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kirsten@kirstenhepburn.co.uk

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Hallmark Industrial Engravers

Present Position: Lat 50^o47’.37 N   Long 000^o  20’ 81 E

This is the page about our dream.

We have done two trips to Norway in Hoodwink.  Our dream is a third trip, this time as far north as we can manage. For you to understand why this dream still has not gone away I will tell you briefly about of first two trips.

On our first trip we arrived in Kristiansand and made our way up to Oslo stopping in Grimstad, Skaatøy and Kragerø, Larvik as well as mooring up to small islands for the night in some fantastic places.  We eventually arrived in Oslo in the middle of a tremendous thunderstorm and an immense downpour lasting long enough for the decks to be scrubbed in fresh water.  Whilst in Norway we even got a trip to Trysil with Ingrid and Hans Petter. Our return journey took us down the Swedish side of Oslofjorden to Gøteborg, over to Denmark down Store Belt and Lille Belt, through the Kiel Canal and ended up in Helgoland where we were held up due to bad weather.  From then on until we passed North Foreland we had the wind, force 6 to 8, on the nose. Eventually we arrived in Dover after having tried to go all the way to Brighton, but had to turn back as the engine gave up.  We had to leave the boat there for repairs, but eventually made Brighton a few weeks later. An exiting end to a 2 month cruise.

Our second trip lasted much longer, but had a slow start.  Going from Brighton to Eastbourne first for the last fitting out and taking onboard supplies.  We then made for Shortly Marina just up the river from Felixstowe where we spent a couple of weeks waiting for favourable winds. From there we spent four and a half days to reach Mandal. After having recovered we made way for Stavanger and then Haugesund.  Hans-Petter and family joined us for a few days of cruising around the area, mooring up to a small island, fishing and playing with the dinghy. Back to Haugesund where everybody left us except fro Ole Petter who spent some time with us. First back to Stavanger to pick up Paul Hickman, the son of a friend of us from England.  We had a great time with the boys.  Paul was returned to Stavanger to catch the plane back to England and Ole came with us to Bergen.  After some confusion of when the school started after the summer holiday.  I hope he got back in time. We spent another couple of weeks in Bergen before starting our return journey. Again back to Stavanger where we got ready for the North Sea crossing.  We had the company of ca 35 dolphins who honoured us with their company for nearly an hour. An experience never to be forgotten. Then we got cought up in some bad weather and had to heave too for 6 hours at the worst, but eventually arrived in Inverness. We did the Caledonian and Crinan Canals before mooring up in a marina near to Glasgow.  Here we over wintered the boat and resumed out trip around Easter the following year.  Cruising south through Scotland, stopped in Bangor just outside Belfast, Northern Ireland, then past the Isle of Man eventually ending up in Phllheli North Wales.  A lovely little Marina one of the best we had been to.  Spent a few weeks there before making our way passed Lands End to Falmouth.  We spent the rest of the summer cruising Cornwall and Devon arriving in Brighton in the middle of October. After all this time, 18 month, having seen so many places and met so many nice people on our travel we were quite sad for the journey to come to and end.

Since then as you can understand, we have had this dream of making one more trip to Norway.  This time taking the shortest rout to Bergen and then go north from there. Stopping in Nordfjordeid and eventually reaching Lofoten. A place I have always wanted to go.  Now with Rune and Marianne being in Hammerfest there is also a wish of reaching there, but that is a long, long way to go.  - But the dream is there!

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