Trondheim

Monday 30^th September.

The Monk's island in Trondheim Harbour.

Our Captain, Geir Eriksen, or whoever was navigating the ship this morning, is an absolute marvel. Many people I know have trouble reverse parking a small car, not these people. They reversed parked the ship this morning when we docked at Trondheim! Seriously! The Hurtigruten MS Nordenorge, southbound, was already docked and we squeezed in alongside, then continued on until we were parked in behind her. Amazing.

Trondheim is a large town, the 3^rd largest in Norway, and seemed to have a few more pushbikes than Bergen. Alcohol is strictly controlled by the Government here and you need to find a State run bottle’o if you want to buy. On board you are allowed to drink your own alcohol in your cabin, so we made a purchase. We only had to take out a 2^nd mortgage on the house.

All up, I guess we were docked for about 3hrs 45min, long enough to go for a walk and stretch our legs. Temperature in town was 11 C degrees, not too bad, bit brisk but it gets that cold at home on a winter’s morning. We’ll see how we go in a few more days.

Looked for the pate at lunch today and strangely, it seems to be a breakfast thing. So I had to settle for smoked salmon and lamb ham on crackers and some mushroom soup. I’m not going to fall into the trap of eating a big lunch on top of everything else, I’m going to eat as normally as I can. With the exception that maybe tomorrow’s breakfast will be pate and crackers!

After lunch I tried to blog but ended up in a conversation and scenery watching with the Dad we met at the hotel in Bergen. He’s a nice bloke, bit lonely I think. He’s 88 and outlived all his friends and his wife, but he still wants to travel, so he talked his son into this trip. Then a lady from Melbourne joined in and time got away. I was keeping an eye on the time because we were told we would be passing one of Norway’s prettiest lighthouses around 2.45pm, Kjeungskjaer Fyr, so when the time got close I ducked back downstairs and grabbed the camera. Hopefully got some nice shots.

Kjeungskjaer Fyr

 Not long after, there was an announcement that the weather was calm enough for us to traverse the Stokksundet, a very narrow passage, with a very sharp left hand bend. Adhering to the rules of navigation, we sounded our horn to warn potential oncoming craft of our mighty prescence.

Breath in everyone!

Spoke to our friend from the laundry on the first night and she said the astronomy group were going up on deck tonight at 9.30pm, the first of their nocturnal sky watching. The group organiser doesn’t seem like he would be able to organise a dirty weekend down a coal mine, or that ‘other’ thing that I’m too polite to say here. He didn’t think to arrange for all his group to have seats at the 6.30 dinner. Anyway, he reckons that even if the cloud cover is light there’s a chance the Northern Lights will pass through them.

Thanks to tuition at Linda’s regarding washing machines and dryers, Trevor has become quite the Martha Stewart of the laundry here. He took some washing down to the laundry and while he was there he gave advice in the use of the machines to several people, even enlightening some to the fact that their heated bathroom floor could be utilised to dry clothing.

Autumn colours are starting

Now, just a thought, to the English speaking world, we are aboard a Hurtigruten ship, but according to the ‘Cruise Director’, and I use the term very loosely indeed, we are aboard a Hooti-Dooten ship, which makes me LMAO whenever she announces it.

We went up on deck around 9.30pm after we left Rorvik(??) whistle-stop, and miraculously, the clouds parted and the stars were brilliant. The astronomy group arrived, huddled around their mighty leader like a flock of ducks and he pointed out lots of things to them. We couldn’t really hear what he was saying, but he had one of those green laser pointers, the sort that bring down planes, and it was as if he was actually touching the stars. No wonder they’re banned in Australia. He also reckons the Northern Cross is better than the Southern Cross so we might throw him overboard later. I’m sure they both work perfectly well.