Meeting some family🥰. And leaving Norway again🥺.

My nephew Sam left Scotland just under 1 year ago to start a new job and life in Norway. Thats the reward for sticking in at school and university. He's just in his early 20's and has doors open to him that were never an option for me. That is not a complaint at all, I am more than happy with my life and career, it has been good to me and I can only thank my parents for the path they guided me on. Sam was the first Easson family member to attend university and passed his degree with flying colours and now he is reaping the reward for his hard work....well done nephew!!

So, on this trip I had a hope to visit certain people and the last person on that list....purely from a geographical point of view was Sam. My trip down a "more" interesting road yesterday probably cost us an hour of time as we were further away from Oslo than I had hoped but we were up early and soon had breakfast and on the road to Oslo. The roads were totally dead, with almost zero cars on them all the way towards Drammen where things became busier. The E18 motorway was a bit of a shock to the system after days and days of quiet single lane roads. But regardless we managed to navigate our way to a carpark that Sam had suggest we meet at. He was easily able to get here by bus on a day he had especially taken off work to be able to meet us. So at about 9:50am we were welcoming my nephew and Callum and Logans cousin into Bessie, the first time we have seen him for quite a few months. It was great to see him again.

Joyce made up a few sandwiches as we planned to climb to tbe top of Nodre Kolsås. The weather had been wet for a good bit of the journey south but by now the sun was out and we were good to go. Joyce elected to give this walk a miss, and was happy to chill at the van. To be honest that was probably wise as today the pace was faster than normal...fortunately!!

Logan and Callum kept up no problem but it is clear that Sam is pretty hill fit just now, hardly breaking stride or sweat as we headed uphill. The roots and rocks were all slippery and there were some quite bog wet boggy areas to negotiate but the going was on the whole good. We soon reached to top of Nodre Kolsås the highest point at 379m asl. The was hardly any view here as like a lot of smaller hills in Norway the trees go right to the summit. Sam reckoned that as the pace was good we should carry on over to the south summit which although lower had better views, so we decended around a small lake and then climbed to the second summit of the day and yes, the views were fantastic looking out to the Oslofjorden. The boys filled in the visitors/summit book, we had some food and took a few pictures before starting our decent....which was quite a bit longer than we had expected. The outward route had continually been going away from the van.

Logan after a while had an issue with his stomach, complaining it was really sore. He didn't need the toilet and didn't feel sick but he was clearly in pain as he was nearly bent double a couple of times and was also almost in tears... the brave wee soldier battled on however and after over 3 hours we were back at the van. My plan was to be on the road by 2pm to give us about an hour spare on the journey south to Larvik for our ferry over to Denmark. But we couldn't just cut and run and leave Sam so we spent a small amount of time with him as we readied the van, got changed and sorted out Logans stomach issue. He can tell that tale himself one day.

At 2:20pm we hugged Sam and bade him farewell, we had to get going to Larvik, I am terrible at goodbyes as we know and again found this difficult. Miss Sat Nav was saying we only had around 35 minutes to spare on the 80 mile journey so I was slightly concerned when we hit almost stationary traffic around Drammen. We sat it out and afterwards Bessie was driven faster than she has been all holiday....mental note....Next time....meet Sam a day earlier and don't cut it quite so fine with still quite a long journey to do!! But, all was good. We sailed through our ticket checks at Larvik port and were soon in the queue to board the Colour Line speed 2 ferry. There was plenty time for a sandwich and a coffee which I had not had after our hike.

Soon, we were on the ferry and cast off from tbe jetty and we waved goodbye to Norway for 2023. Our holiday is not yet finished, we still have fun to have and more miles to do...tomorrow we shall start both hopefully. Our sailing was very smooth, and the weather was gorgeous. We took a few photos, ate some pretty average ferry food, spent a little money in the duty free and blethered to a nice German family about ours and their journeys around Norway. At 9:30pm we docked and drove off the boat..this is one slick operation.

We filled up with diesel, it's cheaper in Denmark than Norway and Bessie's reserve light was on. And are now parked in a lovely little free parking area about 15km east of Hirtshalls. Tomorrow we will most likely revisit the North Sea Oceanarium which the boys enjoyed 4 years ago, then try and head as far south as possible to lessen Sundays drive which might be quite long.

Logan and I took a walk from the van and found the beach and caught the last of a beautiful sunset....it was stunning...just like the best we get in Scotland.....and Norway. A fine end to yet another fine day!!