The Long Way Round – My unplanned tour of Scandinavia
John, our IT Manager here at Erna Low, recounts his epic journey home to the UK from Norway after the ash from the Icelandic Volcano closes all air space in Northern Europe…
Day 1 – Thursday 15th April
I have spent the last couple of days on an educational trip to the Norwegian resort of Trysil, a lovely family resort located a couple of hours from Oslo and am due to fly home today. Little did I know that this was also the first day of what was to become a team challenge that would make Sir Alan Sugar proud. It started when I joined my group for breakfast. I was travelling with representatives from TUI, Ski Dream and Pinnacle Travel, together with our hosts Jenny from SAS Airlines and Robert from Rezidor. Robert mentioned that he had seen something about a volcano erupting in Iceland and from what he could gather there were no flights operating out of Northern Scandinavian airports. Luckily (or so we thought) Oslo was still open, so we departed for our dog sledding trip as planned, only to return and find that Oslo had also been closed. Flights were due to depart on Friday morning, so Robert used the first of many favours to secure us some accommodation for the night in Oslo and we took the 2 hour coach journey back to town.
Fourth train of the day
Day 2 – Friday 16th April
Wake up in Oslo to find that the closure of airspace now affects the whole of the UK as well and appears to be getting worse. Oslo is pretty much full for a huge Expo, so an hour spent on the internet reveals that all trains and car hire out of Oslo are fully booked. The news suggests that airspace may open later that evening, so call in favour number two and blag city tour passes. Trysil educational turns into Trysil/Oslo educational. Spend the day checking out the many museums and places of interest around Oslo, together with a site tour of the Radisson Blu Hotel, which has hosted guests ranging from Annie Lennox to Bill Clinton. Favour number three sees us being hosted for an evening meal by the lovely people at the Hard Rock Cafe, followed by two stressful hours in the hotel lobby looking at travel options home, without much success.
Day 3 – Saturday 17th April
Meet for breakfast and check the news, which is becoming more and more pessimistic. Looks like the chances of getting off the ground in the next few days are becoming very slim, so we bite the bullet and decide to get out of Norway by any means necessary. Conor, one of the group members has heard of a cruise ship departing from Hamburg for Southampton on Sunday night, so a few frantic calls are made and probably the biggest favour so far finds us with six places on the ship, provided that we can get to Hamburg in time. With all trains, buses and rental cars booked out, we manage to find space on a ferry leaving from Larvik for the north coast of Denmark, so we grab a taxi and make the two hour journey from Oslo to the port. A four hour ferry journey and an hour’s taxi ride later, we find ourselves in the town of Aalborg and grab a hotel for the night.
Day 4 – Sunday 18th April
Having managed to book a series of four trains with worryingly little time between each departure, we put our faith in the Danish rail system, which thankfully seems to be far superior to our UK system. Make it to the German border on time and board the third train, which promptly grinds to a halt before even making it out of the station. Wait around for the train to be fixed, whilst wondering what happened to the famed German efficiency. Finally get on our way half an hour late and, with only a twelve minute window before the next train, we can see our escape route rapidly disappearing. Thankfully the German efficiency proves not to be a myth, the train makes up the half hour delay and we make our connection to Hamburg. Relax in the station with a cold beer before making our way to the port.
We board the brand new Celebrity Eclipse cruise ship, it’s my first time on a cruise liner and I am blown away by the sheer size of this 15 storey, 22,000 tonne monster. Realise we were very lucky to have found a route home (especially as 800 of the 950 passengers booked to travel were unable to make it for the cruise) and relax for our two day luxury cruise home.
Our lift home
Day 6 – Tuesday 19th April
Finally make port in Southampton, six days later than planned and having used pretty much every means of transport at our disposal. Having seen the travel chaos first hand, I head home feeling thankful that I work for a company specialising in self drive ski holidays and planning my next trip – a luxury cruise!
Welcome home John!
