Setting off for Norway

The packing was just as complex for this trip as it was for South America. If you think about it, travelling up from Bergen in the South of the country, crossing the Arctic Circle and heading to 80 degrees North is going to involve something of a temperature curve. We're estimating around 20 degrees to start and going down to around 5 degrees in Svalbard. So, the suitcase contents need to reflect that challenge and, yes, layers it is!

We spent a significant amount of time finding long johns, thermal shirts and heavy clothing and then discarding them because we thought it unlikely that we would be gambolling in the snowy wastes but rather would be gazing at it from a bus with an odd sniff of cold air at selected viewpoints. Who knows? We then put most of them back in again! We are very much venturing into unknown territory here, even though we did the whole Norwegian coast up to Kirkenes in the depths of winter. But you know what you're going to get then - minus 15C if you're lucky and minus 30 upwards if you're not, particularly inland.

The two cases that we have decided to take filled up slowly and both of us gathered "essentials" to be certain that no eventuality was uncovered. Gabrielle of course did a rationalisation of what we are taking and decided two cases were sufficient (although we started with three!)

And so, today (Thursday) we head for Heathrow and stay overnight at a Holiday Inn where we shall park the car. Then on Friday we catch the Hotel Hoppa to Terminal 2 and get on board our SAS flight, first to Oslo and then on to Bergen. We overnight there on the Friday at the Hotel Admiral before being picked up at 11:15am on Saturday (yes, that precisely) by bus to go to the MS Trollfjord which will be home for the next 12 days!