The Trouble with Travel

It seemed a simple enough travel plan. Get from Scotland to Chamonix to ski the Haute Route then Chamonix to Northern Arctic Norway for a kite skiing expedition race on public transport. Being, of course as Footprint Free as possible.

Its all mainland Europe, the trains and buses are normally pretty good in Europe, its not like I am for an un-built trainline with a never to exist train to take me across central Greenland. However its proving harder than I thought .

Having taken plenty of trains across Europe before, being happy with the potential extra time it may take and prepared, as far as possible, to swallow the extra costs its seems crazy that it seems impossible.

On a recent trip to Finland I asked a friend from Tromso during lunch about getting to Kirkness, in Northern Norway by rail. He liberally laughed-sprayed me with delicate pieces of minced salmon and rye bread from the open sandwich he was eating.  Some stereotypes stick pretty hard. And although he is short and dark rather than massive and blond and had the grace to offer me his napkin to wipe my face and shirt, I still thought. How Skandi can you get!

“The thing is” he said having swallowed his fish, “The Germans stopped building the railway at Narvik during The War and no one has ever bothered to start building it again”. “it takes an hour to fly from Kirkness to Tromso” He continued, starting again on the sandwich causing me to wince. “The bus can take two days. Just take the flight”

And in a nutshell that’s the trouble with travel. Especially when heading off the well trodden path. Often the route everyone takes is the simplest and usually therefore the cheapest and quickest.  It also means that there is every chance you will have to follow the same course.

However don’t despair as there are always options and often they can extend whatever trip you were planning into an adventure either side of whatever you are actually going to do.

Back in Norway we decided that we were going to take the bus. Why not! We had a few days spare, I love The Norwegian coastline, I had always wanted to see the Lofoten Islands which were en-route (kinda) and it was cheap…….for Norway.

However what I hadn’t counted on was on the way back needing somewhere to stay in late March in a shut up tourist town. As we began to get near to Svolvaer and the list of hostels and B&B’s in the lonely planet got shorter and shorter (no 3G!) I nervously wandered to the front of the bus to ask the driver for some advice. It was minus 15c outside and dark despite being four o’clock in the afternoon.

The driver, who obviously spoke impeccable English, explained in an unemotional way that everywhere was shut. Not most places, not the cheapest places but ALL the places. He also, unhelpfully, reminded me the bus would terminate at the next stop.

What stupid decision getting the bus was. Worrying about my sodding carbon footprint and wanting to see more of Norway had now lead to probably sleeping in a freezing cold bus shelter whenever whatever pub we had crawled into eventually kicked us out.

As I turned to go back to my seat a very attractive lady, more Norwegian stereotypes that hold true, sitting in the seat behind the driver clutching a small child looked up at me and said “you can come and stay with me if you are stuck”.

Slightly taken aback and tripping over my immediate British impulse to refuse because it wasn’t polite, I mumbled something like. Areyousureifitsnottoomuchtroublethankyouplease adding at the end, and if there’s space can my girlfriend come too?

As we dumped our grubby bags into the corner of the perfectly balanced Skandi bedroom which overlooked the water and lights of the harbour, the smell of the dinner Cara was cooking up downstairs for her three kids plus two castaways drifted upstairs.

We stayed for three days, cooking a traditional British Sheppard’s Pie as a thank you on the last night, the ingredients for which from the Norwegian Supermarket could have bought a flock of sheep and the Sheppard back in the UK, before continuing southwards.

Although the trouble with travel is that it’s always easier to follow the flock, sometimes if you break from the herd good things happen and you end up with a recued footprint, some new friends and a receipt for a £78 Sheppard’s Pie.