Traveling Northern Europe 4x4 Ep08: Rooftop Tent Camping Norway - Part 4

Description

Our six month journey through Europe up to Northern Scandinavian wilderness continues. This is part 4 of our travels through Norway. As we write this we are currently in the North of Sweden. IN this episode we begin heading North East towards the border of Sweden making our way to the North of the country to a small town called Asele.

Before this however we still have some of Norway left to see before we leave. We really have just scratched the surface of this landscape but this is a great reason to go back in the near future.

Thanks for watching!

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Video Transcription

in our last episode we packed up our roadside camp and we continued heading north along the west coast of this truly spectacular landscape we've been living in the Jeep and been on the road for almost three and a half months now a great deal of that spent in Norway for this very reason the freedom of camping and the reminder that nature dominates is all around you and it really is hard to leave but that was another great wilderness on the horizon and somewhere we wanted to be and it was time to start making tracks north east towards Sweden another wilderness country that we were just dying to get back to at the end of the last episode we packed up our lakeside camp in Voss and began a pilgrimage of sorts to visit the location where myself and Meghan got engaged back in 2014 when we backpacked along the west coast it didn't take us long to get there and after a few hours of driving we descended down a one-way road towards a village called Andrew dong the road was built in the late 80s and previously the only way to get to the village was by boat we took a boat here on our previous visit before hiking out the surrounding area and doing some wild camping but before visiting the old locations where we camped we decided to head in 200 R for a trip down memory lane hundred al had a very small population of people and goats and it was famous for its brown cheese which had a very unusual sweet taste that was strangely addictive it also had the smallest stave Church in Northern Europe and it was fairly popular for tourism our previous visit left us feeling like hundred al was a bit of a ghost town because it was much earlier in the year but with all this good weather the campsite was almost full we decided to stay a night they had a bar live music some attractions even a restaurant it was nice to have a bit of normality have a drink and just spend some time together in a different kind of environment rather than in the wilderness in the roof tan

I do

after some breakfast we decided to get geared up and go for a hike and we followed the river up to try and find the location where we wild camp back in 2014 and a few kilometers in there was no doubt that we'd found the location although obviously it looked a lot different due to the time of year but there were still some things that gave us away almost immediately when we got there a large boulder covered in moss where I originally hid the ring under the moss and called Megan over to help me build a shelter we use this moss as our bed and I remember carrying it off the rock and putting it under our tent

I'd never seen Megan go from exhausted to completely ecstatic in almost a split second but hopefully it made a night when I proposed to her it was one of the most comfortable nights we'd had sleeping on that thick bed of moss I found our old fireplace also we spent a few days here just enjoying the solitude which was much of a contrast to back home and I remembered us cooking our dinner on the rocks namely sausages goat meat and goat cheese was a lot of what we were eating and there was also some Marsh thistle growing in the area and we'd use this as a substitute salad as Megan was craving some fresh fruit and veg and this was about all we had at that time I was also using an unnoticeably cos in other words chaga a type of mushroom to make fire and also make us tea we even found the very same tree that we harvested the chaga from it truly was a special area for both of us and it was about as far as our legs could take us at the time given we'd been backpacking then we were both tired I remember Megan's pack weighed over 40 pounds and she never complained once despite how far we had to walk and maybe that's why I proposed her at this very moment it was good to see that the moss we slept on that we returned to the boulder was still going strong and after a bit of lunch it was time to head back downriver to the Jeep and continue making some progress on our travels as we left undred al we decided to pay a visit to another town we visited before a town called flaunt on the edge of the fjords small cruise ships would often leave from here to tour the fjords and a train service operated here also which made it very very popular for tourism on our previous visit it was more like a ghost time much like undred al and we spent most of our time up in the mountains where there was still snow wild camping and just exploring nature but this time around we met another traveler who offered to buy me a drink that he claimed was the strongest beer in the world and he wasn't wrong to build he's built 15% it was pretty obvious that I was in no fit state to drive so it was Meghan's turn to take the wheel although she really didn't enjoy driving the Jeep on the road as there just seemed to be too much at stake for her but there was one style of driving that Meghan absolutely loved and that slow trails and off-roading so as I tried to hold the camera steady Meghan navigated us to our next camp location along some really interesting trails and eventually she found the perfect spot

the camp location she found was almost definitely one of our all-time favorites although there was a mountain road nearby it felt like you were miles away from anywhere almost in another world and all you could hear was a trickle of water in the background and the wind cutting through the mountains and what few trees there were at this altitude one major plus of places like this is fresh water

