After leaving Molde behind us for the second time, we continued in our planned northerly direction. On the way we passed through numerous tunnels, small bridges and villages. Mostly this area on our trip was pretty unpopulated and therefore, unspoilt by human impact.

We were heading towards the Atlantic Ocean Road as this was one of the biggest attractions in the area and appeared on postcards and pictures everywhere we looked. However, in hindsight, the journey to the famous bridge and the sections we experienced after it, was significantly more impressive. However, we felt that it would be great to experience the drive nonetheless.

We came across many small settlements, I suppose that you would call them villages, but there were often only a dozen or so homes and a few storage barns and warehouses.

One of the many seaside villages along the E64, Norway

With Molde firmly behind us, we noticed that the terrain was quickly changing and was significantly flatter with many more islands appearing a small distance from the main road. These islands ranged from a few feet across to big enough to build a home and a lighthouse. Occasionally then even looked loved in.

We stopped several times along the way as the coastline to admire the views and again the camera was called on to record the journey, but, as usual, it struggled capture the beauty of what we saw.

Atlantic Ocean Road Bridge, Norway (taken whilst moving!)

As we arrived at the bridge, we were somewhat underwhelmed as we had expected many bridges to make up the attraction and the bridge we had seen on the pictures to be larger. However, the drive across the bridge was exhilarating, so much so that we did a u-turn at the end swapped over drivers so that we could both experience being both the driver and passenger.

We did stop at one of the parking areas and stretched our legs, but to our dismay, many other people, including a coach, had the same idea. So once we a few nice arty pictures, we headed back for the van.

Once back on the highway, we continued to head towards Kristiansund, not to be confused with Kristiansand that we had visited earlier in our trip. This involved going through a significant tunnel that was very deep under the sea and was quite steep and smoggy. We were pleased once we appeared back in to daylight.

Once we arrived in Kristiansund we found a convenient place to park (for free) opposite a skate park. It was busy, with kids on all skateboards, roller blades and scooters. They were pretty good and seemed to be having a lot of fun and seemed like they were really encouraging each other. We clambered out of the van to explore our new destination. We planned to stay here so we wanted to get a feel of what was around, plus pick up some provisions.

Kristiansund, Norway

Having walked along the side of the water, we arrived in the what was the centre of Kristiansund. We were seriously underwhelmed immediately. The place looked a little run down. I am sure this was due in part, to the fact that there was very few people anywhere. Plus, all the shops, bars, restaurants and cafes were all closed up with hardly a light visible anywhere. I am sure when it was a little busier that it would be a nice place to visit.

Having searched for an open supermarket, and failed, we wound our way back to the van passing a few friends cooking out and drinking in the boat yard. It looked like they were having a great time. We knew that we needed to make a decision reasonably quickly about what we were going to do next as we would be losing the daylight in an hour or so, and I didn’t fancy driving or pitching up to a camping spot in the dark. We quickly agreed that there was little to keep us in this town so we would definitely head on to find somewhere else to stay.

We drove around most of the streets in Kristiansund, but still no sign of a supermarket or open restaurant to get food. We knew we had enough to stave off hunger, but it would have been great if we had been able to get more to supplement our meal.

Having decided to head on the road out of town, we searched for some convenient places that we could stop overnight.

As usual, Sarah came up trumps and found a couple of places just outside Kanestraum. I unintentionally drove straight past the first one and didn’t even notice the exit from the road, as it was so small. However, we opted to continue and the saw the next pull in off the road and decided that it would likely do us perfectly. We continued past it for about 1.5 miles incase there was an even better one, but the last place we checked was close to the main road and mostly grass, and I was not wanting us to get bogged down trying to get out in the morning. So we headed back to our off-grid spot, found a vaguely level spot and pitched for the night a good 50-60ft from the road. We heard very little noise from the road, and it came in fits and starts so we realised we must have been close to the ferry terminal. Within an hour, the traffic had gone completely silent and did not start again until 7:30am the following morning. We later found out that was because the ferried do not run from late afternoon to early morning. So likely, we wouldn’t have made the last ferry even if we had continued on the previous evening. Good choice. Good luck. Often the script for our travels so far.