Hre’s the chat on the bonus Oslo transportation:

• We travelled the full extent of the number 12 tram route to see the tourist views in the chucking evening rain. Lively!
• We travelled to the very top of the ski jump hill, Frognerseteren, the last stop on the number 1 metro (I’d argue that no underground metro line in the world that ends up as an above-ground train has such stunning views - if there’s a better metro that meets that niche condition then I’d love to go on it!). Photos were taken. Thunderclouds followed us to town. Sorry Oslo!
• The number 30 saw us good from station to hostel a few times, and to the Norsk Folkemuseum (although… bendy bus, bouncy, heavy on the brakes).
• The smattering of islands right in front of Oslo harbor were visited via the B1 and B1X ferries - love those views and such a chill way to get about.
• We took Oslo city bikes on our final evening (thank you bike “Jon Olav”!) - despite the belt gearing and lack of brakes they were fun to ride and the cycle lanes were glorious.

A good news start to the day. Then… the rush to leave accommodation paid off. A local train with seats in groups of six, five, four, three and two - no tables. Departed to the second. Gorgeous sun and we carry with us strawberries so ripe they’re almost juice, the darkest of chocolates, and sweets that taste of berry Skittles but chew strangely. Smallholding agricultural region with housing and woodland interspersed. A barn with a road ramp jutting steeply two storeys to the loft. The river is wider than any we have in Scotland. Several houses have rally cars parked out back, perhaps winter daily-drivers?! Strawberries were some of the best I’ve ever eaten (and cheaper than Scotland). Chocolates are a mixed. bag. of mint, mocha and salt flavours, all yum. Single track sections mean stops for oncoming trains. Clouds like the Windows 95 wallpaper. Almost every home has a heat pump. Comedy portaloos at a trackside construction site, each one it’s own tiny trailer a meter ish wide, a meter ish long. Glassy water, elegant suspension bridge. Ruth spots every station has a marker on its sign to say meters above sea level - Rånåsfoss: 122m. Ribbon flags hang lazily. Small station with tiny snow plow attachment painted in red and yellow with blade shining. Our conductor has good taste in glasses frames. A school playing fields which include archery targets. Six lads squish in our banks of four and five seats - cosy! 80s Chevy vans have been spotted most days since Denmark. We arrived on time in Oslo ready for lunch.

Delayed enough to warrant a platform change; no hardship as we had plums, doughnuts and sunshine. Forests, rivers, lakes and planning for Kongsvinger. Martha’s reading The Crucible. I got the last free individual chocolate piece from the bowl; Ruth shared it with me. Brown wood slatted homes and barns of a slightly different style start appearing in the mix - longer, wider, taller, open sided gables on the barns. Sudden super skinny sideless bridge through a lake. Landscape hillier. Sweden’s 5G telecoms team deserve raises for coverage achieved (total and in spite of trees). Volvo factory next to a truly gorgeous lake. Our fellow passengers all seem to be American. 20 minutes further delay at Arvika to wait for 2 oncoming trains (the delayed train always gets delayed). Why is train main line from Stockholm to Oslo single track? Summer houses on lakes with slides straight into the water. A moose sculpture on a hotel roof. A “BoxIt” self storage shipping container on a street - self storage comes to you here! We approach and leave the Norwegian border seeing bulk-buy stores on both sides, locals able to optimise whatever is cheaper. Are the houses, trees or roads any different? Yes, they are Norwegian. (Otherwise, can’t tell). I stand with our bags too early, nervous to miss the brief stop (most folks are Osloing). Kongsvinger arrives 45 minutes late but still in sunshine and still with time to visit the fort (since it’s open 24h!). We walk across the tracks - nothing fancy like a bridge or underpass here.

SJ first class lounge was a welcome rest stop, and the food provision was on point. Then to our old-school first class carriage - wide seats with leather armrests and brass recliner levers. Shabby chic with blinds but no aircon. The carriage is split in three with wooden partitions. Newspapers but no coffee. Luggage racks are loftier than on the newer trains - it’s a bit of a stretch. Tables split fold across the double width a few centimetres on each side to make getting-in space. Mains power plugs, not USB.