like almost all of Norway the water at this altitude is drinkable straight from the source and is crystal clear provided there are no surprises upstream places like this with gems especially when you've been on the road packing down and setting up every day can wear you down so being able to stop and find a slice of heaven where you can spend a few days just to wind down do your washing and just chill out is incredibly valuable and much like many places we've been it was a very peaceful evening now she is the soldier so this is why we chose a dry bag as a washing machine because that is full of water and we've had to walk to the river over there they say we make it in-house to get all the water with a bucket you'd have to carry it so the dry bag doubles up as a day sack it holds our dirty clothes and we do the washing in it we ended up staying in this location for two nights and today it still remains one of our all-time favorite spots mainly just because of the atmosphere and how desolate it felt but despite how comfortable we were here it was time to leave this way of traveling isn't very expensive once you have the vehicle kitted out and it's sustainable all you really need is fuel for the stove which lasts a very long time if you use it right food and fuel in the occasional expense on ferries if you intend to cross water but despite all this Norway is an extremely expensive country fuel not so much for us as the jeep was doing about 33 miles per gallon with its diesel engines we'd only filled up a handful of times in the entire month of being in the country but food was very very expensive and even though we were working on the road doing leather commissions we'd run out of stock then used all our supplies so what we had was all we had and it was running out we had a destination in mind though and we began heading eastbound towards the border of Sweden but before getting there we still had quite a bit of Norway to go through and as per usual Norway was not making it easy to leave or to make any progress for that matter as there was a loss of stopping to admire views but in the distance we spotted an old service road which sealed the deal for our next camping location and instead of leaving such a beautiful place we ended up staying there [Music]

it was a truly awesome camp location and the four-wheel drive just put the icing on the cake as we were able to get off the service road and follow where other vehicles had been before us and get closer to the lake but one thing you must understand about Norway is off-roading is completely illegal the penalties are harsh throughout this entire series we've only driven where we can visibly see vehicles have been before us on trails that are marked on maps and also visible on Google Earth we've also seeked local knowledge as we've traveled to certain areas to see what's doable and what's around and where we can go and if you play your cards right you'll find some truly stunning locations much like this one it wasn't long before we had camp set up there was a cool breeze in the air but it was still very dry so it gave us the opportunity to hang some clothes I think that was still a little damp from the last camp location whilst we were getting set up we also had some visitors a couple who were doing some travels of their own in their diesel-powered Rubicon had seen our videos and had come down the service trail to say hi and after chatting to them and admiring their ride they continued on with their travels and we made some Chilean rice with a bit of cheese which was a welcomed meal after a very long day of driving although it wasn't long before the clouds of mosquitoes forced to sup into the roof top 10 now we abandoned our table in chairs and we decided to call it a day and just enjoy the views of the mountains as we settled down for the night one thing that takes a bit of getting used to when traveling in these countries in a tent is that it never truly gets dark more so the further north you travel but we've gotten used to this by now and we had a very good night's sleep that night as the winds were low it was incredibly quiet we always commented to each other of how well we sleep in the roof tent compared to back home in a house but as we were both feeling refreshed we made sure we set off early and we had to as in Norway it seems to take you 10 times longer to get somewhere because of how stunning the scenery is and it was just that one thing we had to stop and look at was the glacial melt rivers that had suspended a kind of sediment often referred to as rock flour in the water giving it a blue or gray colour and the further down the river we went the more intense and vibrant the greens were it was almost like a sheet of glass and in calm winds

selected the mountains and the forests are made for an incredible picture it was really nothing like we'd ever seen and I'm pretty sure we'll never forget it

it wasn't long though before we started traveling up another mountain road and we were heading towards Norway's tallest mountain

the gal'd her pagan which was accessible via to base camps the one we were heading to was called spitter stood as the other one which I can barely pronounce required a guide to take you across a glacier before you could reach the mountain but before we got there we decided to take a lunch break by the side of a river [Music]

we had some lunch and Megan's snap me out of my trance and we carried on to the base camp along a beautiful mountain road that followed alongside the river [Music]

it wasn't long before we reached the base camp and it was pretty evident that this was a very popular place they had a lot of accommodation plus an enormous camping area and you had to make sure you paid the toll for the mountain road but it was also very inexpensive to camp if you did choose to stay here they had maps and information about the hikes in the area and a restaurant and shop if you wanted to stay and have food but as keen as we were to do the hike I was still nursing an injured ankle so he swallowed our pride and put it back for the next time we visit we made our way back down the mountain road and carried on with our travels we descended down from the mountains the topography of the landscape changed drastically it was quite a contrast from the month we'd spent traveling Norway as the fjords really do leave an impression on you but before making our way to the border of Sweden we made one last pit stop and we even bumped into some subscribers and people we follow on Instagram they were doing something similar in some very impressive Mercedes G wagons and once we were refueled we set off with the border in mind but there's one piece of the story we've left out so far and something me and Megan had been talking about when we originally planned this trip there was a reason we packed our lives up back home sold everything on all our worldly possessions existed in the Jeep we had no intention of returning to the UK any time soon and this trip was more than just a holiday it was about finding a new life somewhere less crowded with wilderness where you lived within nature or not on top of it somewhere that was more in line with a lifestyle that we've always tried to have together and talked about the entire time we've been together and this is why we were returning to Sweden we'd previously been there in 2016 on an expedition with husky cannon Lapland we fell in love with the area and we always wanted to see what life was like that and that's why we were making a beeline for Sweden

in the lower northerly part of the country but that's where this part of the story ends and the rest of it continues in the next episode and from me and Megan thanks again for watching and we'll see you very soon