20/06/08 - It's a long way for Pat today.

An early morning for us all today. Kerryn's train to Oslo left at
05:21 so we were up around 04:40 and what a beautiful day it is, after
yesterday's miserable weather it is lovely.

We will miss Kerryn and her torets style "Farts" everytime we go over
speedhumps. For yes that's what they are called in Norway(we think),
and it caused much juvenile amusement.

Daniel and I also leave Norway behind, we have a very long, 7 hour,
drive to Ostersund in Sweden today, so it is great to be on the road
early. We are heading for Verry family friends for longest day
celebrations.

The early start meant we were able to drive almost half of the 7 hours
before we needed to stop for breakfast! We also saw a few fit and
motivated earlybirds off-season training for cross country skiing.
Just because all the snow has melted is no excuse for them to slack
off. They just swap their skis, for what can best be described as a
long pair off roller skates, and go 'skiing'/'skating' along the
roads, it looks like very hard work.

We stopped at the old copper mining village of Røros. This is a
Unesco World Heritage town that began mining for copper ore in 1644.
The wooden houses with their grassy roofs in the village do not seem
to have changed alot since then. This timewarp feels like a western
movie as you stroll down the streets, past the tiny wooden miners
cottages and saloon style shops. We also walked up onto the slag heap
(waste from the mine) for a better view from the town. It is quite
amusing that a large pile of waste rocks is now a protected site that
cannot be moved or removed :-)

After scouring the van for all the remaining Norwegian money we had,
we topped up on diesel then crossed the border into Sweden. The first
interesting thing we stopped to see was Tor, a 2000 year old meteorite
crater in the forest!! It was only a small crater - about 40 metres
wide, but cause by the meteorite travelling at 10km/second, or
36,000km/hour!!

We finally made it to Ostersund and Birgetta's house beside Lake
Storsjön. Birgetta and her family have visited us in Piopio a few
times, so it was time to see where they live finally!! We arrived
just in time for the mid-summer celebrations, and we have been spoilt
with fantastic food and hospitality. We ate so much food, that we had
to finish the evening with a walk around the shores of Lake Storsjön.
The lake shares a similar story to Loch Ness, as it to aparently has a
monster lurking below the surface!! Maybe another monster spotting
expedition is required ;-)