Sardines!
Kristiansand, Norway > Stavanger, Norway
The sun rose at 5:00 AM and shone through our tent until we woke up at 9:00 AM. We grabbed a yogurt and cinnamon sugar wheat bun for breakfast, packed up and loaded the car.
We got on the road, stopping for gas and at a Bjerkreimselva riverside pull off where a few men were fishing for Atlantics. We made lean butter and banana sandwiches and walked along the river a short distance, spotting a few deep below the surface and nestled amongst the big underwater boulders. It looked like a public access site, but we’re still unsure of how the beats work here.
We made it to Stavanger and parked in the old town (Gamle Stavanger), which are blocks of restored homes that once belonged to the canning workers in the area. We made it to the Norwegian canning museum about an hour before closing and took a tour. We learned about the canning process, labor conditions and unionization, industry highs and lows, etc. This inspired Matt to try a tin of sardine in oil with dinner. The museum had unique artifacts, replicas and machinery from its time. There was even a information on a can of beef that was preserved in the 1950s and opened in 2003 with minimal gray meat or bacteria.
We left the museum at closing time and walked along the cobblestone streets of Gamle Stavanger before heading to the campground. We set up our tent at Stavanger Mosvangen for the night. The camper vans were packed in as tightly as a tin of sardines, but the tent site was more spacious and tree covered up the hill.
We drove over to Skagenkaien, which was the downtown area with restaurants and shops along the bay in quintessential Norwegian buildings painted red and yellow. We stopped into a couple of outdoor shops looking for propane and a cooler. Then we popped into McDonalds to try the passion fruit and meringue McFlurry and sweet potato fries.
We went to XXL and Europris in the super center / big box store area determined to find a cooler. We picked up a soft shell one so we could keep deli meats and cheeses for a couple of days.
To top off the day in Stavanger, we went to the swords in the rock monument to honor King Harld Finehair / Fairhair for uniting all of Norway.
When we arrived back to camp, we made dinner - ground chicken mixed with a chicken Alfredo rehydrated meal. Matt topped it off with rosemary crackers and sardines.
Campground: Stavanger Campground Mosvangen
