On the weekend from the 9th until the 11th of March our international Outdoor education class took part in a cultural Norwegian experience. This was predominantly based around the Holmenkollen ski festival, which is an international ski festival held each year just outside the capital city Oslo. Prior to attending on the most eventful festivals in Holmenkollen history our class visited the Fram museum in Oslo. This proved to be an excellent opportunity to gain some interesting knowledge around the history of the famous Norwegian explorers Fridtjof Nanses and Ronald Amundsen. Known for their famous journeys to the north and south poles. The museum was also full of several other interesting facts and historical items the centre piece of this was a large ship used in the polar expeditions.

After leaving the Fram Museum, we drove up to Holmenkollen. We arrived at the camping area in the early evening we had just enough day light to find a campsite and set up for the night. The area by the track was on a steep hill so we had dig out snow to make a flat platform for our tents. Once we had established our sleeping area we moved on to making the area more comfortable, we started to dig out a fire place we dug a seating area around it collected some wood and started a fire and dinner. Once we had all eaten and settled in Jed, Brad, Same and I took the opportunity to explore the area. We where all in awe as we wondered around observing the various set ups of the Norwegian camp sights surrounded by bonfires. When then made our way down to the dance floor to socialise with some of the local Norwegians before going to bed for the night.
Saturday morning, we woke up at 8 am to the sound of blaring music coming from the DJ booth. We looked outside our tent to see hordes of already drunk Norwegians gathering around the track side. We sat down to eat breakfast together taking in the madness that was forming around us, it began to become a little overwhelming at that time of morning so a group of us decided to go and check out the ski jumping. When we eventually arrived at the ski jump myself and the other Australians looked in awe at the size of the jump. It was amazing to see in perspective how intimidating the sport of ski jumping is. As we stood in the crowed it was surprising to see the diversity of the supporters from all around the world. This for me highlighted the significance of the Holmekollen ski festival.

We then left the ski jump and headed back up to the camp ground to watch the main cross-country race. It was a shocked when we arrived back at the campsite to see the number of drunk Norwegians and the havoc they had created in just a few short hours. We found our tents flattened, our area had been over taken and equipment went missing. This was frustrating to begin with, but we soon realised there was nothing we could do about it and instead moved to try and enjoy the race. All the campsite issues where soon forgotten as we where submerged in the madness of the crowd. Hearing the crowd cheer and seeing them wave flags as the skiers went passed, seeing people enjoying each other’s company having a good time made me appreciate how fortunate I was to be able to experience this event.
Later that evening the majority of the group returned to the Ski jumping to watch the Men’s event. It was a shock to see how the number of people had increased significantly, people from all over the world chanting and dancing to support the jumpers from the nations. Norway ended up winning the event with one athlete managing a jump of 110 meters.
After the ski Jumping we returned back to what looked like a battle field. There were hundreds of abandoned campsites some with fires still going very few people remaining from the days antics. Sam, Marijn and I took full advantage of this going on a scavenger hunt around the camp ground collecting left over wood, food and beers from the abandoned camp sites. After we had collected all we could we headed down to the DJ booth to find it had been abandoned and taken over by Jed, that was where our group spent the majority of the night. We then went to go to bed to discover half our tent had been flattened throughout the day by drunken Norwegians. This left Jed and I to spend the night bivvying in an un comfortable ditch next to the fire pit, safe to say neither of us got more than an hour of sleep that night.
When the light came the next day, we saw the full aftermath of thousands of drunken Norwegians rubbish and abandoned equipment littered the ground as far as we could see. Out group gave it our best effort to collect all the rubbish we could in the area surrounding our camp ground before leaving. After that we packed up our equipment most of which was damaged in some form and begun the 5-hour journey back to Kristiansand.
Despite the numerous mishaps throughout the weekend Holmekollen lived up to its reputation and perhaps even beyond. It was an amazing yet shocking cultural experience that will not soon be forgotten for any of us international students.