Fjordside at Rognan

26/08/2025

It was time to do some more work, so I looked for somewhere we could stop for a couple of days. Somewhere with a nice view and maybe some fishing opportunities for Paul. We also needed to do some laundry.

It just so happened that the river we were parked next to eventually ran into the sea at the end of a fjord and there was a campsite in a perfect looking location.

Rognan Fjordcamp

We arrived at the campsite in the early afternoon. No one was in reception so I rang the number on the door and the lady who answered told us to just park anywhere and she would be around from 5pm, or maybe 6. She gave us the entry code to the disabled toilet and promised to talk us through the rest of the amenities when she arrived. Like many campsites we’ve researched there is an additional cost for the showers so we decided to pay for electric hook up and use the van instead.

Parked up at the campsite with a fjord-side spot

We found ourselves a spot on the edge of the fjord near the small jetty that was part of the campsite amenities. Paul immediately went to check out the fishing opportunities. The jetty and pontoon were over water deep enough to make him happy and there was even a specific hut for cleaning and gutting the fish. There were clear instructions not to drop the guts and bones back into the water for which I was grateful, I didn’t want to swim with the (dead) fishes. The campsite even rents out small boats if you want to get into deeper water.

Fishing – the weather started a bit cloudy but it changed pretty quickly

The weather was lovely again so we got the table and chairs out and set about relaxing for the rest of the afternoon. I read and Paul fished, but didn’t manage to catch our dinner. We went for a swim in the briskly cold water right in front of our van. It wasn’t very salty water, I assume because we were close to the mouth of the river and a long way from open sea. Perhaps that’s why Paul’s fishing wasn’t so successful.

We didn’t do much here apart from working, laundry and fishing (still no catching, unfortunately). A short walk took us to Europris which is a bit like a Poundland without the super cheap prices. It sold a bit of everything, including some food, but only the unhealthy non perishable type. We may have purchased some snacks and sweets.

Some outside eating. Does anyone else have a fry up for their dinner? I can never manage one in the morning.

Laundry in Norway

In most of the places we have travelled it has been easy to find places with the larger style washers and dryers that allow us to wash a giant load of laundry in one go and get it dry quickly. Either laundrettes, or the Wash.Me style self service washing machines.

Norway appears to be a little different. We haven’t found laundry facilities readily available outside of campsites or similar (like the Marina we stayed at). There just can’t be much of a market for it.

The campsites tend to have domestic sized appliances, which is fine if we wash stuff little and often, but less convenient when we want to do a big load all in one go, and with bedding, towels and clothes it can add up. Domestic dryers, particularly the condensing type, take forever to get multiple loads of laundry dry.

We had an ideal couple of days to get some loads of laundry done and to get it hung out to dry in the fresh air and sunshine, saving ourselves the hassle and expense of using the drier. We bought a couple of tokens from reception and Paul wound out our awning so that we could use it as a clothes line.

Campsite Socials

We haven’t encountered many other motorhomes on our travels so far as the end of August is no longer high season. Motorhome parkups and cooler weather don’t always encourage people to sit outside their vans, so even when there have been other vans *(like those rainy days in Trondheim) it’s not been that sociable.

A few warm days, and the more relaxed atmosphere on a campsite make it much more likely that people will talk to each other. Even if it’s just in the laundry room or going to and from the toilet block. There’s something nice about that. We don’t mind a bit of solitude but we like to meet people and talk to someone other than each other. It’s always good to get some first hand travel trips and compare experiences.

In this campsite we had a long chat with a Norwegian who came over to tell us that the washing machine was free. He told us about his time working at the UN and gave us some good pointers for visiting Finnmark (the most Northerly area of Norway), including the warning that Nordkapp was a complete tourist trap. On our departure morning I thought I’d lost Paul, but he was having a chat with the occupant of a British van that had pulled up the night before. We ended up exchanging insta profiles with @pawsthevan.

This was a lovely interlude, despite having to work, and a good reminder that its good to stay on a campsite every now and again.