On Wednesday, July 8, our trip was finally under way again, with the plan now to follow the North Sea Cycle Route to the south which would in a week or so have us into Kristiansand, the big southern city. From Stavanger to Kristiansand is 234 km driving along the E39. For us it would be a scenic journey of over 350 km.
This section of the North Sea Cycle Route was much different to what we had seen further north, with the route over the next few days continuously changing from sealed roads to footpaths to dirt tracks to cow tracks. We even had to cross 1 old footbridge that had us all walking our bikes across and it nearly swallowed Nadia's bike, with her back wheel disappearing between the parallel running planks. The part of her bike to stop the fall was her rear derailleur, which is probably not great for the derailleur, but it did the job this time.
The route had us travelling over people's farms and right alongside their houses. On this part of the trip we also had a lot of 'Cyclist's Welcome' accommodation options. These are old sheds or garages that have been converted into self contained rooms with kitchen facilities. Although labelled 'Cyclist's Welcome', everybody was allowed to stay there. And even if you are a cyclist, you are only welcomed after a hefty payment. Without this payment you are about as welcome as a 'Tour De France' cyclist at a 'Drug-free anti-doping campaign'. We didn't even receive an offer of a cup of tea, nor a smile.
But no bother to us. After the weather of the last 2 weeks, the country had dried out, and on the first night we were able to get a fire going in a pine forest for cooking and warmth, whilst out in the open the cold north wind howled through the night.
The second day out of Stavanger brought up the 50th day of the tour. 50 days since we wobbled out of Braemar, we had over 1,300km under our wheels and had seen more rain than sun, and after the last 2 weeks of sun, this 50th day would bring the rain again.
It started off nicely enough, with dry conditions all morning. We didn't see any rain until arriving at the Old West Norway Road, which happened to be the worst road we had travelled on. Worst in terms of road surface and degrees of the climbs, but beautiful with scenery and action packed with thrills and spills.
For 6 kilometres the Old West Norway Road takes the iron willed punter up and down some truly fierce country, where the ups are not cycle tourist possible, and the downs aren't much better. An information board placed at the end of the track explains the history of the road and points out that some sections of the road have gradients of 23%, which is bloody steep in anybody's language. The surface ranges from loose sand to loose gravel to big lumpy bits of sharp edged rocks, and a patch or 2 of 'rough as guts' bitumen thrown in just for a laugh. By the end of this road 2 of our party were bleeding, and 1 was in need of stitches. Bleeding was Jon, who punctured the outside of his calf whilst going to the aid of Nadia, the other bleeder and the one requiring stitches. All this action took place on a loose down hill section where Nadia's front wheel plummeted into loose gravel at the end of a patch of bitumen, sending her into an emergency evacuation from the vehicle. The resultant crash left Nadia with a neat hole in her arm, right in that place just past your elbow that you can never see, and a free flowing trickle of blood streaming down her sleeve.
Standing in the rain on the Old West Norway Road with Nadia and Jon bleeding, and knowing we were a long way from anywhere, we had no option but to suck it up and soldier on. We rode until the next shelter and did a nice patch job with our mostly out of date first aid kits, donned the rain coats and made our way along the path to a road side stop further south and back on the coast. We still managed 51km for the day, so not to bad considering.
The 50th day of the tour also had us coming into crop harvesting season, and in Jon we had just the man to take full advantage of this. Where I would be looking at fields of pretty flowers and daydreaming, Jon would be off his bike and tearing out plants and coming back to us with his backpack full of baby potatoes, baby carrots and baby onions, a stash that would be replenished often and which would keep us full and healthy all the way to Oslo. Watching Jon in action conjured up images of Taz, the cartoon Tasmanian Devil. in full spin.
The next few days came and went in slow motion, due mainly to the terrain. And the tension level in camp went from slack to fairly tight, also mainly due to the terrain. I can probably even draw the ups and downs for you;
mostly it was like this /\/\/\/\/ and maybe once a day like this /\_/\ which was pretty exciting. At one stage I'm sure it even did a bit of this /\)\/***~ (that would be where Nadia left some of her arm on a rock).
The Friday took us from Svanes to Ana-Sira, a grand total of only 36.3 km, with our worst ever average of only 11.6 km/h. This day also involved a trip to the doctors, where the cycling enthusiast doctor from Denmark chose to put 2 stitches in Nadia's arm (her first ever and very proud she was). The doc had a look at Jon while we were there, gave his leg a good clean and told him that was all that was needed. In an effort to not be out done by a girl, Jon then explained that he did actually need stitches, and a few minutes later had 1 big, not so useful stitch in his leg.
I was nearly joining the others in needing a doctor too, as earlier today whilst riding up a hill we passed a row of bee hives sitting not far off the road. Jon and I exchanged a look that said 'fresh honey, you beauty', then parking our bikes we wandered up to find no bees out and about. Opening the first hive revealed an empty box. The second hive opened to the hum of hundreds of lazy bees going about their daily grind. For about 30 seconds there wasn't much activity other than a few bees joining us on the outside of the box. And then their first attacking wave was organised and they unleashed hell. Jon has always been quicker than me, and I'm certainly not suggesting it had anything to do with leaving me behind like a sacrificial lamb, but somehow he was instantly a few meters closer to the bikes than I was. The bees didn't seem to mind that they were only attacking half of the enemy and let me have it with 2 stings to the right leg and 1 to the left temple.
