Preferably, however, I wanted Milloup to take the first flight of his life in the cabin with me to render the experience less frightening, and therefore I had packed the hand luggage in Milloup's usual bus-bag and in a way so that it could easily be taken out and put into his travel box instead, should the possibility of taking him into the cabin with me arise. In the airport I spoke with the nice lady at the check-in counter, Milloup was weighed, and as the weight on that particular day showed a scant 8.3 kilos, and I furthermore pleaded his case with fervour, the lady decided then and there that it would be okay to let Milloup enter the cabin of the plane - sitting in his bag as he usually does on bus rides.

The luggage was hurriedly removed from the bag and thrown into the travel box. The box disappeared down the conveyor belt, and Milloup, who is very devoted to his box, made moves to jump onto the conveyor belt in order to follow his dear beloved box down the belt. Once he discovered that he'd have to give chase on his own, should he want to follow the box, he gave up this venture.

Half an hour later we boarded the plane, and as luck would have it we ended up on a three-abreast seat together with a very dogloving girl from the south of Jutland. Milloup's bag was squeezed into the middle seat and we belted up. When the plane took off Milloup was not too happy about it, but as soon as we were airborne the stewardesses brought out the food waggons and started handing out the trays. Our new friend from the south turned out to belong to that group of people who willingly share their food with the needy, and as a result of this flying was suddenly much more interesting. In companionable unison they raided her tray, and Milloup then turned to me to see if I, too, should be willing to share my provisions with a hungry dog. For once I was.

So it was a well fed and contented dog that landed in Oslo with his mistress. Nina picked us up at the airport and took us to the Anker hotel, a centrally situated and fairly priced medium range hotel near the river, Akerselva. She helped me carry the luggage up to our room and left us with a promise to call for us the next morning and take us out to Lillomarka where the tracking trials were to take place at 10.

Once Nina had left us I unpacked our things, and then it was time for our first little stroll around Oslo. Down Storgata we went, and then back the same way so we didn't risk getting lost on the way. After a quick dinner we turned in after a busy day.

On the other side of the bridge a stairway led down to a footpath along the river itself, and after a nice morning stroll in the company of the turbulent waters we once again reached the hotel.

At 9.30 sharp Nina's white car pulled into the parking lot outside the Anker hotel, and we set out for the outskirts of Oslo.

My first impression was of moss and stone, stone and moss, and bushes and trees that looked as if they were growing in sheer rock or in the moss. Huckleberry bushes covered a generous part of the woodland floor in a thick carpet reaching halfway up our calves. Some distance into the woods we were shown the beginning of the trail, and a marking hanging about 20 meters further on was pointed out to me. That was the flight direction. I put Milloup on the trail and he started in grand style. Uphill we went, and in the middle of a patch of huckleberry thicket the dog started searching eagerly. First he checked towards the left, then back a few meters, left again, back, and in the third go he decided on the left track. Probably one of the corner patches where no blood has been spread, I thought. We were now traversing the slope instead of climbing up the hill, but after a short while Milloup turned uphill once again.

To my Danish eyes it looked as were the dog about to climb the sheer, mosscovered rockface. At the foot of the rockface a fallen tree barred the way. Milloup nimbly climbed under the tree, whereas I did not climb equally nimbly over it.. I did manage to follow him upwards, however, but halfway up I was stuck again and from my precarious position I shouted to my dog that I *** hoped he knew what he was about, because I definitely wouldn't be able to climb down the same way again. Nina and Arild were standing at the foot of the cliff having a great time..

Having braved this climb it was no problem at all to navigate amongst rock crevices 3-4 meters deep, or anything else that came our way. The trail had again turned left, and we were advancing pretty rapidly along the hill. At some stage Milloup stopped to listen to a dog barking close by, but a short reminder made him take up the trail again. He hadn't entirely forgotten this dog, though, because shortly afterwards, when we were to cross a rocky footpath, Milloup purposefully turned right and made haste up the path. After some 50 meters I discovered that the judge wasn't following us anymore. I managed to turn Milloup back, but not until he had conducted a thorough investigation of a still steaming piece of dog dirt of generous proportions found under a bush.

After our exertions in the woods Nina took us back to the hotel and left us with a promise to call for us again at half past five. We had been invited to dinner by Anne, one of Nina's friends who also breeds longhaired dachshunds.

When at long last we made tracks back to the hotel I could feel that both Milloup and I could well do with a little rest. Therefore, safely back in the hotel we lounged on the bed and took it easy until it was time to make ourselves presentable in preparation for our Saturday night excursion.

When Nina came for us a scene of joyful reunion enacted between her and Milloup. It may be that Milloup - being a typical dachshund - may have a tendency to not always accept people at first sight, but once accepted they always get the full red carpet treatment when he meets them again. And Nina had obviously already been added to Milloup's list of approved persons.

When we have prawns in Denmark we usually get them frozen and already shelled - and they are tiny, about 1 cm or so. These prawns, however, were still wearing all their armour, and they were huge. Two brimming dishes of prawns ready for shelling were waiting on the table, and I covertly glanced at the others to get an idea of how to tackle the situation. Nina showed me how, and - courageously, I thought - I set out to deal with the task in hand. When I'd shelled the first four I was no longer so very certain that I would be able to make a career in prawn shelling. By then the others all had a decent pile of shelled prawns on their plates, and Anne did a quick tour of the table stealing some of the others' shelled prawns and depositing them on my plate. So despite my lacking skills I didn't starve, and the prawns were great!

And so Milloup had to say goodbye to his newfound lady friends. The car was waiting outside, and it was a very tired little dog that half an hour later curled himself up beside mummy's pillow. It had been a long day indeed.

Oslo Diary Part 2

Back to Travel Diary

Back to Main Page

Updated on 14-8-03