Kristiansand; Saturday, 27 May, 2023

As soon as the northbound train appeared around the corner pulling into Dombås station the train manager hurried people back onto our southbound train so that we were able to get underway again as soon as possible, and in the end we were only about 10 minutes late leaving Dombås.

The journey south continued, mostly through more rolling and much greener landscapes that we’d seen on the journey previously.

Shortly after leaving Dombås we started following the course of the Gundbrandalslågen river and we pretty much stayed next to this, and the subsequent lakes it flowed into for much of the rest of the journey down to Oslo, with the E6 occasionally disappearing over it and into an impressive tunnel through a mountain to cut off a particularly wide loop of the river that the railway continued to follow.

At Lillihammer, site of the 1994 Winter Olympics, the river widens out to form Mjøsa, the largest lake in Norway and we continued down the west coast of the lake the whole 117km to the southern end where the railway line finally crosses over the body of water as it changes from Lake Mjøsa into the river Vorma at Minnisund.

From here the railway line tracks away from the river as it headed for a quick stop beneath the terminal buildings of Oslo Gardermoen Lufthavn. From there it was a final 20 minute ride to the town of Lillestrøm and then, mostly through tunnels, into the centre of Oslo where we arrived bang on time.

From the station we caught a taxi round to our hotel for the night, who had very kindly kept a couple of plates of the complementary evening meal back for us so that we had a quick dinner and drink before turning in.