For £60 I managed to get some return flights by Norwegian Air, from London Gatwick to Trondheim.
It was a bonus really as our favourite budget airline happens to be them, due to the free wifi on board, really.
I couldn't get really cheap hotels but fortunately the ones I stayed in were absolutely fantastic.
Friday 6th May 2016
I set off just after 9am as I wanted to grab 10 old caches on route to Gatwick.Firstly I went to Buckinghamshire to get InterMissendens , a cache published in November 2001.
It was a lovely short walk to some woods situated on a hillside.
Next I went to Swinley forest to do the SP series (Star Post). There are 9 caches which were placed between January and February 2002.
I really enjoyed doing these in the sunshine and it was a nice 5 mile walk.
Car parking cost £2 for 4 hours which is plenty of time.
So with the caching done it was time to park my car at Gatwick South terminal and wait for my 8pm flight to Trondheim.
Taking the 1 hour time difference into account, I arrived at Trondheim at around 11.30pm and a 15 minute walk away was my hotel for the night.
Scandic Hell was a stunning hotel with a lovely reception area, nice rooms and one of the best free breakfasts. I got a great deal of £56 for a single room, which was upgraded to a double.
Saturday 7th May 2016
After grabbing breakfast I had to make sure I got back to the airport to board the first train of the day for a CITO event and to get to Steinkjer for the Mega event.When I arrived at Steinkjer station I met up with 2 fellow UK cachers as they had very kindly offered to let me cache with them.
Firstly I met Janechick while her friend Disa urq was bagging a cache.
We grabbed a couple of multi's and then headed to the Vikingevent 2016 Mega, which was not far from the town.
The Mega was our 30th to date and first in Scandinavia. I was a bit disappointed to learn that the Lab caches didn't get finished on time and learned after that quite a few were disappointed too.
JC, DU and myself then hit the trails to bag a Letterbox cache and pick up a couple of Trads before returning to the Mega to grab some drinks and a hotdog.
We chatted to Jon Paul who is an organiser of the upcoming Estonia Mega and then I was introduced to a lovely couple who were #1 on finds in Norway, with over 30,000 finds.
After we were replenished we headed back to the car to pick up another Multi and a series of Unknown caches.
JC and DU had solved 3 of them but fortunately for us a group of 5 Norwegian ladies provided us with the final co-ords for the rest of the series.
It was a nice series done as drive bys but circling a lovely lake. Some of the views were spectacular.
The series was about different breeds of dogs and each cache had a picture of the type of dog the cache was name after.
Once the series was completed we grabbed an Earthcache and a couple of other caches on the way to dropping me off at my hotel for the night.
Best Western Steinkjer cost me just under £90 for the night but was so worth it. Included in the price was Free Coffee and waffles from reception area, a free evening buffet and then a free breakfast in the morning. A lovely hotel all round and a place I would highly recommend.
I had a chilled evening stroll after the buffet and grabbed 3 caches before returning to the hotel for a couple of beers... This is where the budget goes out the window in Norway as they cost me £10 a pint!!
Sunday 8th May 2016
After a huge breakfast I got the train I had booked back to the airport. The train journeys are fab and not bad for around £15 each way.I had around 3 hours before I needed go to departure lounge so I took a 5 mile walk into "Hell" to grab some more caches.
If Hell is as beautiful as the one in Norway then there is nothing to worry about if you have been naughty in life LOL.
I grabbed a few Trads and completed a Wherigo before saying goodbye to Norway until next time.
We have now been to 30 Mega events, oh and we have found our most Northernly cache.
Below is a quick video of a few snaps I took.
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