Day 09 –Trondheim to Middelfart
I know what you're thinking.. We're going round in circles!
Well its true to some extend, and not due to a fault of the navigator; There just isn't a huge choice of ways to get between Sweden and Denmark!
So Day 9 then, although technically the start of Day 10..we didn't arrive here until 2am this morning, and we were both exhausted!
We left Trondheim at 9.15am…
…having managed to get free wireless access at our wonderful Scandic Prinsen hotel (although we couldn't quite get it from the bedroom, so I had to make a new home in the comfy chair in the lift lobby…)
Once on the road, we encountered the slowest roads on earth. It's funny how when we entered Sweden we were complaining about it being so slow. Well, scrub that; Norway really takes the biscuit!
The first 350 miles took until about 5pm. Very tiring and if it wasn't for the beautiful scenery…
…and the occasional hail and snow storm to liven things up…
…then I think Scandanavia would need to be worrying about its murder rate, not its suicide rate! Perhaps it's high because they force them to drive so darn slowly everywhere!!
Anyway, enough of my whinging, I'm sure you're really not that interested anyway ("whatever", I hear some of you shout!)
The upside of this slow driving is that we did manage to achieve the best mpg out of a tank so far this trip. Probably in the life time of the car in fact – a whopping 30.76mpg – quite a contrast to the 16 of a few days ago – although petrol is about 97p per litre in Norway so it pays to be economical!
Oh, and it's not like its even 100 octane V-Power. Oh no. In Norway, they treat you to Not 97… Not 96.. No, you've guessed it…
95! What's the point I ask! Obviously that stuff went nowhere near my fuel tank!
So anyway, I've digressed. Again.
When the going gets tough, it's always a good time to stop for lunch, which we did at a little town that seemed to have a lot to do with Peer Gynt, although we couldn't actually work out what.
Anyway, a delightful lunch was had by all…
After lunch, we finally started to hit some better faster roads, and eventually a motorway here and there, although it's obvious these are new to the Norwegians – most of them are still being built.
We stopped on route in a little chef for a coffee or two…
…and for the first time in two days, managed to stock up our supply of Smarties! Yay!
Although due to limited supplies and cautious of the fact we might just spend the next 4 hours scoffing them , we had to work out a points systems by which you could have one. I found every 50kms closer to Malmo was a good way of making them last.
…which would have worked well except a rather sharp braking manoeuvre to avoid an idiot in a Mercedes (no disrespect to Mercedes drivers, just the ones that pull out in front of you when you're doing about 40mph more than they are!) sent them flying all over the place.
Actually, it wasn't just the car drivers that were insane over here – we spent an entertaining time following a truck driver with a death wish, who obviously forgot he was driving a huge artic lorry and insisted on overtaking everything in sight!
So we plodded on, passed the ski slopes of Lillehammer…
Waved at a few Politi cars…
and finally made it to the Swedish border at about 7 o'clock, not that there is any proof of this, as their budget obviously didn't stretch to the usual border signs.
Back to the land of slightly faster speed limits and white road markings (such a pleasure on the eyes compared to the horrible yellow ones), we pressed onwards and southwards, and at last made it to that wonderful bridge/tunnel that joins Sweden to Denmark at around midnight.
Once across, we were rewarded for our efforts by being given another 10km/h to play with, so we pressed on. By this time it was around midnight and tiredness was starting to set in. As was hunger.
We stopped briefly for a rest break, and decided that we'd stop for the night in Middelfart as this was only about 30 minutes away, so Mike phoned up, booked us a room and half an hour later we were pulling into familiar territory.
So to summarise yesterday then, Norway to Sweden to Denmark, a total of 871 miles (just beat the previous days total by 3 miles!) in about 16 hours.
It's now time to give you the route, and we're going to head off and get some breakfast.
Watch out for the next update coming to you soon. Sometime. Not sure when yet.
Until then, have a nice day, we're headed to Germany now!
