Stranded, but sunshine

Our first day in Stavanger was the start of 2 weeks of beautiful summer weather with hot days and long nights. It was even muggy and humid on occasions, and only rained once.

Unfortunately the next 2 weeks only included 1 day of the continuation of our tour.

On the first full day in Stavanger Nadia and I headed out to a bikeshop in an area called Madlakrossen. There we were entertained for an hour by the 2 staff who were surfers and were happy to have someone to talk surfing with. Eventually we got around to the bikes and with some good advice and a new brake cable and safe in the knowledge that Norway has the best surf in Europe, we headed into town to have a look around.

This week is set to be a big party week in Stavanger, with the town hosting a leg of the World Cup Beach Volleyball Tour.

We found the fish market and sampled some prawns - nice, and some fish cakes - very nice. A bit of shopping next to buy some new lures, a new fork after mine became prongless at last night's dinner, and thongs. After this it was home to rest.

The Friday started with bike maintenance and then a trip to the airport to meet Jon Cope. His plane was on time, he came off all smiles and life was looking good.

But then... a phonecall to the transport company in charge of delivering Jon's bike and tent would change all that. Jon's bike was at this present time... misplaced. Where is it? 'Not sure, but it might be in Holland.' When will it get here? 'Not sure, but it might arrive tomorrow, but because tomorrow is Saturday you can't collect the bike until Monday.'

So that was that for now, Monday at the best, but it might be up to a week before the bike arrives.

Back at camp we had to relocate to the trees as Jon's tent is with his bike. So after getting some ropes strung out between the trees, we threw one of the tarps over, and Jon had himself a 'shack' until his package arrives.

A night out on the town was in order to celebrate Jon's arrival, and a very nice arvo was had sitting in the sun at the docks, watching some volleyball and listening to some live music coming from 1 of the plethora of bars along the waterfront. We met the Australian Institute of Sport girls from Adelaide who were competing in the tournament and had ourselves some pizza for dinner. After the consumption of lots of beer, we wandered home and got back to camp at 2 a.m. with still enough sunlight to walk without a torch. It has been only a few days since the longest day of the year, and now that the weather has cleared up the light is going throughout the night and into the next morning, which happens at about 4.30 a.m.

Saturday morning was spent like we were uni students, with a sleep in and hangovers all round. Saturday afternoon had us all heading into town again to eat more fish cakes and watch the Aussie girls be convincingly beaten by Belgium. Kerri Pottharst is in town and was keen to say g'day after we called out to her, until she realised we were nobodies in the volleyball world, and was suddenly very busy. But no to worry, as we were off to another bar. At this bar we were served by a young lady from Bayswater, and who informed us the manager was from Bairnsdale, but still no discounts for a fellow Gippslander.

Pulpit Rock was the day trip destination on the Sunday for Jon and me, with Nadia opting out due to issues with cliff edges.

Pulpit Rock is a massive rock slab stretching up 604 vertical meters from the fjord below, and sitting just separated from all the other rock around it, with a small gap that can be stepped across. The top of the slab is a flat 25 by 25 meter square of bare rock. The Norwegian name for the rock is Prekestolen.

The journey to Prekestolen started with a bike ride down to the harbour in town. From there a short ferry ride to the town of Tau, and then a bus up to Prekestolen village before arriving at the starting point for the hike up to the rock itself. Instead of charging straight onto the walking track with all the other tourists from the bus we took a downhill path to the lake beneath us and found ourselves on a nice little beach for some good photos and a stretching session.

Once heading up the hill we quickly reeled in all the more elderly tourists and made our way to the cliff faces where stunning views abounded. Prekestolen is a very popular place and at the top, even though early in the day, we were just 2 of the hundreds of faces buzzing about. There were even hikers up there who found it necessary to have their dogs along. What the dogs thought of this is unknown. So after moving from 1 photo pozzie to another for an hour or so we headed a bit off track to a lower cliff and found ourselves alone for a very peaceful lunch with a good view back up to Prekestolen itself. We probably also are now featuring in thousands of photos taken by the people on the cliff above. At least we will give their photos some depth perspective.

On the way down we stopped for a swim in a mountain lake, and then caught all the transport legs in reverse to arrive back at camp for dinner and a rest.

