Norway - Part 2 - Kristiansand to Stavanger (23 June)

So, the first day of the trip was pretty much lost to driving.  We arrived at the Yess Hotel quite late and exhausted.  In order to catch the ferry from Strömstad to Sandefjord we had had to leave home at 6:30am and we didn't arrive in Kristiansand until around 7pm.  On top of everything, we were on the 5th floor and the elevator was broken so we had to carry the bags up all the stairs.  The staff were very apologetic and the elevator was fixed later that night, but we managed to get a decent stretch of the legs.

So the next day we had a free breakfast at the hotel and then packed up for our first destination.  The end goal of the day was Stavanger on the west coast, but we had a sight to see in Kristiansand first.

The view from our room over Kristiansand

Our destination was the Møvik fort and Kristiansand cannon.  This was the site of a World War II Wehrmacht German defense and was named Batterie Vara (MAB 6./502 Vara), named after Major General Felix Vara.  When Norway was liberated, the name was changed by the Norwegians to Møvik Fort.

The fort was built in 1941 and was one of four coastal batteries.  It was used to block the Skagerrak strait between Denmark and Norway, and a sister installation was built at Hanstholm in Denmark, across the strait.  This blocked access to Eastern Norway, the Kattegatt Bay and the Baltic sea.

At Møvik Fort one of the four guns is still present.  It is a 38cm calibre gun and one of the largest in the world.  The barrel is 20m long,  weighs 110 tons and has a range of 55km.

A very grubby sign about Møvik Fort (click to enlarge)

A tank trap (Czech Hedgehog)

Entry to the bunker under the cannon - now the cannon museum

Look how thick the concrete is and how recessed the door is to protect from explosion

The cannon with Tomas by the barrel to give some scale

The turning mechanism - Cameron said it looked like a Star Wars AT-AT

The very impressive barrel

The view / firing range of the cannon

Looking down the barrel

What can't be seen in this one is Tomas yelling "Fire it, quick!"

Barrel with Kristine's hand for scale

View behind the cannon

Looking down on the cannon body

Another gun emplacement

Some of the concrete blocks to prevent tanks and mechanized infantry - pretty impressive thickness

I'd love to think this one was shot by a tank, but chances are it was damaged in the removal to clear the road.  But it shows how thick they are and the reinforcing steel rods

Base for the gun

Alana on the gun base for scale

Looking down on the gun base

Top of the emplacement

View of the cannon from the roof

In the words of Ian Malcolm "Life will find a way" :)

Stairs

Emplacement with Tomas for scale

That's some pretty serious reinforcement

Exploring

More exploring

After leaving the fort, we headed to our next stop - Sverd i Fjell (Sword in the Rock) on the west coast near Stavanger.

The drive was pretty interesting, with some cool tunnels and nice scenery (and of course normal Norwegian rain):

Tunnel

Islands along the drive

Forests

Another tunnel

Bridge

Along the way we stopped at a beautiful location to take some photos and came across a memorial:

Memorial sign

Memorial plaque

The memorial reads:
Drowning accident in the the Hovsvannet 1924 - On the 5th October 1924 a terrible accident happened in Hovsvannet. 6 young people from Heskestad and Eigersund drowned after a barge they rode in capsized. Four of the dead were siblings. On Sunday evening and they had been happily dancing at Eik. Then on Monday when they had not arrived home, the father of the four siblings became worried. At Skjeggestad he met a man who had been at the the party. He could tell that none of the youngsters had been there.  When he found out that they had tried to cross in a flat-bottomed barge he was seriously worried about what might have happened.  The youngsters should have used a bigger boat to row to Eik but this boat had been loaned to them.  Together with more people from the Drange (the family name of the siblings) farm, the man from Skjeggestad went down to the waterfront.  The place used to cross is calm and narrow. On the other side the man could see the barge on the bottom.  A search was started and soon all were found drowned about 50m from where they should have landed.

A really sad story for such a beautiful place.

Our final stop for the day was at Sverd i Fjell in Stavanger.

Sverd i Fjell measn Swords in Rock.  It was built in Hafrsfjord in 1983 (yep it's still a newbie) to commemorate the Battöe of Hafrsfjord in 1872 when Harald Finehair (Any 'Vikings' TV show watchers?) gathered all of Norway under his crown.  The largest sword is Harald and the smaller are the defeated kings.

Kris looked the wrong way initially and was massively disappointed with this monument...  (she did like the sunken table though)

The actual monument

With people for scale

Sverd i Fjell

Can you tell it was raining?

After Sverd i Fjell we headed to our accomodation for the night.  This one was a little unusual.  Booking.com touted it as an apartment with shard bathroom, but instead it was a room in someone's house.  The owner had several empty rooms and had placed locks on each and hired them out.  He was really nice but the place was pretty dirty and Kristine felt a little uncomfortable.

After we unloaded our stuff and locked the doors, we decided to head out for a final stop of the day.  I'd seen a sign to Fluberget.  We had no idea what it was but the name sounded funny, so I looked it up.  It turns out that it is the one of the largest sets of rock carvings in southern Norway, dating back to 1800-500 BC.

Fluberget Info (click to zoom in)

The strangest part was that parking for the rocks was pretty much some person's driveway and the wall spread out behind their house.  There were no protective barriers or security cameras etc as you'd expect in Australia.

Boat Carving

Tom thought this spelt POO, but it is believed to be foot and handprints of the gods (as they could not be directly depicted)

Lots of boats

Another shot of the same boats showing more above

More boats

Handprints and more boats

They're not sure what this one represents

Fluberget

I couldn't find Fluberget on googlemaps, so if you're interested, the coordinates are:
58.950800N  Longitude: 5.645300E

Accommodation for the night:
Gardenview Room, Madla, 1084 SEK.

Day 2 Travel

Distance driven: 248km
Total distance: 900km

Time-Lapses:
Kristiansand (Yess Hotel) to Fort Møvik

Fort Møvik to Stavenger Pt1:

Fort Møvik to Stavenger Pt 2:

Fort Møvik to Stavenger Pt 3: