A love of rural towns has drawn two Norwegians back to Gunnedah.
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Erling Tvedten and his wife Lene Gjonnes made their second day trip to the shire in four years on Friday with Tamworth couple Anne and Jim Croker.
The Crokers' daughter Beth is married to the Norwegians' son, Olav, and the two sets of parents regularly visit one another in both Australia and Norway.
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Beth met Olav on the last night of her student exchange in Oslo in 2011 and the pair met up when he came to Australia for his own student exchange not long after.
Both of them were medical students and Olav did his exchange at the University of Newcastle where Beth was studying.
The pair married three years ago, live in Sydney and now have a one-year-old son, Tobias.
Erling and Lene first visited the Crokers' home in Tamworth four years ago and were given a tour of Gunnedah, which has always stayed with them.
"Since then we've been talking about it," Erling said.
Olav even gave his father a shirt that says 'I retired to go to Gunnedah' in Norwegian.
NVI caught up with the group when they were in town on Friday and Erling said he could relate to the rural lifestyle because he and Lene run a farm back home. He spoke at a Tamworth Rotary Club meeting in the morning.
"We were fascinated by the rural lifestyle here," he said.
"The lack of tourists ... it was something real.
"We could feel it was a good atmosphere."
Erling said they always have a "wonderful time" in Australia because "it's very different to Norway in many ways".
Anne said they enjoyed hosting the Norwegians and also spending time in their home in Larvik. They are even learning to speak Norwegian.
Lene and Erling will stay in the country for three weeks and are looking forward to a visit from Beth, Olav and Tobias in Tamworth on the weekend.
The Norwegians will then travel to Sydney to take up "babysitting" duties for the remainder of their trip.