Ships and Norway

 

The first time I ever heard of the country Norway was when I was a young child in Port Lincoln perhaps 8-9 years old. We lived in a house that overlooked Port Lincoln harbour and we could see all the ships that came and went. My father was the local top cop and because of his high profile in the town he often got to meet the captains of the visiting ships that came to port. So there was an occasion when this ship called the Nidar came to Port Lincoln and I learned that it was from Norway. This became significant because for the first time, through Dad's connections with Captain Larssen of the Nidar, we were able to go on board and have dinner and we were given a tour of the ship. As you can imagine it was quite a special occasion and something I've never forgotten. In addition every time the Nidar came to port Lincoln it would blow its horn three times when it came into port and again three times when it left. Captain Larssen said this was his way of saying hello and goodbye to us when they came and went so we felt quite special when we heard that loud barp barp barp noise across the harbour rising up to the hill where we lived. It was Captain Larssen sending us greetings.

So my first memory of Norway was to do with ships.  Fast forward 60 years and I'm finally in Norway. I'm in the waiting room of the Roros railway station. I'd been walking around for a while and it was pretty cold so I thought I'd just go in there and take a break. I figured that it would be  warm and I could defrost before continuing my walk. This really friendly guy (see photo above)  was in there with a companion having a few beers in the corner of the waiting room and offered me a drink. I declined the drink but lingered to have a chat and he was really friendly. He spoke excellent English as many Norwegians do and he told me how he had first heard about Australia from his father. His father was a sailor or seaman and had travelled the world on ships in the Merchant Navy and said that the best place he ever went, and the best people he ever met were Australian and this guy in the waiting room, his son, was telling me this story and how because of what his father had told him, he'd always wanted to go to Australia and was very pleased to meet me there in the waiting room of Roros railway station! I said well you don't look like you're that old so you've got plenty of life left - maybe you could go to Australia and see it for yourself and he held up his beer, looked at me with a great big smile and said, “I drank all my money.” So a sad story in a nice way;  he was obviously a drinker and perhaps a heavy drinker - it was about 1:00 in the afternoon and he obviously already had a few and he said that was a pretty regular occurrence where they go to that waiting room at the station and have a few drinks.  But we both kind of realised that we shared a connection.  My first experience and my first thought of the country of Norway was associated with ships and his first introduction to Australia was also through ships and people sailing the world. It was just a really nice interlude, not quite magical, but a very warm moment where it felt very nice to be in Norway. I felt welcome.