{"id":8562,"date":"2016-07-24T10:02:46","date_gmt":"2016-07-24T00:02:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vettycreations.com.au\/white-threads\/?p=8562"},"modified":"2017-10-24T16:45:49","modified_gmt":"2017-10-24T05:45:49","slug":"days-7-8-and-9-heading-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/vettycreations.com.au\/white-threads\/2016\/07\/24\/days-7-8-and-9-heading-home\/","title":{"rendered":"Days 7, 8 and 9: Heading home"},"content":{"rendered":"

Utne, Bergen, Amsterdam, Abu Dhabi, Sydney
\n20th – 22nd May 2014<\/strong><\/p>\n

Breakfast was at 8am again. This time I was in the larger dining room as there had been about eight guests for the night. There was hot food this time, so I enjoyed some bacon. I didn’t bother with an egg. I’ve had enough eggs lately…<\/p>\n

\"Utne

Utne Hotel interior<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Overlooking

Overlooking Hardangerfjord from the Utne Hotel<\/p><\/div>\n

I left the hotel and sat by the fjord to wait for the ferry. I embroidered while I waited. It was a sunny morning again, and lovely to be outside enjoying it. <\/p>\n

\"Utne

An Utne farm. The area is famous for its stone fruit.<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Utne\"

Pretty buildings in Utne<\/p><\/div>\n

The ferry came at about 9:30. I paid my fare and went up on deck. It was extremely calm and not particularly windy. I was the only walk on passenger. The rest were in vehicles.<\/p>\n

\"Utne

Saying goodbye to Utne Hotel<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Hardanger

Hardanger Folkemuseum<\/p><\/div>\n

As we crossed, I saw tell tale signs of a sea creature. I only ever saw a blob and the water rippling outwards, however the couple I’d had breakfast with the day before said there had been dolphins the other morning, so that’s probably what it was.<\/p>\n

\"something

There’s something in the water…<\/p><\/div>\n

\"stunning

The stunning Hardangerfjord<\/p><\/div>\n

The ferry took me across to Kvanndal on the other side of the fjord. I waited about ten minutes for the bus to take me to Norheimsund. The bus journey took me alongside the fjord. At one point, the driver had to back back a little way so that a car could pass. It was a very narrow road in parts.<\/p>\n

\"car

The car ferry at Kvanndal<\/p><\/div>\n

The fjord was beautiful, and there were many foss (waterfalls) from all the snow melting way up on the mountain tops. We passed a couple of fish farms in the water as well.<\/p>\n

In Norheimsund, I had a little wander around some of the shops and found an antikk (antique) shop which had some very interesting things in the window. It had some beaded bibs, two headdress rolls, a holsaum cuff, and what looked to be a Hardanger yoke opening. There also were some Hardanger shirts. I hate to think what they might have cost, so it was probably good that the shop only opened on Fridays and Saturdays!<\/p>\n

\"Antique

Treasures in the antique shop<\/p><\/div>\n

I sat in the sun and ate my lunch while waiting for the bus. There were two ducks who were convinced they deserved a share of my lunch. They stood right at my feet. Again, these ducks didn’t understand English! They only went away when I had finished and a little girl came along to chase them. I think “shoo” might be a universal command!<\/p>\n

\"ducks\"

The ducks who wanted to share<\/p><\/div>\n

The bus to Bergen took about 1.5 hours. It was a beautiful trip. Last time I had written my diary so missed a lot of the scenery. We went through countless tunnels. We passed a ski resort area, and travelled alongside rushing torrents of ice cold water (I’m imagining the temperature) coming down from off the mountains.<\/p>\n

\"Ice

Ice cold water<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Snow-capped

Snow-capped mountains from the bus.<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Snow-capped

Snow-capped mountains from the bus.<\/p><\/div>\n

In Bergen it was quite warm, with many dressed very much for summer and lounging in the grassed areas in the park. I went to Husfliden to get some more linen hardanger thread.<\/p>\n

Next I went to the tourist info centre to get some information on how to get to my hotel, which was near the airport in preparation for my early departure the next morning. I knew that I could probably just catch the airport bus, but I wanted to go with a local bus option if possible, and it would be much cheaper. The fellow was helpful-ish but he really wasn’t sure how to advise me. He gave me three bus numbers which would get me close to where I needed to go.<\/p>\n

I did a little more souvenir shopping, and headed back to the bus station. There was an information desk there, so the girl gave me an exact bus number, and then the stop to catch it from and to. The bus driver told me which stop was mine, and then I followed my nose to get closer and closer to where I could see the hotel was. It was up a couple of back streets. There was a main road way, but it was much longer.<\/p>\n

I checked in at about 5pm and then went to what turned out to be quite a palatial room! I dumped my stuff and got onto the internet to make contact with the world again. At 6pm I decided I could not stomach another self-catered in-hotel-room meal, so headed down to the restaurant. I chose a chicken and bacon sandwich with salad, which they they had to completely redesign for me to remove the dairy and wheat. It ended up being delicious, and only kr155, which isn’t too bad for such a delicious, huge meal.<\/p>\n

\"sandwich\"

delicious sandwich – I’ve made it right through to the last diary entry before showing you boring food photos!<\/p><\/div>\n

I went back to my room and sorted out everything, chucking away heaps of papers and extraneous packaging.<\/p>\n

I was in bed by 7:30pm and asleep soon after. I woke at about 11:30 and never went back to sleep. My alarm went off at 3:30, so I showered and headed downstairs to check out. Outside, I waited for my taxi which they’d ordered for me the afternoon before.<\/p>\n

Off to the airport with a driver who was rather amazed that you could gain enough knowledge to write a book from just a few days. He wanted to know whether we see kangaroos all the time. Ah, no. We don’t see them in the cities. (I decided not to confuse him by telling him that my brother had actually seen one just down the road from our house a few years ago, at dusk one evening.)<\/p>\n

At the airport, I checked in, and the one dodgy sized thing I had in my Liquids-Aerosols-Gels bag (it’s 120ml, not 100, but I’ll see if I can get it home) made it through. The fellow glanced at it, but it is obviously close enough that he didn’t bother to check it. Phew.<\/p>\n

\"contraband

Contraband plommechutney – 120mls instead of the maximum 100mls<\/p><\/div>\n

I’m now waiting for my flight.<\/p>\n

[This is where the diary ended. I made it home safely, via Amsterdam and Abu Dhabi. From memory, the flight from Abu Dhabi to Sydney was practically empty and I was able to stretch out and sleep along three seats for much of that flight. I still have very clear memories of my family coming to pick me up from Sydney Airport. It was good to be home!]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Utne, Bergen, Amsterdam, Abu Dhabi, Sydney 20th – 22nd May 2014<\/p>\n

Breakfast was at 8am again. This time I was in the larger dining room as there had been about eight guests for the night. There was hot food this time, so I enjoyed some bacon. I didn’t bother with an egg. I’ve had enough […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56,6,31,65,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8562","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-early-style-hardanger","category-hardanger","category-travel","category-white-threads","category-writing-books","odd"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/vettycreations.com.au\/white-threads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8562","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/vettycreations.com.au\/white-threads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/vettycreations.com.au\/white-threads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/vettycreations.com.au\/white-threads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/vettycreations.com.au\/white-threads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8562"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/vettycreations.com.au\/white-threads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8562\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8584,"href":"http:\/\/vettycreations.com.au\/white-threads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8562\/revisions\/8584"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/vettycreations.com.au\/white-threads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/vettycreations.com.au\/white-threads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/vettycreations.com.au\/white-threads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}