Reflections on Scratching the itch - Nordkapp 2013

7th June - Sod the bloody whales

I was up early and off to see the whales. The town was buzzing with life. This is the main street at just after 8

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Honestly I was a bit worried about how bumpy the ocean was going to be but I had resolved to be stoical about it since it is the best opportunity I am likely to have to see a big whale. There were a few of us hanging about at the Hval Safari office

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At 9 o'clock they announced that the wind out at sea was too strong for safety and they would have to cancel both of the day's planned trips. I could choose to stay on for another day and try again but I have decided to move on. On the way back to my room I realised the the war memorial had been hung on the back of another memorial to fishermen lost in a great storm in 1821.

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I really had seen all there was to see so I did some routing for the next bit. Luckily the bike was invisible under my cunning camouflaged cover so I wasn't worried about it.

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The sun did almost appear briefly after lunch. This is the view from my window.

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It didn't last. I listened to the cricket on R4 while I was working. Thanks to a good bit of geekery involving vpn's I was able to watch the end of it once I had transferred the routes to the GPS. It's always good to beat Australia.

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Dinner was a tin of Brun Lapskaus, about £5 a tin! There is a Lyt Lapskaus as well which I will have to try one day.

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I quite enjoyed it. It was a meaty stew a bit like Irish stew.I couldn't have a beer with it though, I think because it is the weekend. They call Saturday Lordsdag and Sunday Super Lordsdag.

Last thing was to repack and get ready for a reasonable start in the morning to ride the length of the Lofoten archipelago.
 
8th June - "A very ancient and fishlike smell..."

It wasn't raining when I set off today which was about the only good thing you can say about the weather. The cloud was down, it was 9C and there was a biting wind from the NE. Not a promising day for photographs

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I really enjoyed the road though and I could imagine the views would be spectacular. I was island hopping by bridges

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tunnels, which you've seen before, and a boat. I like the boats. You join the queue

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The bike in front belongs to a couple from Oslo. He rode up to the cape, she flew up and is travelling back with him. I had an interesting chat about how much the GS costs in Norway. Essentially a year's salary was the answer.

The boat arrives

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and opens its big mouth to swallow you all up.

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It's a good job the skipper knew where he was going. It's complicated out there

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He found a jetty ok

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Back on the road, this is Lofoten cathedral.

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The weather didn't improve much

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It is quite common to see this traditional approach to roofing

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And now the fishy part. Everywhere you pass these drying racks hung with thousands of cod

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Both the bodies

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and the heads

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These are stockfish, production of which is a key industry on Lofoten and in N Norway generally. The heads go to Africa where they are apparently much prized. A lot of the bodies go to Spain and Portugal to make, for example, Bacalhau. This is air dried fish not salted which is different. It smells but is not as unpleasant as you might think. Lofoten has the world's only stockfish museum, or so they claim.

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And now I am in my room in the little Hostel above the museum. The window at the top above the wheel is mine. Or rather ours, I have a bed in a shared room. The guy in the bunk beneath me is the husband of a woman who teaches at St Mary's school just up the road from me in Shaftesbury. He lives near Bath. In one of the other bunks is a chap from China who is studying at York Uni. He was singing the praises of the Peak District so I've just told him how to find the Dales.

They were still sorting out the day's catch when I arrived.

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This is the view from my window. I'm as far south as the road goes on Lofoten in A. I have to be up and off early to catch the boat to the mainland at 7.

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The harbour is full of kittiwakes and they don't half make a racket.

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Curry flavoured pot noodle for tea. Yum!
 
June 9th - "Blow winds and crack your cheeks"

Up for an early start this morning. i Left the hostel at 6 for a bigger boat than usual

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The crossing back to Bodo on the mainland was a bit over three hours. Everything about these boats is well organised and efficient. We sailed out past the breakwater on time

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In the distance you can just make out the distant shapes of the outlying islands in the chain.

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I read the paper on my pad and fell asleep. When I woke up we were still an hour away but had started picking our way through the small islands that are a feature of this part of the Norway coast.

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Bodo, once it appeared seemed to be full of cranes

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Getting out of the city on the right road was the usual nightmare, mainly due to roadworks and deviations but eventually I settled in on route 17,

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sometimes called the coastal highway, which is a minor road that follows the coast from Bodo almost to Trondheim. It's 390 miles altogether with some splendid bridges and six ferry crossings.

