Waterfalls and Vikings

Waterfalls and Vikings.

A perfect weather day greeted us on Wednesday, the 28^th day of our trip. After exchanging email address with the German lady and having 1 last chocolate-chino for the road, we were off and away from Ebne and heading towards Kryping. We had to stop at Kryping for the night, as this was where our tour boat was picking us up the next morning.

We stopped in a little town called Skanevik and I spent an hour and a half of this glorious day standing inside a servo trying to get a Norwegian SIM card organised for my phone.

After leaving Skanevik we hit the 2 hills of the day. In Nadia's words they were 'dramatic' hills. I referred to them as 'big fuck off hills'. The first climb was about 3km, followed by a flat section of a good 400 meters before the second climb began. At the top we had ourselves a well deserved lunch shared with many flies, and Norway does the same annoying little buggers as we have at home, the little bush fly.

After all that climbing we had the joy of an 8% decline back to the highway we left a few days ago, before arriving nice and early at the Kryping campsite. A very friendly lady booked us in and seeing we were in a tent (the only people in the whole campground without a caravan) gave us the grim news that it was predicted to rain, but that she had some old cabins that she doesn't like and that we could stay in one of those if it started to rain. We thanked her and put up the tent, before I went off fishing. It was a few minutes later when the promised rain came and came in fu.., I mean bucket full's.

So we ran to the cabin carrying as much as we could, then Nadia started hanging our wet gear while I completed a dozen trips bringing back armfuls of gear. But eventually we were all in the cabin and with gear drying we were able to cook up on the little stove and save our own fuel.

 It pelted it down all night and the wind howled but by morning it had settled down a lot, which was good for us, as today was the day of our fjord cruise. Even still it was our worst day of weather in Norway up to this point, with rain on and off all morning and into the early arvo.

When packed up we rolled our bikes down to the pier and were helped onto our cruise boat which had just pulled in. We were the only passengers all the way to Akrafjordtonet, which was where the tour would begin. The people running the tour were very chilled fellas and were happy for us to leave our bikes on the boat all day as they ran other tours. Our actual tour was the second tour of the day.

Whilst waiting for our tour to begin we were approached by a young lass who wanted to interview us for the local newspaper, as this was the grand opening day of the tourism season. And apparently only the second tour season ever in this fjord, so they were pretty excited to have some foreigners to make it sound a bit more worldly.

The tour we had chosen was a boat trip up the Akra fjord, with the spectacle of Langfoss Waterfall the highlight of the trip. For the tour there were 6 people (all of which were foreigners I think), so an easy first day for the crew, who were happy to give us commentary and made it very enjoyable despite the poor weather.

Just the views of the fjord from the water were special enough, and then we got to the main waterfall and it was spectacular. The Langfoss Waterfall is 612 meters of water cascading down the rockface from somewhere up above us and ending in plumes of spray that covered our boat which pretty much put its bow under the bottom of the falls. I was fairly wet from the rain already, but that was just on top of me. But after the boat finally backed away from the falls, I was wet through from every angle.

Back to Akrafjordtonet and that was meant to be the end of our waterfall viewing for the day, but as I said, these fellas were pretty chilled, so they let us stay on the boat while they went and picked up a bunch of school kids and took them up to the falls too, so even more photos and another soaking and big smiles all round. And wouldn't you know it, one of the teachers was heading to Australia a week later for a holiday and planning to go to Uluru, so we were able to give her a bit of insider info and recommendations.

After all the other passengers were off the boat then brought us all the way back to Valevag, a little dock way back down into the central fjords area, as they said it was an easy pier to get our bikes off (it was) and they were heading that way anyway. Brilliant!

I would recommend this trip to anybody who is coming over this way. It was a brilliant day even though the weather was lousy. By camp the rain had settled in again, but smiles were on our dials.

Overnight the weather lingered and passed the hours by finding different angles of falling on our tent. The morning was actually nice, until the weather realised it had been caught off guard, and then over compensated by lashing us with a half hour burst of hailstones and a thunder and lightning storm about 10 meters above our heads. Once this was all said and done we packed up and headed off. The rain was on and off all the way with us and we even took shelter in bus stops and under a bridge before just cracking on with it. We were back on the E93 soon and heading south, back in the area of Lie Beach from a week earlier. As it was wet and threatening to get wetter, and we knew that Lie was nice, we knuckled down and got there late in the arvo. One of the plusses of Lie Beach was that it had a big wooden shelter we could use if the heavens opened again.

