Norway here we come - July 2024

[Hatcho]

After employing Pauline as my chief cinematographer for a few hours we headed down to road to Stryn for lunch.

We found a lovely café and treated ourselves to toasties and chips washed down with lattés.









The amount of bog roll in the jax could only mean that they knew I was coming!

 

[Hatcho]

We took a wee stroll down the street to burn off our lunch. Pauline found her new preferred mode of transport



Lovely wee town...

 

[Hatcho]

Leaving Stryn we headed for our home for the night. We were booked into an apartment near a wee town called Sølberg. This spot is the best accommodation we've had to date. By a long, long way. Pics to follow shortly...but to summarise:

• Two bedroom apartment
• Amazingly fitted out
• Heated floors in every room
• Massive TV with gazillion channels
• Savage jax with loads of toiletries provided
• Every kitchen accessory you could possibly need
• Tons of living space
• Huge sofa
• Barbeque hut in garden
• Gracious host
• All for 80 quid each!

We even watched our own holiday footage on the huge TV. Savage.

 

[Hatcho]

This spot will take some beating. It's fantastic! Shame we're only here for the one night. It'll definitely be part of the next trip's itinerary.

 

[Jockser]

Not sure if anyone's reading this, but I'll plug away for posterity's sake anyways...

I’ve been without internet for the last 2 weeks so only just found this but I’ve caught up now & I'm definitely in

Great write up & pics Sean. And Pauline’s wee videos are just the right length for my (very) short attention span

 

[Rusty]

Loving this write up ! Thank you for taking the time to share.

 

[Hatcho]

Next morning I woke early when my alarm went off. Our checkout time was a very generous 1pm, so the plan was to head out on a wee excursion before departing fully loaded in the afternoon. Our host had mentioned a viewing spot that was worth a visit. And you could drive to it. And it was only 9 mins away. Enough said, let's be on the way. Like a lamb to the slaughter I rolled away full of eager expectation.

 

[Gavla04GS]

Enough said, let's be on the way. Like a lamb to the slaughter I rolled away full of eager expectation.

Good cliffhanger….. enjoying the write up (thank you) now waiting to see how this develops

 

[Hatcho]

Like most things it all started out so well . Lovely steep and twisty rural road with immaculate tarmac. All peppered with 1st gear hairpins. What's not to like? I've even repositioned the camera to get a different POV. This is gonna be great!

 

[Hatcho]

Soon enough the tarmac changed to gravel. That's okay, I'm an adventure biker now (see previous posts for reference ). Then it got quite steep, with switchbacks...hmmn ....then some of the four legged locals came out to welcome me. I can only presume it was because my adventure biker reputation precedes me and they just had to meet me in the flesh.

 

[Hatcho]

I come around the next corner and there's loads of four-legged adventure biker fans all over the trail (note how I didn't say 'road' - what a natural! ). I thought it best to stop in case there were any autograph requests from the fans and to give the paparazzi a fair chance of a decent photo. Alas, just the one local farmer sitting on the side of the road...heartily entertained by my antics.

 

[Udders]

There’s always one!

 

[Hatcho]

Once I'd scribbled down my signature a few times, and the camera flashes had eased off, it was time to continue my epic journey to the top of the hill. Like any good adv biker I did some practice stalls to properly ascertain the steepness of the trail and the bite point of the clutch. One must not just jump into the unknown, it's important to know your environment. . Once I was on the move again, my fans tried to match my awesome pace. A scene reminiscent of the Tour de France entailed with my fans running alongside the road urging me up the hill.

 

[Hatcho]

At this stage my 9 min spin has stretched out to a tad longer. But the wait was worth it. I was rewarded with views only adv bikers get to enjoy. Well, maybe Tesla drivers too as there was one parked about twenty feet away! But I'll edit the footage so it was never there.

Right beside the trail was a collection of old farm huts with those grassy roofs that we'd seen so many times. Fascinating way to cover your living space. We got an opportunity to learn loads on this and other topics later in the day, but I'll cover that in a little bit.

 

[Hatcho]

This was a perfect spot to pop up the drone as the views were stunning. I'm really only comfortable flying it when there's no one else nearby. My reasons for this are:
1. I don't like to disturb others while they enjoy the outdoors.
2. If I crash it, no one will see.

I'll upload some footage later for you to (hopefully) enjoy. Using just a mobile phone to do all this extends the workflow a wee bit.

 

[Hatcho]

I mentioned our host earlier. Fascinating chap, not only did he have top notch accommodation, he was also into dog sleighing. In past times he would have have had maybe ten or fifteen dogs. Now he had just three, all older and in retirement. Much like our sheepdogs, these are working dogs as opposed to pets, but they were totally affectionate nonetheless.



Parked outside the house was a racing buggy which could be pulled by as many as ten or twelve dogs. Two things that caught my eye were the brakes and the tyres.




I imagine these things pick up quite a bit of pace and as we all know stopping is even more important than going. Serious fun though!

 

[younger06]

"Parked outside the house was a racing buggy which could be pulled by as many as ten or twelve dogs"


Or one good PieBall from Ballyer!!

Sent with a Zen10

 

[Hatcho]

Well, after my soft-road adventuring is was time to return to base camp. Thankfully the return journey was less eventful. I can only presume my fans had dispersed to show off their newly obtained autographs. . What goes up must come down, and the gravel decent was a bit of fun. Back out onto the road and I'm parked up a few minutes later. Time to pack up and leave our most excellent accommodation.

 

[Hatcho]

The FV698 flowed alongside the fjord and gradually ascended up the hillside.


Soon enough, the view back and downwards is class.

 

[Hatcho]

The back roads are far more interesting than the larger E roads. Quite often they can become quite narrow which keeps you on your toes...

Drivers here are courteous all the time. On several occasions they've indicated right and pulled in to let us by when the coast is clear. Tarmac related aggression simply doesn't seem to happen.