The next few hours need glossing over. It was cold with a cutting icy wind and regular, sudden, squally showers. I was cold, tired and miserable. I just had to grit my teeth and get on with it. With hindsight, it was the only time I was fed up on the whole trip so that's not bad. This glacier cheered me up. Poking out beneath the clouds. it was a reminder that I was still in the arctic, just, (see below) don't forget the fjord is at sea level.

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Otherwise there wasn't much point in taking pictures because it was so grey.
The boats broke the routine

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This one was an hour and the weather did start to improve a little bit during the voyage.

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There really is a ticket collector like a bus conductor complete with ticket machine.

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And not long after that picture was taken we crossed back over the Arctic Circle. The exact point was marked by a globe on the shore

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and an announcement on the ship's tannoy.

So that part of the adventure is now done.

Occasionally, there were glimmers of light ahead which suggested a possible improvement in the weather and I did cheer up again; the road was fun to ride.

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And at around six I pulled into a campsite and rented a hyt on the shores of the fjord. Crucially, it has a heater. My next door neighbours are the Anne and Giljaan, a Belgian couple I met in the hostel last night. She's in the doghouse because she forgot his birthday until lunchtime. They are following a pretty similar itinerary to me, in fact they persuaded me to follow the 17 all the way to Tromso, so our paths keep crossing. Tomorrow starts with another boat.

This is the view from my little balcony.

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The wind is gusting and is still icy but the rain has stopped. The woman who runs the campsite says the weather will change tomorrow.
 
Walrus,
Excellent trip, what a fantastic country. Lovely photos and info. Makes me want to be there, even the cold bit.:thumby:
Awaiting a further instalment.

Andrew
 
Thanks for the encouraging comments. I've started so I'll finish! I'm enjoying going back over it to be honest but I am worried that it is going on a bit.
 
Thanks for the encouraging comments. I've started so I'll finish! I'm enjoying going back over it to be honest but I am worried that it is going on a bit.
I too am enjoying this. We were up there in May'12, although not on a bike, and you have done many of the things we had no time for. But, having been to Nordcap, I would not bother with the schlepp to get up there again. The Lofoten were the highlight for me.
 
9th June - When the boat comes in
Today started better than yesterday with a sign of hope from heaven

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and indeed, if you looked in the right direction the weather was improving

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So it was straight in to a boat for 20 mins

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That's Ann and Giljaan in the foreground and in the Hi Vis in the background is a couple from Italy. I never caught their names. He is a retired policeman from Sicily, "The mafia is my business." Actually he now lives in Venice. And then the open road with blue sky ahead.

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There were 5 bikes in convoy by now. And we stayed together most of the day. In addition to the two couples above there was a dutch policeman on extended leave, a German lad on a nice airhead, and me.

This bridge, Helgeland Bridge, is quite famous in Norway because it was designed by Holgar Svensson who, Google tells me, now has the brilliant title: Honorary professor for cable-stayed bridge design at Technical University of Dresden. It's a pity I couldn't get a shot of the whole thing; it is very graceful as it climbs up and then curves back to land. Anne took this one when we were held up in traffic

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We were early for the next ferry so we had to wait for an hour. When an hour and a half had passed it transpired that the ferry was broken and another was on its way. However, nobody knew when. Therefore, a good part of the day was spent waiting by a dock. It was very picturesque though

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The Italians had a cuddle

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The rest of us stood around

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Until eventually another boat turned up

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and we had a nice fjord cruise in the sun

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This boat had an open car deck so I had a new perspective on the bike

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The scenery was good

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A bit of road and one more boat trip with more views later

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It was time to call a halt. The German and the Dutchman pushed on and I am on a campsite with The Belgians and the Italians. Tired but happy. We only did about 100 miles today but it was fun and in good company.

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10 June - Oh frabjous day..."

As quickly as it formed the impromptu band fragmented and I was back on my own and having a glorious day. The sky was blue as I set off

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and it stayed that way for the whole day. Despite appearances it wasn't hot. The air was still cold, especially by the water. It did struggle to nearly 20 deg by late afternoon but it was mostly around 14. It was a great road, sweeping and twisting along the shoreline of the fjords, and I had a great 100 miles with a grin in my face. The downside was that I didn't take many pictures because I didn't want to stop. I am beginning to feel as though I am taking the same pictures every day. I did take a few though to give the flavour of the scenery.

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I really like the chubby little fishing boats that they use on the fjords.

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It really was a still, blue day.

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The landscape became increasingly pastoral. It was almost like Austria or Switzerland.

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I found a good spot for my lunch by the shore although I had to negotiate a tricky gravel path to get there.

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And I had a good lunch

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The land continued to flatten out until the first boat of the day. I was right at the front as the bow opened

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And I set off to find a campsite. The hills were growing again.

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I ended up in a little hut for not much more than pitching the tent

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by the shore of another fjord

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And again, tired but happy: brandy and bed.
 
The day started with the patter of rain drops on the roof of my hut. By the time I got up though the weather was clearing. So a Bombay Bad Boy for breakfast and en route. I think I'm really in Norway now because the man next door has married a troll wife. I was going to post her picture but decided I was being unkind - and she might turn me to stone! So here's the view instead

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The forecast was showers but it was much warmer, 22C by 9 0'clock. Once I was on the road the blue sky looked to be holding its own.

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I was really looking forward to the day because there were three of the key things I had come to see in Norway on one 150 mile day. Once through a few tunnels and past Kristiansund, the first was visible on the horizon. The Storseisundet Bridge which is the longest of the eight bridges making up the Atlantic Coast Road. Google it for better pictures.

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The road is only about 5 miles long but it was apparently number one on the Guardian list of best roads in the world (I'm not sure about No 1 but it is good). It is an impressive engineering achievement and the bridge is really beautiful.

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The rest of the road links a chain of rocky islands to join the road to Molde.

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It is a picturesque drive

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Seeing this made me wonder for the first time how you maintain a grass roof. Cutting the grass is bad enough when it's on the ground. The house was well kept but the roof was a disgrace.

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This shed, which may be a bus shelter, was much better looked after.

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Once again the hills were building in the distance.

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The cruise ships were in, cluttering up the view! This is the Queen Mary 2. It gives you some idea of the scale of the landscape when you know that she displaces nearly 150,000 tonnes, is almost 350 metres long and can carry 2,600 passengers.

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The next excitement was the Trollstigen, a steep climb up the wall at he head of the valley.

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The pictures really do not capture how big and forbidding these huge slabs of black, wet, greasy rock are.

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I had another good picnic spot. The water was the definition of icy blue.

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Then on to the head of the valley and the road which you can see climbing up ahead. Note the small packhorse bridge middle right.

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This waterfall, and another on the other side of the valley was what was feeding the picnic spot torrent.

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The photograph looking up doesn't do the steepness of the climb justice. This one, looking down from bridge gives a better impression.

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It took some concentration not because it was particularly steep, but because it was full of camper vans and coaches, the hairpins were quite narrow and the left hand ones involved heading for the drop! I was pleased to make it to the plateau at the top, 2,826ft up. I rode straight past the visitor centre; too many coach parties.

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The drop down the other side was comparatively gentle. All the motorcycles I saw came up this way. Wimps!

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The road dropped right down to sea level and a short boat trip, the 63 to Geiranger.

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After surviving the Trollstigen, I could ride on water!

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Then we climbed up, on a more civilised road, back to 2,800 ft and over the ridge

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to drop down for sight number three, Geraingerfjord.

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This is the only road into what is the epitome of the Norwegian fjord. It is a UNESCO World Heritage protected site. It is too steep-sided for roads.

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Quite stunning. They wanted silly money for huts at the campsites so I am back in the tent

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With this view from my door

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I have had a really good day. I am staying here for two nights so that I can take a boat trip on the fjord. By using the tent instead of a hyt I have saved the cost of the tent in one stop. I drank my tea, cooked my Asda pasta in cheese sauce, which was very good, ate it and washed up and all the while watching a German couple trying to park their camper van level. Bed, brandy and book. I'm beginning to worry that the brandy won't hold out.
 
I could hear the rain on the tent when I woke up so I used the old school camping technique of going back to sleep until it stopped. It worked and the blue returned.

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I camouflaged the bike again so you probably can't see it here.

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Sweet and sour noodles for breakfast

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and I was ready to walk down the mountain into town to find a boat trip. There is not much to the town of Geiranger

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Although there is a lovely little school

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And some vikings moving miraculously without a sail

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I mooched round the shops while I waited for boat to come in. I would have bought one, only £250 (!), but luckily I haven't got room on the bike.

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The viking mystery was solved when they tied up to the jetty. I didn't realise they invented the outboard.

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Geiranger is basically a huge souvenir shop to cater to the hundreds of tourists a day decanted from the ships and tour buses to wander aimlessly for an hour. This is the first time this trip that I have been in a tourist hot spot. It seems as though this time of year Europe is full of older people just wandering about.

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The fjord cruise lasted 1.5 hrs and was excellent. This is a good view of the road I came in on. It was only built in the 1960's. Until then there was just a track.

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Then it was farms and waterfalls. This is the "famous" one which is called "the seven sisters" for obvious reasons. There was the usual (made up) nonsense tale of unrequited love to explain how it got its name.

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It was good though. In truth the walls of the fjord were streaming with water everywhere you looked. there was a strong wind as well so often the water just disappeared into mist

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One third down, in the centre, is a farm, in action until the 1950's. The last farmer's wife apparently gave birth to ten children up there.

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There used to be ten farms clinging to the sides of the fjord which are between 900m and 1400m high.

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The farm in the top centre here was the most remote and was in use until 1917. It is in a very steep and not easily accessible place. Ladders are needed to get there and they say the farmer would pull them up when the taxmen were in the area. When the farmer and his wife were out working they tied their children to the wall to stop them falling off a cliff.

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And then we were back.

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This was the only sign of old Geiranger I saw apart from the church. I liked the stone slipway markers.

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To get back to the campsite was an uphill trudge and I dropped into the church for a rest

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The jointing in the wooden walls was interesting

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This is what I call a gravestone. Simple and eloquent

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Tomorrow it's up to the top of Dalsnibba, which is the obvious 4,843 foot peak behind the town in the view above. There is the annual race up it tomorrow so I will have to start early before the road is closed
 
Ye see I had written this trip off as too expensive and impractical...

Damn you!

:beerjug:
 
Ye see I had written this trip off as too expensive and impractical...

Damn you!

:beerjug:

Well you're right about the expensive bit and I lived on pot noodles! Think of everything being two and half times what it costs here. :eek:
 
Yes, I thoroughly enjoyed reading the posts and seeing the photos. A lovely country, but so so expensive. But, that said, I think it is worth the expense based on what you did/saw.

Thanks for posting
 
15th June - Day of ups and downs

I had to be up early because they were going to close the road mid morning for the annual race up the the mountain.

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19 kms and 4,000 ft or so upwards. Bugger that! Since I was going the same way I needed to get on the road and ahead of the race.
The road climbs quite quickly and I was soon way above the town and above the road down into the fjord.

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Good farm buildings

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as the road wound higher into the mountains.

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This was the view looking back

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It topped out at around 4,200 ft in a bleak but lovely lake which was stil half frozen

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I didn't take the private toll road to the very top of Dalsnibba; I'm not sure it was open because of the race. Instead I dropped down into the next valley,

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past this octagonal church, (1864)

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with a splendid key,

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and down into the next valley. This took me to the start of the first road which is recommended by Liv as a favourite. I didn't know what to expect. For a while it was all green and fertile

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although the high ground was visible in the distance

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Before long I was climbing back over 4,000 ft again and into the mountain landscape

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Once again it was suddenly a different world. The prominent peak here is, I think, Nufsonne at 5,682 ft

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It is a good one

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At this height, they were still skiing. Not downhill skiing of course but judging from the race team trailers in the car park of the lodge it was an important race.

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The highest point of this road was 4,762 ft. It was very cold after the sun in the valley, 5c and windy.

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Once again the road dropped down into the next valley and back to the pretty. These descents were quite difficult. In places they were 1:8. There were two German cars towing big caravans down this one and I could smell their brakes burning all the way down.

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It was indeed a good road.

