And, Relax!! Alesund.

Our night at the aquarium was quite than expected, after some annoying person with a drone had beetled off, and the young team in their car with the music up loud had got bored we all got a good nights sleep. It was lovely morning and Joyce got out for a jog.

We had promised the boys a visit to the aquarium, and it was one of things I wanted to see in Alesund also, so it actually turned out to be the perfect place to park. There was no rush in the morning as the aquarium didn't open till 10am. So a leisurely breakfast was had and the boys had play in the carpark, spoiled unfortunately by Callum not towing the line and finding himself banished back to his bed for a wee think about his actions. We wandered over to the aquarium and paid our NOK's to get in and had a superb day. Theres lots to see with great big tanks and lots of local fish life and all sorts of crustaceans from the local and deeper waters further out to sea. There are some weird and wonderful creatures out in these waters, and not many of them are particularly pretty!! There is a huge tank, holding 4 million litres of water, held back by 26cm thick glass and it had huge Saithe (coalfish), cod, halibut and wolf fish in it. Its difficult to tell if the glass is magnifying the fish size, but once the diver got in to feed them you soon realised that those coalie's really were big, and the halibut must have been a good 4 feet long also, but apparently just tiddler's, they can grow to weigh about 500lbs.

The weather was great and it was soon lunch time, Joyce nipped out the the van and made lunch which she smuggled in and we sat in the sun watching the seals and the penguins while we ate our sannies. After lunch, the otters and penguins got fed with a commentary in both Norwegian and English, so all good and we knew what was being said. It was a superb aquarium, one of the best we have seen on our travels. There was a superb area for the boys to play in also, they do need a bit of their own time and fun to keep them happy, it's easy to forget they are just bairns and drag them around just doing the things we want to do or see, expecting them to like or enjoy it also.

At about 3pm we made tracks as we needed to try and get into a campsite, we decided to drive past the Bobil parking area, not expecting to find any space and we were correct, its right on the sea front, slap bang in the middle of town and very popular. There was one space but it was too tight for us to squeeze into, so it looked like the campsite out of town for the night, however, I spy-ed a man rolling up his cable, Joyce quickly jumped out and asked if he was leaving and he was....she stood guard over the spot until we were safely parked up, result!! And now we could explore Alesund after all. We chilled in the hot sun with a beer, sorted the van out with regard to water and toilet situation (we had just about reached crisis point), all had showers, and then got ready to go out for a walk around the town and also get our dinner. It was Saturday, its a nice place and Joyce is long overdue a night without cooking. So after a couple of false starts-restaurants were busy and couldn't take us without a reservation we finally found a half decent Chinese and had our meal and some beers. Home, and the boys are bedded, blog written and its bedtime soon.


We might move tomorrow after a wander around and maybe a museum, we shall see. Theres a little hill near where we parked last night and we may climb that for a better view of the archipelago and town. I feel like Alesund is a milestone and turning point in the holiday. The meandering around all the fjords has been superb, but it takes a long time and northward progress was slow. We now head north-east towards Trondheim and then hopefully continue up towards the Lofoten islands. It is a very looooong road and will take us a while, I have just done a sat nav search, and from here to Narvik direct-and that's not how we will go is 525 miles!!......it's supposed to be stunning also, but will be a welcome contrast to the fjords we have been driving around this last couple of weeks. The forecast looks good till at least the middle of the month so hopefully we will get some great coastal driving days. Its not always been roasting, and not always dry but us boys have had our shorts on every day (at least at some point) so far, and Joyce most days so it ain't been bad.






Comments

  1. Kenny AlexanderJune 9, 2019 at 2:33 AM

    Rollos Viking tours sound fun ! Amazing you can see through glass that thick at the aquarium I remember a bus I took in Israel with bullet proof glass I could hardly see a thing out it, yet another great blog buddy and I'm back in my own name 👍😊

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