The next few days were more swimming days. 1 local beach has 3 giant iron swords coming out of the rocks at the end of the beach. We didn't know the local name of the beach, so we named it Sword Beach. At another beach further away we were planning to camp, but the beach was lacking trees, and as Jon was still sleeping under a tarp, this was no good, but the beach was nice.

This then takes us to Wednesday. On Wednesday we were still calling and chasing Jon's bike. We now were fairly uncertain that Jon's bike may or may not at one stage never have been in Bangkok, or Holland, but we are welcome to call again tomorrow. The general gist of it is that we wouldn't be getting access to the bike until Saturday at the earliest, and as it would be a Saturday, we couldn't pick it up until Monday.

So with this knowledge safely confusing us we decided to send Jon out on my bike for a few days on his own, to take his mind off things.

That left Nadia and myself in Stavanger for a few days of trying to chase up Jon's bike, watching the volleyball, seeing the Aussie girls lose again, organising photos, reading books and making friends with other campers in the park.

Sunday brought us a beautiful day to celebrate Nadia's 25th birthday. The day started early as we wanted to listen to the Cats V's Saints 'clash of the Titans' footy game, which turned out to be a cracker of a game. When this had finished we were joined by 2 Slovakians who we had become friends with over the last few days. As they knew it was Nadia's birthday, they came to join us with a bottle of brandy. It was only 10.30 in the morning but we were away.

After a few drinks at camp it was off to a park near town to listen to a free piano concert, and then into the harbour area to wander about and play at the park. Katarina and Thomas left us there, while we went and found some cheap icecreams and waited for Jon to get back from his adventure. Once reunited we were back to camp for dinner and birthday cake. A very pleasant day indeed.

The Monday brought good news with the missing bike situation, in that it might be right to be picked up the next day. It also brought rain. This lead to the amusing situation of Jon, who was still tent-less, joining us for the night, making it 3 in Nadia's little tent.

The situation was all rectified the next day though as we were able to get Jon's bike, and after collecting the package and putting the bike together we rode back to camp and prepared for departure the next day.

Throughout our stay at the campground in Stavanger we were kept entertained by the goings on of the gypsies. When we first arrived, 2 caravans of people with Spanish semblances were all ready in residence. They kept to themselves in a very noisy way and conducted conversation from one end of the campground to the other. We didn't think too much of the fact that both the caravans were identical, as they looked like nicely designed vans, or that they had a lot of washing to do each day, usually consisting of half a dozen doonas and armfuls of bed sheets taken about by 4 of the 17 gypsy kids. What first grabbed our attention was the amount of kids emerging from these 2 caravans, with our best count being a good dozen per caravan. Also, the angle grinding that took place for about an hour each night. What they were grinding is a mystery. Why they were grinding had us baffled, but hey, each to their own.

Over the next 2 weeks the number of gypsies increased, as did the number of identical caravans. By the end there were 11 caravans - all identical, all parked in a defensive position on the hill, and not parked next to each other, but with a good grassy patch in-between each, giving them control over a large area of the park.

Our last day at the campground in Stavanger saw a confrontation that had been brewing for a week or so, and thankfully, the good guys won.

This confrontation was between the gypsies who believed they had ownership through weight of numbers of the laundry room, and myself, representing all the other campers. The first round was against one of the young mothers who put in a half hearted performance with an argument based around the story that she had been up since 6.30 to get her washing done and she only had 2 more loads to do. This I countered with 'we waited all day yesterday while you did all your washing then. She must have been thinking that there would be no fightback, as she looked shocked and gave up meekly, saying that I was not a nice person, but we could use the washing machine next, then disappeared back to the gypsy fort to spread the word and send in the big artillery.

The big gun arrived and the knockout round was an epic battle of wits between me and a 14 year old girl speaking in her second language. She had several arguments lined up ready to spit at me like a dragon breathing fire. She was quick, wily, well rehearsed and was obviously more at home in an argument than I. After I was able to squeeze past a few jousts she was running out of options and came up with a classic, that even though her family had been washing nonstop for the last 2 weeks, this was only her first load for the day. After this failed to move me she was starting to look a bit desperate and thought an all out offensive would work but it ultimately led to her downfall. The line she gave me (remembering she was only a 14 year old girl and speaking her second (possibly 3rd) language) was 'shut up when I'm speaking!' After a quizzical second whilst trying to figure out if I was mishearing I burst into laughter and that broke her. She gave up then, but even in defeat she still had enough anger to strike at me with 'but you can't have the dryer'.