I made my way along the fjord to a short boat trip and the second recommendation of the day. At just over 15.2 miles the Laerdal road tunnel is the longest in the world. Aberdeen Angus of this parish tipped me off that the old road which it replaced was good and since I didn't fancy 15 miles of a hole in the ground I set off up the way less travelled. I was a bit apprehensive because I wasn't sure what condition the road would be in and the route setting in the sat nav had been a bit complex. One of the irritations of the Zumo is the way it resists routing down back roads. It started very bosky.

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But again the high ground began to appear

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And soon I was back over 4,000 ft and in the bleakest landscape yet. It's worth stressing that this is mid June and only a bit over 4,000 ft up which is a good indication of how challenging the climate must be.

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The road was clear but the snow by the road was well over twice my height in places

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In winter it must be a hard place.

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The road ended in one of the last sights which had been on my list before I left home, the Stegastein viewpoint.

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which provides a stunning view over Aurlandfjord.

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and the town of Aurland 450m below

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where, after a very steep and twisty descent, I ended the day, in a nice hut, with this view from my balcony. And, indeed, my pillow if i leave the door open.

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I've just had a good conversation with a Norwegian biker about the next part of my route and he has solved my problem of how to join up the next bits of the route to keep the riding interesting and fit in the what I want to visit. I want to see the landscapes and the power station which was the the target of the commando raids shown in the film The Heroes of Telemark. So now I have to plan that.
 
June 16th - There and back again

It was a spectacular sunset last night

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Despite the red sky at night, today did not start well. It was raining and staying in bed didn't stop it so I had to get up and pack in the rain. I think I am being followed

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That one was definitely in Geiranger when I was.

It was raining quite steadily when I set off so the camera stayed in my pocket. The route was a bit messy because the two ways I wanted to go didn't really join up. I started once again up the side of the valley. This was an interesting mix of tunnels and hairpins. On one memorable occasion it was both together which was, shall we say, interesting. Some of the tunnels must have been spirals because they were one long bend. All together there were seven tunnels on the climb. This included the one where the overhead lighting had failed. That meant riding for just over a mile in a mine. So I was glad to finally reach the top and the familiar plateau landscape. This was a bit lower, just over 3,000ft.

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The notice in the shelter is a warning that the ice is unstable on the lake. The other one is the bus timetable. So this must be a regular bus route.

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For once it wasn't getting any better ahead

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I stopped to fill up with petrol and get some coffee and struck lucky with a bag of cheap buns. They must be yesterday's. Six for less than two quid; they must be the cheapest food in Norway. I have booked a room in a hostel in Geilo so the rain isn't that much of a bother; I know I can get warm and dry at the end of the day. The route takes me past Geilo because I want to ride over the Hardangervidda which is the largest mountain plateau in Europe. I've just discovered vidda is Norwegian for plateau. It has a year round alpine climate. It was also the place where the Norwegian and British SOE team were dropped in as part of the attempts to sabotage the heavy water plant at Vermork which is where I am going tomorrow. Remember Kirk Douglas in "The Heroes of Telemark"? The film is historically very inaccurate though. I am here in midsummer and it is very cold. The four men were parachuted in in October 1942 which was a particularly harsh winter. They had a long slog across the plateau to prepare a glider drop zone. It is a harsh enough environment in June. They were tough men.

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I rode across the northern edge. There are no roads into the centre because it is a protected national park of 2,500 sq miles. It stretches off to the south for 40 odd miles.

Even the Norwegians think this waterfall on the western edge of the plateau is worthy of notice. It has a name, Vorringfossen, and a tourist shop. It is impressive. The main drop is over 500ft

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and it runs off through a spectacular deep gorge.

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Then I rode all the way back
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The plateau was basically flattened by glaciation in the last ice age so it has the usual scattering of stranded boulders dropped by the ice. This one is quite good. It is, I guess, 20ft high and cracked clean in half

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The plateau is also home to a massive reindeer herd, thousands strong, but I didn't see any. I haven't seen one in the south at all.

