Background information
Walking through a Norwegian national park: planning the suicide mission
by Arthur Gamsa und Jannik Kaiser
On foot through Norway's national park: luggage towers and drunks
7.8.2019
Translation: machine translated
Support: Patrick Bardelli
Arthur and Jannik are two trainee photographers. Last winter, they set off on an adventurous expedition to the north of Norway during the sports holidays. This is their travel diary.
Sunday, 10 February
Last preparations
We meet in our classroom in Zurich Altstetten for the final check of the packing list. We get there far too early for fear of forgetting something important. It's still dark when Arthur double-checks that our pre-packed trekking food equates to around 90,000 calories. We reckon on 4,500 calories per person per day for ten days at an average temperature of minus ten degrees.
Jannik, meanwhile, makes sure there are no cigarettes in Arthur's rucksack. He decided a few weeks ago to use the Norway project as an opportunity to stop smoking. We spend the rest of the time before we leave playing cards in the classroom. That way, we are somewhat distracted from the upcoming trip and its challenges.
Best regards to the driver of bus route 89
Once we are ready to set off with our 110 kilos of equipment, we make our way to the nearby bus station in front of the school building. We finally set off. The first arduous stage of our journey is Zurich Altstetten - Zurich main station. Difficult because Zurich city buses are not designed for bulky buses and our equipment sledges block the doors. The bus driver grumbles loudly and tries to close the door so that we can finally continue our journey. After several unsuccessful attempts and loud swearing, it finally works. Next stop Züri HB.
With our impressively large and painfully heavy rucksacks and bags, we stagger across the station grounds at Zurich main station. Before leaving, we quickly stock up on Swiss chocolate. It's a must. At noon sharp, we board the train to Hanover and so begins our 42.5-hour journey to the Arctic Circle.
Because the day started early and we left our card game at school, we use the next five hours until Hanover to sleep in.
The next test awaits us in Hanover. Changing trains to Flensburg goes surprisingly smoothly. Once we've found our carriage number and have built up our luggage waist-high in the aisle under the greatest of static challenges, we take our reserved seats. We spend the journey to Flensburg heaving the numerous suitcases of the following passengers over our luggage towers, which make the aisle impassable. Until Flensburg, there is always a lot of transfer activity in our carriage at almost every one of the nine stations. We spend the time between stations with the ticket inspector. And endless discussions. He demands with increasing urgency that we distribute our luggage in different carriages. Which we don't do.
Monday, 11 February
After sleeping little but heaving a lot on the train from Hanover to Flensburg, we board the train in Flensburg to Fredericia in Denmark under time pressure. Once there, we hear an announcement that our connecting train will be delayed indefinitely due to a technical problem. Given the seven connections that still separate us from our destination, this sends us into a panic.
From Denmark via Sweden to Norway
While the train driver talks to a technician in a language we don't understand - we guess Danish based on local clues - we chat in English on the platform with the region's homeless people about God, the world and train delays. After around half an hour's wait, our train finally leaves the station.
We meet so many drunks on the train that, despite being very tired, we don't allow ourselves to sleep during the journey to Copenhagen out of concern for our luggage.
The journey to Hallsberg in Sweden goes without any further incidents, namely delays. After around 13 hours, we arrive in Kongsvinger in Norway. Shortly before our arrival, we get into a conflict situation with a somewhat inexperienced conductor for the second time on our journey. He doesn't want to recognise our Interrail pass as valid and, to make matters worse, he doesn't speak English very well. Our arguments are sound and finally convince him that our ticket is valid. We continue to Lillestrøm, where we change to the train to Trondheim. The mood is good, the sky is blue and the journey is not far away: just one more change to our destination Røkland![[image:27074046 "Almost at our destination."]]We will need this sleep in the next few days. More on this in the next part of our travel diary. Stories from the deep snow in the middle of summer.What has happened so far:[[marketingpage:12841]] [[marketingpage:12827]]How Arthur and Jannik came to write about their experiences for Galaxus can be found here.[[marketingpage:12799]]
We are two photographers in training at the F+F (School of Art and Design) in Zurich.
Since we are very fascinated by nature, we are much in the mountains and forests of Switzerland on the road. Mostly with camera, tent and a gas stove in the luggage.
Sport
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