gate number came into view at the very end of the corridor. The desk was unattended and the passengers gone. Only just.... the flight was still listed and we could see the last person boarding. We had missed by less than a minute.

Slumping on the closest seats to catch our breath, we reflected that in all our years of travels, we had never before ever missed a flight.We had come undone in our desire to buy some wine cheaply to give to our next host and now we had missed our flight and didn't have our wine anymore either - the irony of it all!. .

Nothing left to be done now but to negotiate with Norwegian Air for new tickets on the next flight, pay a stupid amount of money for these tickets, let our friend Marisa know we would be late and try and get over it.

Finally arriving in Stavanger, we followed clear instructions from Marisa to her apartment. Finding some shops open along the way, we asked for directions to a shop to buy wine (to replace the ones airport security scored from us), and got an incredulous look. "No, in Norway beer is the only alcohol you can easily buy - wine and spirits are extremely restricted in hours to purchase and places to purchase." Thwarted again! - we never did find anywhere to buy wine to give to our hostess.

After a wonderful night filled with laughter and travel stories with Marisa and Leon, we headed off early the next day to the wharf to catch a ferry then a bus to the start of the climb to Pulpit Rock.

As we made our way upwards on the well marked path, we were passed by statuesque Norwegians to whom this was no hardship at all. A new Mother passed us with a baby in a sling that looked only a couple of days old. Norwegians are amazingly fit and athletic.

The pain was worth the gain. Eventually we arrived to the "pulpit" and took the obligatory photos. Some Norwegians were doing ballet poses right on the ledge. We were a bit more tentative! There are no safety barriers and there have been quite a few deaths of climbers who have lost their footing near the edge. It is a long way down.....

Another fun filled night with Marisa and Leon, then off to the bus station to catch a bus to our next stop the beautiful Bergen.