BRIAN REID PHOTOGRAPHER

Gothenburg to Oslo

Thursday, 11 September 2025 19:00

I was worried that I had used too many good weather tokens so far on this trip but I think I may have gained back a couple today. It has been steady rain with occasional torrential downpors so the waterproof jacket and waterproof walking shoes got their first outing. Fortunately it was another minimal sight seeing day with just four locations along a relatively short highway journey. During the course of the day the landsape changed from flat agriculture to hilly forest making the motorway drive way more interesting. Along the way I left the EU and entered Norway crossing the Svinesund, my first stop after a quick charge about an hour along the road. There is an old bridge and a new bridge with the border somewhere around the middle of the steep sided sound. I snuck through customs with nothing to declare. From there on after a comfort and snack stop just into Norway I visited three sites close together, the 15th century Skjeberg Church, the Sarps Falls and the Borgarsyssel Museum. The falls are man made and part of a hydro-electric plant but no less impressive for that. The Museum includes a colleciton of buildings mainly from the 19th Century, attempting to give a ‘living’ history experience. The museum was technically closed but a staff event was on and one of staff said it was fine for me to have a look at the buildings in the grounds but none were open. That was OK. I stopped at Vestby to top the car up and for a comfort stop as I like the car to be well charged before I put it to bed at night. Yesterday I visited a Supercharger station with 21 charge points available meaning it was empty apart from me. At Vestby there were 21 free but there are 40, yes 40, actual charge points so it was quite busy. They are situated at a shopping mall which was well appointed and had a great window display which you can see near the end of todays pictures. So here are a selection from the day, mainly damp and grey but you take the wet with the dry when you travel. You will see I have headlined two days in a row with a church. There a couple more from Skjeberg below. Then you will see the Svinesund bridges, old and new, the Sarps Falls and local industry, some snaps of the buildings in the musem and then a couple of charging station shots, the first from Uddevalla and the second from Vestby where there was an indication of how far along the electrification of cars is compared to the UK. It may seem a subtle point but I was surrounded by Tesla Model S and Model X vehicles, the original proper Tesla cars. They are quite rare in the UK as EV progress started to build with the newer Model 3 and Model Y. My hotel room has a balcony looking on to St Olavs Plass which is a nice addition and I have included a snap as the lights came on this evening. I’ll finish with a GoPro shot leaving Gothenburg and not far from here the car aquaplaned a little when the road, in a dip, was awash. An interesting moment and a first in the Tesla. Fortunately I was driving pretty slowly along, as were most Swedes. The tricky bit was that the visibility was very low making it difficult to detect water rater than wet tarmac and no vehicle was close nough