So, I thought it was just a gentle ride back to the hostel, make some tea and have a bun. I got back to Geilo and stopped at the coop for a tin of fruit salad to go with my dinner. Then I put the address in the sat nav and followed instructions. I thought it odd but not impossible when the sat nav pointed me down a track into the forest, hostels are often in out of the way places, so I stiffened the sinews and followed the track. It was rough and steep and not at all easy on a fully loaded bike. About a half a mile, all down hill. Eventually, I arrived in somebody's front yard with a very big and loud dog on a chain. They were very nice about it and told me to go back to Geilo and ask for directions. They were not a youth hostel. This was the road end of the track.

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I know it looks innocuous but I assure you it gets steeper and narrower. It pushed me outside my comfort zone riding back up on a fully loaded bike. I must get somebody to take me off road and show me how it's done. It occurred to me that if I fell off and into the trees I might never be found.

However, I'm still alive. The hostel is fine. The sun is shining and I have buns for afternoon tea.
 
June 17th - The history bit

Good breakfast this morning and the best stolen lunch sandwich yet: ham, salami, cheese, beetroot and coleslaw. The view of the ski slopes was not pretty as I left town but look at the sky. And that is how it stayed all day.

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I was soon into the familiar ascent then out on to the fells, or fjells as we say here. You can just see the western edge of the Hardangervidda in the distance.

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There really is very little traffic on the roads. I saw three cars a lorry and three bikes in the first 60 miles this morning. I am avoiding main roads but it is such a beautifully empty country. It makes you realise how crowded our little island is.
There was a lovely, twisty, long descent down a wooded valley following the river

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until I got to the shores of the lake I was looking for

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In particular, this bit

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because beneath this bit lies the wreck of the Hydro

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And that is important because it was vital piece of sabotage which helped incapacitate the German push to build an atom bomb before the Americans.

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It took some finding because it is not sign posted, but there is a memorial plaque on a lump of granite by the side of the road

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Then I had to backtrack to to find this

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Rjukan is the town from which the ferry left

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They are not in good condition but it looks like they are working on restoration of the two remaining railway ferries

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The wagons are a reminder that the saltpetre was a major product of the area

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Then I followed the line up the valley to the Vermork power plant which was the target of the SOE raids in 1942 and '43 because it was being used to produce heavy water, a vital component in the development of the atomic bomb. You can see from this photo taken further up the valley why it was so hard to attack

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the bridge crosses a steep gorge and is the only way in.

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It is a handsome building and now houses a museum including an exhibit on the raids

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And some fine windows

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the problem for me was that the parking was down by the bridge

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which was over a very steep gorge

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The one successful sabotage raid, which destroyed the stocks and stopped production for six months, got round the problem of the heavily guarded bridge by climbing down into the gorge and back up the other side in the dark in winter after hiking/skiing across the Hardangervidda. Then they escaped the same way. I just walked up the path from the bridge and I couldn't have fought anybody by the time I got to the top!

Inside there is an exhibit on the various sabotage attempts. This is one of the only two barrels which have been recovered from the wreck of the Hydro.

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The exhibit was quite confusing because it tries to tell the story of the raids and the development of atomic weapons side by side. If you don't know the story I think you would be confused. There were some good artifacts

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and reproductions of documents though. Like this one reporting the outcome of the failed glider attack to Churchill

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And this one confirming the order to sink the Hydro even if there would be civilian repercussions.

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The turbines in the main hall are massive

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I was interested to learn that the commercial success of the plant, and why it was built, was achieved through using the electricity to extract nitrogen from air to make fertiliser. There was no real demand for electricity for in homes and factories. Tucked in a corner with no information was this little gem.

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No doubt somebody who knows about these things will tell us about it.

There is a good memorial to the saboteurs outside the museum

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Then I pointed the bike west and headed for the coast until I found a campsite and that's where I am now. I am going to have to buy some food; I am down to my last Bombay Bad Boy and a tube of Tomato soup. It's lasted well though. Apart from included breakfasts and some supermarket supplies, I've not bought a meal in Norway. I am heading for Stavanger tomorrow. I've booked a hotel for two nights to give me a day in the city. That will be different. I want to see the cathedral and the old town. It's costing a fortune so it had better be worth it.
 
That has been a fantastic write up ... thanks for making the effort so that we can all enjoy your trip ... never thought of heading "North" .. always into France where its hot and sunny .... silly me !
 


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