LuCaspeRobin + Thomas ;-)

Casper and Robin were quite hyperactive after having slept for almost three hours in the car after swimming with Meike and Peter. So for the first two, three hours the two of them were wide awake, talking and talking and whining at times, asking "how far before we get there?". It took until 200 clicks into Germany before Casper fell asleep. An hour of talking later Robin finally fell asleep.

The trip through Germany was quite uneventful, stopping once to fill gas and let Casper and Robin use the restrooms. Before dawn broke we were in Denmark, speeding towards the tip of the country. Robin woke up with the coming of the twilight of dawn. Just about that time I really felt the need for sleep. I had been driving for 7 hours straight and desperately needed some zzz's. So I let Marjolijn take over the wheel, even though she hadn't slept that much herself. Around 1 hour later I was woken with Marjolijn prodding me, telling me to take over for the remainder of the trip. I usually have an ernormous dip in my ability to stay awake in the morning around 5-ish. This time as well, but somehow I managed to stay awake for the last 100 km's to our destionation. Come morning and the rising sun we arrived in Fredrikshavn.

As it turned out we were way early. I had planned a total of 11 to 12 hours to get to the harbour of Fredrikshavn where our ferry to Oslo left from. But we managed to make the drive in a little over 10 hours. Nice average huh? We were among the very first to line up in front of the ticket offices of Stena Line, our carrier to Oslo. The kids slowly woke up, and we had breakfast in the car. Then, around 8 o'clock the gates opened and pretty soon we were up at the ticket office. Where a rather nasty surprise awaited us.

The lady in the booth suddenly said: "But sir, your car is much taller than 2 meters!". I understood this, but on the website of Stena Line it didn't say that, it said "no taller than 2,60 meters". I had even measured the height of the car with the roofbox attached, and found it to be well beneath 2,60 meters. So I was unpleasently surprised when she said that we couldn't get on board on our current tickets. I was getting a little annoyed with the woman, especially since the alternatives she offered (paying more, waiting a day, taking a chance that the boat wasn't full - fat chance) weren't realistic. In the end, people behind us were getting agitated. I suggested taking down the roofbox before entering the boat, as she claimed we were way to high to fit in the allocated space on the boat. She agreed with my suggestion and let us through. We drove down our waitinglane, stopped and started taking things out of the roofbox. You won't believe it, but everything, including the roofbox, actually fitted into the car. It was literally stuffed to the brim, and the five of us took place in the two front passenger seats. Like sardines in a tin we waited in the car until we finally were let into the waiting ferry. Where we were parked next to a humongous semi-trailer, 7 meters tall and 20 meters long, with a good 15 meters to spare to the ceiling of the car-compartment ;-) I was furious, but in the end only could see the humor of the situation. Too tall, huh, loser lady!

We were happy to be onboard and even happier of our foresight to reserve a cabin where all of us could take a nap on the daytrip to Oslo. I quite quickly fell asleep and Marjolijn took the kids on a tour of the boat. After yet an uneventful, but for the kids fun day aboard the ferry, we sailed into the Oslofjord. 2 hours later, all of us on deck now, watched downtown Oslo coming into view, our vacation about to start for real. Our first destination was reached - vacation here we come!

Posted by Sebastiaan Naafs - van Dijk | top