The train gets to pretend it’s a subway train for a few minutes, diving deep underground and passing through one of the tube stations. Flags aplenty for yesterday’s Pride in Stockholm centre. I catch sight of a flag shaped swimming pool in the river, four triangles for swimming in separated off from other river users. We go into the Swedish interior, thunder clouds brewing. UFO on a stick water tower. Several minute-long tunnels and ears popping. Ruth produces a pilfered lounge Clementine. (My phone insists the word Clementine should always be capitalised, perhaps it should.) ((Also… “Next up for your listening pleasure, a BBC live recording from Pilfered Lounge Clementine!”))

We slow for a bridge across a broad river with container ships on one side, sand dump and distribution on the other. I commence a puzzling hunt for the chocolate I took from the lounge, mostly because the train feels 29 degrees and I hope I’m not sitting on it. It remains unfound. We snack through our morral, depleting reserves but there’s still an almost empty glass jar of jam in there that we’ve had for a week so the bag doesn’t feel noticeably lighter. We travel light/we do not travel light. The pretzels that have been almost upended several times are eventually finished. I drink my miniature juice box too slowly and the paper straw dissolves before empty. We read, write, collage.

We contemplate why do our trains not have a little sheaf of bin bags hanging below each table, opening from the middle out so only one gets used at a time? It’s another genius thing we should import.

Another hot take: backs of houses and back-lots are way more interesting than fronts. That’s where the old tractors, chickens, log piles, sitooteries, and weird yellow cars live. (Sometimes all at one property).

Lush and variable farm and town scenes pass as I’m listening to Page One writers podcast with Marco, Tariq and Chiara. The train becomes too hot all at once - there’s a reason the new carriages have air-con! As we pass vast freight yards every freight train carriage is tagged - the graffiti kids have been busy. Farmland changes to woodland. Trees grow around car-sized erratics. Glistening lakes. Water from the dining car is pleasantly cool, I’d have paid any price! We arrive on time and keen to get out into Karlstad.

A taxi-bus-metro combi to get from the ferry at Kapellskar in to actual factual Stockholm.

We rarely taxi but for some unknown reason the connection bus doesn’t run on Sundays until many hours after the ferry arrives (probably too few passenger but why offer connections at all if it’s not a consistent service?) so we taxi. Our man’s been waiting for the slightly delayed ferry and somewhat laborious disembarkation process. Thank goodness I’d emailed and booked. Aborted attempt to squish one more passenger in - we were fine with it but by the time the driver realised the potential fare could be squished in he was back in the terminal. Open roads with occasional ferry freight trucks already stringing out by weight/need for speed. We’re in Norrtalje in 20 mins, sunny.

Greatest connection synergy yet - we’re on the double decker to Stockholm and departed within 3 minutes. Moose warning road sign was exciting for me and a few miles later MARTHA SAW A MOOSE! 🫎 Arninge has a cool triangle rainbow logo on a concrete sign hanging high diagonally above the road - we don’t get signs like that. We’re in Stockholm by 830. A huge advertising digital board that’s slightly broken - it has it’s menu showing 7Zip or AnyDisk on it. I’m sure it feels embarrassed. Final bus stop’s on top of the metro for another slick interchange down an escalator.

Metro station is hewn from rock and makes you feel it - cool, airy. Wooshy modern Metro train. A couple of minutes wait, a couple of minutes travel. Loving the hanging handholds - leather and aircraft aluminium. Classy. Stockholm Central, thankfully quieter than last time. Feels early still. Bacon rolls needed.

