Berlin has been an adventure! When we first got to the campsite we wanted to stay at they didn’t have any room but there was a hostel there as well which we ended up staying in for 2 nights. This worked out better for Aaron’s ankle anyway which by this time was quite sore & swollen. We debated going to the hospital but decided not to.

The next day we used public transport to visit my old neighbours Carsten & Verena. They took us out to lunch at a Turkish place & then Carsten took us sightseeing in their car. We saw the section of the Berlin wall that is still up, the Jewish memorial, the Brandenburg gate and the Reichstag.

The next day we set out to find a new campsite which proved more difficult than we thought it would be. It didn’t help that our gps had decided to give up. The first one we got to was full. By the time we got to the next one it was the reception was closed for 2 hours. ( a lot of caravan parks here have what’s called a middag pause, sort of like a siesta, no one is allowed to drive their cars & you have to be as quiet as possible) The carpark was a nice shady spot and it looked like the caravan park had room so we thought we would have lunch and read for a bit and wait for the reception to open. However once the reception was open & we walked through the caravan park to get there, we felt like we’d walked into a ghost town. There was literally no one there. There were caravans but no people. It was very creepy. There was someone at reception but they didn’t speak English & jus told us there was no room, even though there clearly was. We were pretty discouraged at this point but thinking back on it we are glad we didn’t stay at that weird place. We sat in the carpark a little while longer trying to figure out where to try next. Then I decided our van would look much better with a big dent in it by backing into a tree. While we were recovering from that a Polish family came up to us asking if we knew of any other campsites because they had been rejected by the creepy caravan park as well. We bonded over our mutual rejection & told them where we were going to try next. Thankfully the next caravan park was normal & had room. But that was Monday which we felt had been a bit of a waste of the day but anyway!

Tuesday we set out to do some more sightseeing. We did one of those hop on/hop off buses which meant Aaron didn’t have to walk as much & that was fun. We went to Checkpoint Charlie & the museum there which is filled with amazing stories of how people escaped from the East to the West. Things like homemade scuba tanks, two suitcases joined together to fit one person inside & a flying fox that was used along the power lines are some examples of how people escaped. Unfortunately the museum was very hot & stuffy and we didn’t spend as much time there as we would have liked to.

We found that without Carsten as our tour guide it was a bit harder to get by with my very limited German. We’ve been a bit spoilt in the Scandinavian countries where everyone speaks English. Here we get a very mixed response.

Wednesday we did some shopping & then had dinner at Carsten & Verena’s. I really liked the area where they lived, I probably could never live there myself, but it was cool to see. Its a very multicultural, busy, colourful area. We are finding it hard to imagine that cities like New York are going to be even bigger & even busier!

From Berlin we travelled south to stay in a castle hotel for my birthday. It’s a beautiful area and we’ve really enjoyed the luxury of a ensuite & comfortable bed. It’s fun to imagine what the castle would have been like hundreds of years ago. Yesterday we visited other castle ruins nearby. We’ve been here two nights now & are driving to Prague this afternoon which is only about 150kms from here.

Till then, Elky

Photos are still refusing to work, sorry!

Ok, trying to catch up on the blog, its hard to remember what we’ve done when we’re this far behind!

We spent a day sightseeing Oslo which we both enjoyed. We went on a boat to a Viking ship museum which had excavated boats, treasures & skeletons from the 1100s or something like that. The amount of detail in all the wood carving is amazing. We also visited the Nobel Peace museum, mostly because it has to be done. The Oslo town hall is where the Nobel Peace prize is given out so that was cool too.

We were in Oslo on a Sunday so after 4 weeks of backsliding we went to the Oslo International Church which we enjoyed. It was pretty small & everyone had to introduce themselves & say which county they were from. As soon as the service was over a girl comes up to talk to us & it turns out she lived in Adelaide for 3 years & went to the same uni Aaron did around the same time. So we had a long chat with her about cultural differences & such things.

After Oslo we spent 2 days driving in the direction of Stockholm but as I wasn’t feeling very well we never made it to the city but spent our time at the caravan park doing some washing & relaxing which was kind of nice but nothing very exciting to tell.

We then spent 3 days driving to Berlin. One exciting thing that happened on this trip was that on the middle day we managed 3 meals in 3 countries: breakfast in Sweden, lunch in Denmark, dinner in Germany which for me has been a bucket list item since year 7. The meals were not very exciting so we may have to do it again later on in our trip.

The only other “exciting” thing that happened was that Aaron sprained his ankle quite badly the first night in Germany but more on that in the next installment. Also all the Oslo photos are on Aaron’s iPad so I can’t post any here, sorry!

Hi again!

Yes, we havent posted a blog for a while, yes we are slack, yes to everything else, but its not our fault!

Im trialing a new blogging app…and it seems to lack a spell check and im too tired to bother proof reading this…so no giggles please! Also the images arent working at the moment…so bear with me.

This is the best internet connection we have had for a while and thus is the first blog we have…bothered to post for a while.

Ok! Where did we leave off…(quickly reads last blog post.) Copenhagen? Okay, we’ve been to sweden and most of norway since then!

Okay, enough of this banter, you want details! Details you shall have!

After ditching denmark, we travelled to sweden and stayed in a random camping spot which would have benefitted from less boggy grass, in our case at least. This photo actually makes it look really nice though…

Swedish Campsite

We then set out the next day and found a better campsite in a nice forest and didnt have any trouble with the bears, which was pleasant.

That very day we stumbled upon an ancient ruin of a medievel castle (after following the signs) and explored it with great joy and enthusiasm. That was fun i guess. This castle was built on a cliff overlooking a massive lake so i guess i can see why they built it there

Lake something-or-other

Yes. Thats a lake.

The next day we kind of stayed around the same area and went to visit some aquaduct which was important for some reason. We had the honour of watching some kyakers pass through the ..water..gates? Nixon was nowhere to be seen. Cool stuff as you can imagine.

We then went to an old barrow and checked it out, which i did find a little more interesting, but then we ran back to the car after hearing some growling. Must have been those bears again…

That night we stayed in a denmark sized caravan park, at the foot of some mountain and looking out over some lake.

The next day was fairly uneventful, we drove as far as we could to the norwegian border and stayed there for the night in another caravan park on a lake. We didnt visit the volvo gods, who apparently lived nearby, but we might on the way back.

FINALLY we crossed over to norway after staying near the volvo gods and it has been amazing here. The scenery is breathtaking everywhere you look here, its just beautiful. There are also tunnels here which are very kindly built to allow you to go through mountains instead of around them, which is not fun. 25 km tunnels with stuff all lighting isnt very fun either, but i guess its better than getting squashed between a bus and a cliff, like we almost did.

Amazing looking Fjords in Norway

We stopped in Oslo for 5 seconds before continuing on to Bergen, which was an amazing, two day drive. We got so high that we got to actually get out and er…play..in the snow! Pretty cool considering its actually summer here (you wouldnt know it though, im currently stuck inside a kiosk while a terential downpour stands between me and the camper)

Lord Snow

Bergen was best visited by train and then foot, as our camper was too hard to fit into normal car parks. We wandered around, had pizza in a chinese shop then decided to catch the cable car up to the top of high hrothgar or whatever it was called. Epic view up there and stacks of walking trails, it made us feel like proper hikers!

Instead of walking down, we decided to be lazy and caught the cable car back down. It felt less safe with more people in it than last time.

View over Bergen

Since then we have travelled back to Oslo and are currently waiting for the rain to stop so we can go back to our little home.

See ya later!

Aaron