The second wave of attackers, if they even bothered, was not seen as I was Usain Bolting down the path, flinging myself back onto the trusty steed, and not looking back.
The result of this fun and laughter was 3 big red lumps, a swollen eye for the next 3 days and a bit of difficulty in breathing for a few hours. Jon as per usual came out smelling like a cactus with no stings at all.
The next day brought us more rain. It also had us travelling through the stupendously beautiful area of Flekkefjord, where armed with a kayak and a fishing rod, one could happily live forever more. The next small town brought us face to face with our second newspaper reporter of the tour and this time Jon and I were interviewed on a scenic little bridge as it started raining lightly. By the end of the interview it was raining heavily. Nadia had seen the rain coming and was hiding in a dry bus shelter not far away putting on her dry rain coat.
After this second attempt at fame, we were all dolled up in our best wet weather gear and riding past Norway's biggest heavy metal concert that was happening in a paddock beside the road. The stage was set a few hundred meters off the road, but we could clearly hear cover version after cover version of ACDC pulsing the damp atmosphere all about.
A massive climb up the side of a fjord was our next obstacle. At the top we were wet and cold and tired, so ventured down a driveway to ask the occupants about the possibility of putting our tent up in the lee of their shed. After a long, 10 minute hike from the shed to the house (which had amazing views right over the fjord) we were greeted by an old fella who didn't speak a lick of english. Although we couldn't understand what he was saying word for word, we figure that he told us we were soft, that it was only 7.30pm, that we could keep riding for another 3 hours before it was too dark, and then reiterated that we were soft and sent us on our way.
We were lucky enough later that evening to come across the only roadside stop in all of Norway that had roofs over the picnic tables. One of these became the kitchen and the other the clothes line.
From our roadside camp at Rorvik to our beach camp in the town of Hollen was our most inclined day of riding. The start was pleasant when we rode on a brand new road not even open to the public yet. We learned about this from a passing local who said we would enjoy the traffic free road and the scenic dirt track dropping back down off the hill. Enjoy we did, as the track that led us down to fjord level was brilliant. Hugging the edge of a hill, we had bare rock rising several meters above us on our left, and a huge drop to the fjord on our right, with our path in-between about 2 meters wide.
Lunch was had outside the town of Farsund, hiding in a bus shelter from the rain. It was about 40 meters after lunch that we hit the real hills. The first few were still on the sealed road, but mostly we spent the arvo session on old gravel tracks, as the new roads had tunnels which we weren't allowed through on the bikes. So over 5 hours was spent riding this day to get our 61km. We found a nice sandy beach in the middle of Hollen, and had camp set up quickly to utilise a brief burst of sun. We were quite happy to ignore the no camping sign, but in our defence we didn't see the sign until much later when collecting blue berries. Yes, wild blueberries growing rampant. We first noticed them a few days ago, but without anyone to confirm our suspicions, we took the hesitant approach. But along the way today we noticed some ladies picking and eating the berries on the side of the track, so now it's game on for the next few weeks with blueberries, and tasty little things they are too. Our porridge was sweetened with handfulls of these blueberries the next morning.
Unfortunately the weathter pattern of rain from late in the evening until about 10 in the morning would continue along with us all the way to Kristiansand. This left the days reasonably dry for the riding, but everything wet and festering in our packs during the days.
On the 13th of July our travels took us through the small towns of Vigeland and Mandal, with all the excitment for the day coming from Jon.
Firstly it was a near fall down a steep embankment whilst trying to make room for an oncoming 4WD.
Jon is on a mountain bike with front suspension. This means that he has no front racks and all his gear is piled onto his back rack and a small day pack that he wears every day. This is fine except that all the weight at the rear puts his back wheel under a lot of pressure, and when going up steep hills, his front wheel has a tendency to lift off, sending him to one side or the other.
Anyway, that keeps us entertained, as does the seemingly daily dramas with his bike. Today it was firstly the replacement of his 'new' tyre from 3 days ago that was splitting already. Once that was taken off and a new one fitted we then got a good 10 minutes of riding done before Jon had his bike upside down again. This time it was a tight front hub issue. Don't ask how Jon does it, just know that he does it. So another half hour later and Jon's stats were looking like this:
days riding - 5, hours of non riding due to bike issues - 5, broken tyres - 2, broken spokes - 2, swear words - many.Our last day into Kristiansand started with me being the first packed for the first time of the trip. So whilst the others were finishing up I took a plastic bag down to the water and collected 2 dozen muscles for dinner that night.
We took advantage of a sunny lake side stop by getting wet. A dirt track then took us up the last remaining hills before an enjoyable downhill run landed us in Kristiansand. After finding the info centre we headed to the fishmarket area looking for some buffett pizza, but settled for a massive soft serve icecream which we sat down and enjoyed in a ritzy looking wharf area.
As we were staying the night in a bigger city, we checked ourselves in at the camping ground. I reluctantly handed over AUD$26 each for 1 night in a tent, and then we still had to pay for showers on top of that, and they were AUD$4 per 5 minutes!, and this is in a country without water issues.
So that was our week as a threesome. It was tough riding that wasn't helped by the damp starts and long days. The mood during the days wasn't the best, but once we were all relaxing at the end of the day it was all happy families.
Now tomorrow Nadia will hop a ferry ride to the north of Denmark and start her way across to Copenhagen to catch up with an old uni mate, whilst Jon and I will stay in Norway, and continue with the punishing hills on our way to Oslo, another week away.
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