Much to our surprise there was a marquee assembled on the decking in front of the shelter. You pricks!, was what I was thinking, but then the heavens cleared, the sun came out and everything was rosy again.

The marquee was for some of the local teenagers having a party. They were friendly folk and a few of them came and chatted to us when their Dutch courage was up.

The next 2 days were spent at Lie Beach in improving weather. By the Sunday it was sunny nearly all day, but still with a chilly wind blowing.

We gave ourselves 2 full days off to rest and dry everything, and because we now knew more about the arrival of Jonny Cope. He was getting in on Friday in Stavanger, not too far to the south of where we were, so no need to rush. The days off were filled with bike maintenance, stretching, reading, collecting mussels, fishing, watching the parents of the kids from the night before come and have their own party and I managed to fit in a nice jog, followed by a wash from our fold-up sink.

On the Monday we got moving again in the best weather we had seen for a week or so. After the initial stint on the highway we found a very nice, deserted cross road with lakes and forest, but soon enough it came to an end and we turned south onto the number 47 road, and back onto the official north sea cycle route for the first time in a while. This road quickly brought us into the town of Haugesund, and the memorial of Harald Fairhair. Harald is said to be the man who unified Norway in the 13^th (ish) century. Surrounding the central column are 29 pieces of stone that represent the counties that came together to form the new Norge.

In Haugesund we utilised the internet at the library to check emails and footy results. We also saw a copy of the local paper from the Akra fjord area and found that a picture of us had made it in.

After town we ended up in Avaldsnes, the home of the Vikings and former capitol of the then newly formed Norway. Once again with the help of friendly locals, we found our way to a more than ample campsite. This night was spent on a little island with a Viking village – a re-creation of what a village may have looked like way back when. The buildings were based on different ruins found around the country. 

Tuesday the 23^rd of June – the longest day of the year – with sunrise this morning at 4.08am and sunset booked in for 11.12pm, making it just a lazy 19hrs of sun-up, and of course it doesn't get real dark in-between. I've been reading my book until 11.30 at night with no torch.

We took a tour of the Viking village, with a very knowledgeable young fellow all dressed up in traditional costume leading us around. He was very enthused and knew his stuff (probably what I should be like when tour guiding in central Oz), and the tour was only 8 Aussie dollars, making it the cheapest thing in Norway by a long shot.

After lunch in Kopervik we booted it! Our only stops were when choosing which path to take. The last 16km were done in 50 minutes, with the help of a stiff breeze coming in over our right shoulders, like a right arm quick coming in round the wicket. The wind blew us right into Skudeneshavn where we had to catch the ferry the next day. We found the info office/tour booking desk just before 5, where the nicest tourist office fella ever answered all our questions and even let us bash away on the internet for a while, even though it was probably past his closing time. This internet session was so we could find some contact info for people we know in this part of the world.

Another nice beach was found and camped on. Still no more luck with the fishing though. Since the first 2 fish, I have caught nothing but seaweed and lost 2 lures in the process.

A cruisey day was had getting into Stavanger, and a day that we got to share with other cyclists heading the same way. While waiting for the ferry, a young American brother/sister team rolled into port and waited with us. There tour was a bit more jumpy than ours, in that they would cycle where they wanted, and then catch trains to the next point of interest. The brother thought our cause was valiant, and donated an ice-cream to the Waratah Beach S.L.S.C, which I can report would have been enjoyed by all. After the ferry we all rode along the North Sea cycle route together, with the girls chatting about how it was unfair that the boys could ride up all the hills, and the boys chatting about how good they looked in lycra. It was very nice.

Eventually we came into the outskirts of Stavanger and all 4 of us were instantly lost. We met some Swedish girls (also tourists) who were heading to town and they said we could follow them. Then about 5 minutes later all 7 of us were lost. It was fun.

Eventually we made it to town and found the info centre where we came across our most unfriendly tourist office lady yet. Next we found our way to the campsite and got ourselves settled in for what was meant to be a day or 2. Jon was due to arrive on Friday.