Telemark canal

We then had quite a long drive to our next point of stay at Bo in Norway, a little town an hour SW of Oslo. We soon started to get into the mountains which were magnificent, notwithstanding the weather (which had been good up to this point in time) deteriorated with 36 hours of none stop rain. On the second day at Bo the weather started to clear and we decided to explore the Telemark canal on foot. Details of the canal are posted, so….

We started at Ulefoss and walked up river for 4 kms to Lunde Sluse (locks). We arrived just as the trip boat Victoria was locking through.

Operating the locks is quite a physical challenge. The paddles were raised by pulling a handle though 180 degrees. With a 6 metre head of water (they are certainly deeper than any manually operated locks I have encountered). The operator in this case had to stand on the bracket and lean back to pull the paddle the second 90 degrees.

Opening the gates was also quite time consuming as they were slowly ratcheted using a lever arm against a runner with “cogs”.

One of the original barges was on display. These would have been towed.

After a bit of lunch some were feeling very frisky and ready for the next part of the walk.

The eagerness was slightly tempered when someone tripped over their own laces – this could have been quite ugly without the sticks.

Eidsfoss lock was attractive. Each flight of locks sat alongside a hydro power station.

The river flow was quite strong in places and log booms were in place for much of the system to keep boats from inadvertently getting caught in the faster flowing sections.

Our walk along the Northern hills of the river enabled us to visit the Ulefos Hovedgaard (seen here during our morning walk from the other side).

Fortunately we arrived just as the museum was closing so we could quickly continue with our walk.

On arrival back at Ulefoss two boats were locking through. The first had left Lunde lock at the same time as us – hence a pretty slow walking pace is the norm for boats along this section. The second was a working boat (Ornen -1902) which was beautifully maintained.

After Bo we were due to travel to a site SW of Trondheim. We decided to change our plans for a few reasons. The 2 main ones were:
Ø Travel within Norway is slow. Most of the roads are of a similar standard to the old A roads in UK with very few motorways. Average speeds were 50 to 60kms rather than the 80 – 90 kms we managed with the van elsewhere on motorways.
Ø Norway is extraordinarily expensive. For example a dozen eggs cost about $10 AUD which is over twice the cost in Australia. It is exacerbated further as they have taken the metric system to the next stage and have 10 eggs to the dozen.
Apparently Norway is not part of the EU and is taxing and saving heavily as a protection for when the oil runs out. (We did not see a wind farm in Norway – hydro and oil presumably cover all their needs.)