These 1,500 km, real torture!
After the good times with Laurent, a breeder in Côte d'Or and his wife, we enter a completely different reality by crossing Luxembourg and Germany by motorway. Accustomed to journeys on country roads, our nerves are on edge. Here the traffic is dense, cars and trucks arrive at full speed and from all sides, major road works and diversions amplify the difficulty of the exercise not to mention the bad weather that never ceases to pursue us.
The Duster's windshield wipers activated at maximum power are not enough, nothing visible at more than 2 meters. A horror for us. Jean-Paul, his zygomatic muscles contracted, has his eyes fixed on the road and does not say a word, not a fly flies in the cabin. In this context, I expect at each turn that he suggests to return to France, our native country that we know little.
D-3, our first campsite
Tired of this capricious weather, of these 389 kilometers traveled, some of which are due to routing errors, we do not take the time to look for a nice little spot to sleep on June 17, 3rd day of travel. It is a border campsite in Luxembourg and Germany, more precisely in Echternach that we will spend the night. Once Roulotte is installed, everyone tries to escape, to relax as best they can. We are exhausted. Jean-Paul entertains himself by listening to humorous sketches on YouTube. For my part, I take advantage of this opportunity to discover the surroundings. We absolutely have to be able to both take a breather before dinner and find our usual good humor. I walk the paths of the campsite, to the banks of the Sûre, the river that separates the two countries..
Well, well, the residents are already having dinner; yet it is only 6pm. It is not completely dark until after 10pm in this month of June. Ducks waddle between the caravans, hoping to enjoy some leftovers. I move away from them about a hundred meters, reach the exit of the campsite and cross the medieval bridge that we crossed with Roulotte a little earlier. A contemporary customs post reminds us that the Schengen agreements are only 40 years old. Finally, fleeting rays of sunshine, the first and last of our day appear.
The customs post
I then head towards Roulotte, it is almost 7pm, there is still a lot to do at the campsite. I find Jean-Paul asleep. The nervous fatigue has gotten the better of him. Tomorrow, at breakfast, we will take stock of the rest of the program. I hope that a good mood will return after the essential bowl of steaming muesli that makes my companion happy. For now, I take out the first cereal pancakes from one of the canteens. They will satisfy a little hunger. After the inevitable washing up and a short shower, I slip silently under the soft sheets, it is one of the best moments of the day. I dread the 1650km still to travel before reaching Oslo.
Crossing 3 countries in 48 hours
After a quiet night, an early wake-up call to the sound of quacking, and a good ration of cereals, we pack up camp and take the free motorway to Germany.
A stopover is essential along the way. There is a parking area on our right. It is not very charming and is very dirty. As I cross Germany, I realize that this country, like France, suffers the same devastating effects, such as high visual pollution, junk food with its counterpart of greasy paper and cans littering the ground. We taste a pretzel, surprised that it is as salty as the bill. It is time to get back on the road!
The rest of the journey will prove even more difficult. After 497 km, in the rain, on motorways that are still as dense with as many roadworks, we look for a place to stop. No luck, we cross a military area for 11 km with a ban on taking photos and parking. We finally find, to sleep, a tarmac car park near a disused building, probably an old pigsty. In the early morning, while combing my hair, I surreptitiously see through the pines, two tanks returning from exercise. They are impressive.
Today we take our first ferry from Puttgarden in Germany to Rodby in Denmark. This is the first of many crossings that will follow. Reaching the land of fjords is impossible without taking a huge detour through Russia. For the embarkation, we lighten up by 145 euros for our road combination of less than 10 meters, 9.60m exactly; in return, we enjoy 45 minutes of relaxation like real carefree tourists.
So, smiles return on board. The salty smell of the sea and the seagulls hovering above our heads with the thermal currents call us to let go. For the first time since our departure, we take the time and visit the 5,000-year-old burial site of Stortensgrave as we leave the ferry.
This June 18, we spend our fourth night in a campsite open year-round and at a reasonable price for this country, since it is €30, shower and electricity included. We do not yet realize that we will have to pay much more, without any amenities, when we cross Denmark again on the way back, but that is another story...
Danish law does not allow wild camping.
D-5 The right to nature under control
We covered no less than 487 km crossing Denmark and Sweden on this day 5. For this, we took the famous Øresundsbron bridge-tunnel which cost us the trifle of 144 euros.
Now it is getting late, we plunge into the Swedish forest by a dirt track, without really knowing where we are going. Will a U-turn be possible? It is too late to question it! Here again, the maneuverability of the caravan is an issue. Finally, we find a narrow logging track which, after various maneuvers, will be very suitable for a bivouac "in the green".
The good news is that in Sweden as in Norway, it is possible to stop and sleep wherever you want, provided you are more than 150 meters from a home in Norway. This is a right whose only counterpart is to respect nature and the animals that live there. However, a small downside is that we see a lot of parking bans and blocked roads when we travel. I explain this by the craze for "vanlife" and the large number of campers, caravans and vans on the road.
D-6 Arrival in Norway
Crossing the border between Sweden and Norway goes almost unnoticed on the country road we have chosen to take. Only the flags flying on the poles in the gardens tell us that we have changed countries. The houses scattered across the landscape are painted in red, yellow, green. And white for the richest. Most of them have small windows, decorated with light curtains and a lamp often lit in broad daylight that differs little from one house to another. The lawns are mown like a green and trampolines replace swimming pools. This uniformity is both surprising and intriguing. I can't wait to arrive at Irene's, our Norwegian host, do you remember?
It took us 6 days to travel from Perpignan to Hobøl, near Oslo.
To be continued in the next episode and by following us in the Flash News on the site's home page.
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