Kayaking in Oslo

And getting there on public transit

Another activity we did while in Oslo last summer was go kayaking, but finding a place to rent kayaks was more challenging than I expected. Turns out, many places seem to only offer kayaking tours, and that’s really not our jam; we like to go on our own. But in Oslo (and maybe all of Norway?), most places require you to take a 2.5- to 3-hour Våttkort certification course to learn paddling techniques and self-rescue on the water, which then earns you a “wet card” and the ability to rent kayaks on your own. Short of this, your option is to go on a tour with a certified guide.

However, I kept searching and found an option via Wild Oslo. It was outside of Oslo, but it was accessible via public transit, so I arranged the rentals online (using Google translate, as most of the websites in Norway didn’t offer an English language option) and off we went, first on the train and then by bus, leveraging the Ruter app and Google maps. It was a trek, but not a difficult one. By the time we hopped off the bus, we were the only ones left on it, as we were way out in what felt like the middle of nowhere. We joked that we could hear the banjos playing.

Fortunately, the bus dropped us off fairly near the kayak rental, though we had to cross the road and hike a tiny bit to where the equipment was stored. S wasn’t wowed by the idea of kayaking—she still carried mental scars from our kayaking adventure in Portugal a couple of years prior—but she was a good sport about coming along, mostly.

Fortunately, there was some staff who helped us get the kayaks and our life jackets, but then we had to carry the kayaks down the hill and across a road (so maybe a 10-minute walk?) before inserting them into the water. If you’ve never carried a kayak very far, it’s a bit of an awkward endeavor. C carried his and N’s, and S and I fended for ourselves.

The insertion point into the lake was a bit tricky. It was rocky and the water at the edge was dirty, plus footing was slick. It took a few tries, but we finally all got in and then out onto the water.

It felt like we had the lake to ourselves; hardly anyone else was on it. The water was really calm and it was easy to make good progress. We ended up stopping at a small island so we could have a picnic and use an outhouse. Docking our kayaks and getting onto the island was a bit challenging, as there was no actual dock, but we figured it out.

We wanted to keep kayaking out after that, but I was concerned about making sure we could catch the bus back, as it only came once an hour. So, instead, we headed back towards where we started, paddling with gusto while still taking in the view. It truly was such a serene location that I could’ve imagined spending all day out there, leisurely exploring different nooks and crannies of the lake. I’m glad we made the trek to the more remote location, though it also would’ve been nice to have kayaked right in the Oslofjord. It still blows my mind that we were able to do the whole trip with public transit.

As a side note, on the way back while we were getting on the train, we saw a huge plume of smoke. Then as we got going on the train, we could see a building on fire, with flames dancing out the top. N was concerned and wanted us to call it in, but I had no idea a) what number I would’ve called, and b) where I would’ve told a phone operator the fire was. (I could barely find where we were on a map!) Plus, none of us had a local number.

One of the downsides of eSIMs is that the global ones, like Airalo, don’t come with local numbers—they’re data only (i.e., good for Internet searches, email, and messaging)—so we didn’t actually have a way to have called emergency services even if we had known how. It’s one of the things that we’re always aware of as we travel—that in an emergency we would likely need to befriend someone to help us.

Anyway, where have you kayaked (or paddle boarded or canoed) that you enjoyed, whether at home or abroad, and how was the experience?