Oslo: The Kon-Tiki Museum

After lunch at the National Maritime Museum (and a quick look round) it was time for the last of the big three museums on the Bygdøy peninsular, Oslo.

The Kon-Tiki Museum, as you might have guessed, covers the expeditions by Thor Heyerdahl, in particular:

Kon-Tiki (above): from Peru across the Pacific to Raroia, Tuamotus in 1947

Ra II (below): from Morocco across the Atlantic to the Barbados in 1970.

It was interesting to see both of these boats up close - bigger than expected, rafts with sails that could go down wind/current.

Heyerdahl's  idea was that seafarers in ancient times could have crossed these vast distances with the technology of the day.

Before visiting I had the view that though the evidence was that they could have made these voyages, there was little evidence e.g. in the DNA, that they actually had. However it appears that more recent analysis suggested that while the majority of the Easter Islanders did indeed come from the rest of Poynesia, a small minority of 8% was Native American.

While measurement from a small sample, the fact that it was non-zero does suggest some form of contact, which makes these voyages more significant.

At this point was suffering a bit of boat-history-museum-history-heat overload, so decided to call it a day and go for a swim.

The water was very refreshing!

Oslo: The Fram Museum

It was a totally inappropriate day to visit this brilliant museum.

This museum celebrates polar exploration and contains two legendary ships, the Fram (above) and the Gjoa (below):

As well as these two ships, this museum is a treasure trove of all things related to high latitude exploration, of both the Arctic and Antarctic.

To get the full experience it should really be chilled like a freezer, requiring multiple layers of wool to enter. Alas on the baking day I was there it felt more equatorial than polar, the two triangular buildings housing the two ships trapping heat within:

But it was totally worth it as it was probably the best museum of high latitude exploration anywhere in the world, filled with objects and stories of interest.

The two main boats, for those that want a refresher, were indeed historic:

Fram: this was built for Fridtjof Nansen with sufficient strength to allow it to be frozen into the polar ice cap where it then was allowed to drift over the Arctic in 1893. Later it was taken by Amundsen to the south pole, allowing it to claim to have sailed further north and south than any other wooden ship.

Gjoa: this was the first vessel to transmit the Northwest Passage in the Roald Amundsen expedition of 1903- 1904.

There was an impressive surround sound + video installation around the Fram (below and top) that gave the impression it (and hence the visitor too) was exploring stormy seas dotted with icebergs.... somewhat spoiled by the temperature of course:

There was also a useful 12 minute film that gave an introduction to polar exploration.

As someone heading up north to Svalbard the museum was packed with useful information, such as the Norge airship expedition, the mooring pole of which we'd later see at Ny Alesund. Many stories had a similar theme which was: the Brits had a go, made a complete mess of things, then the Norwegians did it right (e.g. NW passage, race to south pole etc).

For me it was the top museum in Oslo and I really can't recommend it highly enough for anyone with an interest in high latitude exploration.

Even so, there came a point where my legs became tired and a break from yet-another-expedition's-story fatigue hit the point where lunch seemed a good idea, so I left and headed for the Norwegian National Maritime Museum which has a good canteen (but to be honest, not a lot else).

Oslo: The Viking Ship Museum

The first museum went to in Oslo was the Viking Ship Museum. I chose to go here first as was afraid it would be over-run with tourists (or to be honest, other tourists) and indeed it was, with a car park full of big coaches from a visiting cruise-ship.

However it was pretty spectacular, with three Viking ships: Oseberg (above & below, built around 820 AD), Gokstad (built about 900 AD) and Tune (not so well preserved).

The Oseberg and Gokstad were buried as graves and a lot of objects found from those and other graves were on display, including these animal head posts from the Oseberg find:

It was all fascinating and there was also a interactive film of the Vikings life which was fun though it was weird to hear about the raids on Britain from the Norwegian side. We, after all, were remembering those that killed the innocent, burning homes and monasteries, looting and raping their way across the North Sea.

History as seen by the other side - how very topical!

There was also a film about Viking navigation, but it was one of two films and the audio alternated between English and Norwegian which meant would have to wait half an hour to hear it in full so left for the next maritime related museum...

North to Svalbard: Oslo

It's a cold, wet, windy November evening: time to go through the photo album and post some memories of the travels this summer.

To get to Svalbard had to take not one but three flights, the first one was to Oslo and rather than connecting directly on to Tromso decided to spend two nights there. I really liked this city but, as with so many places this summer, it was suffering from heatwave conditions so often wilted a bit and had to recover with something this:

At the heart is the harbour and fort as can be seen in the top photo and the fort was a good place to explore, get good views over the harbour and dehydrate:

It was also a good place to watch the sunset, but this is 2018 so rather than showing a sunset photo (how 2017!), here is a "taking a sunset time-lapse" photo:

Very IG.

Around the harbour you could see lots of boats (like, duh!) but also various sculptures:

All very cool.

You could get this ferry out to see three of the museums, and these were tops, so each requires a separate post:

• The Viking Ship Museum
• The Fram Museum
• The Kon-Tiki Museum