We walked the “don’t walk this route” route to the terminal, it was scenic. We were three of 13 foot passengers on bus one, looked like less than another 20 on bus two and three later on… most passengers are truckers and their cargo, the rest are in cars; foot passengers not the norm on this crossing. Shiny new ferry! On deck in a swing seat and at a table until cabin cleaning is complete. Sun sets as we weave through hundreds of islands sprinkling the waterways. All tucked up in comfy bunk beds by 11. Fun to be had playing with the room light settings. Complex alarm setting (Sweden an hour earlier, arrival time in local time but when will phone timezone change? I set the alarm on the Casio watch to be sure!) Calm crossing, sleep was had. Ferry showering is always complicated - how badly will I soak the floor and will a lurch send me tumbling? Foot passengers get lowest priority - stuck on board until cargo deck emptied… the day of multimodal travel starts on the 8 passenger minibus from inside the ferry. (It’s not getting a blog to itself). Who knows where the other foot passengers are - got off at the 3am island stop, still asleep or found some sneaky way to skip the oppressive regime? I ride upfront with the driver. We leave ferry and terminal complex before driving round to the other side of the terminal, despite a gate existing and potentially saving 10 mins. A warm sunny day. Kiitos Finland, hej hej Sweden.

Bonus edition to thank these fine chariots:

• An orange chain ferry - has claims on being Finland’s oldest working vehicle - zipping back and forth across the river
• A Voi e-scooter that zapped me along a few kms of riverbank roadworks
• A funicular that zopped me up to a hill that was less fun than the funicular
• A characterful Donkey Republic bike called Bob (with limited breaking capacity and only a third of its three gears working) that zupped me to the castle and back

Luggage lockers out of order, someone missed a flight because of it (although not today, I hope!). Little cafe’s temporary luggage storage service is coining it in. Bus stop location confusion overcome. Blazing sun. Tired feet. I crashed in to everyone getting onto the bus - sorry Turkuvians. Saturday afternoon suburbs then car showrooms, BBQ restaurants, tennis courts, construction, food factories, tool shops, graveyards, play parks, ring roads all pass by. We’re sad not to be able to experience the 24h K-Market. Tiny air-con puffs to the face. Overhead usb ports for recharging. Funky pylons, two legged, boxy, support cables overhead between lots. Moi Moomins!

First class, upstairs, quite coach, with a table, two seats facing forward - can’t get better than that. Many pastries to eat for breakfast (from another K-Market excursion). Glorious sunshine and 18 degrees outside. Helsinki museum wasn’t kind to its suburbs, and their architectural style is generally functional four to six storey blocks and perhaps local amenities lacking, but they looked well-kempt as we pootle past. Rooves have snow guards, loads of glass covered balconies, buildings look sealed up tight against cold winters. Further out of Helsinki centre, bungalow houses include covered garages. The (strong) coffee self-serve station gets stocked up and Oatly Tetras are discovered. Karjaa also has a turntable and also an old steam engine. Storks! Two storks spotted in a field near Pojo. Train activity: zoom in on the Hanko coastline map and see why Finland has 178,947 islands. Our train route is mostly inland with a few tunnels and, outside of towns, is passing lots more of the same mixed fields and woods. An e-scooter is abandoned at the end of the tracks in Salo - good luck trying to hire that one! Exceptionally silty brown rivers. Accidentally gave myself hiccoughs. New housing that looks oddly Californian - no trees, picket fences, Teslas in driveways. Long tunnel that makes ears pop - doesn’t stop hiccoughs. A deer in a very Borders-esque valley. The quiet coach has a telephone conversation cupboard, and the train has a decent restaurant cart, a kids carriage and a separate kids reading room decorated with Richard Scarry characters. We arrive to a sunny Turku, I still have hiccoughs.

Dash for the train successful, finding forward facing seats together less so. Still, being on the train an hour earlier than expected is a proper win. We’re upstairs on a double-decker train again. A just-toddling toddler entertains us. Repeated seat changes due to squatting in reserved seats as there’s no way to know which ones are reserved. Sun blazes, air-con passable. Re-reading Someone Comes To Town, Someone Leaves Town. Orchards, beautiful fields, inviting lakes, millions of trees. Yards filled with lumber. Noon comes and suddenly the families around are all eating lunch. One of the kids has a device playing a pipe organ whistle-type tune that grates after half an hour. A steam train sits on Kervo platform. We’re back I Helsinki in time for lunch.