Oslo - Skagerrak Sea, Norway

Thursday 16th September 1999

We left the campsite this morning and headed for the Bygdøy peninsula, just next to the harbour and home to a number of interesting museums. We started with the Norwegian Folk Museum, a collection of more than 150 buildings, gathered from all over the country. We were particularly interested in the Stave church since we hadn't yet seen inside one apart from peeking through a few windows. Since the season was winding down many of building were closed but it was still interesting enough, and had an excellent museum at the end.

After a quick lunch of biscuits and cheese it was on to the Viking ship museum, containing three Viking longships used as burial chambers and preserved by the blue clay they were buried in. Two of them were almost complete and made a very impressive sight. Some of the artifacts found with them were pretty impressive as well, with intricate and very well preserved wood carving.

Time was getting on and we had one more museum to visit. The Kon-Tiki museum, devoted to the exploits of adventurer Thor Heyerdahl. Against conventional wisdom he believed that the Polynesian islands in the Pacific were settled by people from South America, rather than from the much closer Asian mainland. To prove that this was possible he built a large raft from balsa wood and sailed it himself across the Pacific.

After some explorations in the Galapagos and Easter Island he decided to test another theory, that West Africans could have crossed the Atlantic to the Americas. Based on drawings found in Egyptian tombs he designed and had a group from Chad build a boat from papyrus leaves. He left with a crew of six but, after some two months at sea and within a week of Barbados the boat began to break up and sank.

Unperturbed he returned to Morocco with some Aymara Indians from Bolivia, still skilled in the craft of building reed boats. With this second boat he was successful in his quest and reached Barbados in 57 days, covering over 6000km. Both successful boats were on display and it was amazing to imagine them in the high seas of the ocean. Quite inspirational.

Once again we were kicked out at closing time and, with over an hour to boarding time on the ferry, decided to make a quick dinner at the end of the peninsula. Anita rapidly put together a meal and we were soon done eating, washing up, and were on our way.

The ferry boarding went smoothly and, after checking out our cabin for the eight hour journey, we decided to explore the ship. With nine decks, four restaurants, numerous bars and all sorts of entertainment it was like a real cruise.

We went up on deck as the ship pulled out of the harbour to say goodbye to Norway. We'd spent a wonderful three weeks in the country and would have countless memories to take with us. Once out of sight of the city we continued our exploration of the ship before Anita and I headed down to the cinema whilst Mum and Dad went off looking for a cup of coffee. The film for the night was Matrix, which had been shot at the new Fox studios in Sydney. It was strange seeing an American movie with recognisable Sydney landmarks in the background.

The film was over at 11:30pm and Anita and I upstairs and back on deck. One last look at Norway as we sailed along the coast. I wanted to get up early tomorrow so it was off to bed now, pining for the fjords.