Into Sverige

Sweden is a long, skinny country that borders Norway for a long bloody way, along the Scandinavian mountain range. It's 3 times longer from north to south as it is from east to west. It was the first European country to introduce national parks, and has some very nice forest area and really nice lakes. Their most famous band would have to be The Hives and definitely not ABBA. Most Swedes will tell you that the population of Sweden is about 5 million, but I have seen it written as 9 million. I guess a lot left when ABBA started making that horrible noise, and maybe they have been slowly returning since Roxette took over.

The border between Sweden and Norway where we crossed sits on top of a small hill, showing those coming from Norway that the land ahead of them is a lot flatter than their own, and telling those coming from Sweden that they are now entering the land of the ridiculously steep mountains. Apparently this invisible line separating Sweden from Norway does nothing to change the weather.
Sverige, as the locals call it, promised many things for us. Firstly, it was the end of the mountains and the entry to the lakes. I will miss the mountains, but also I look forward to cruisier riding amongst forests and lakes. We also had dates with locals. Once again Nadia's previous travels have given her a contact in this part of the world. This time we would be visiting a friend that she made in South Africa a few years ago, a young lass by the name of Suzy. Suzy lives in Stockholm, right over in the east of Sweden which we would eventually get to, but her family lives about half way across, in the area of Storfors.

Firstly though, we had to get some maps of this all new country, with its all new language and money. The first town we came across was Tocksfors, which had a well stocked pamphlet section in the library where we were able to pick up some very nice free maps. Tocksfors was 6 km over the border, and as we rolled into town the sky opened good and proper. It absolutely bucketed down for the next 4 hours. The librarian told us of a shopping centre in town so we headed there for shelter and to waste some time waiting for the weather to ease up.
Although Tocksfors is a tiny little town, it is home to a massive shopping centre. The reason for this is the town's closeness to the Norwegian border. Sweden has a much happier purchase price on almost anything, and possibly everything. So Tocksfors is a big stopping and spending place for those heading to Norway. It took about 10 minutes to walk around the centre, and due to the weather it was busy. The shops in the centre were nothing to get excited about, containing the usual non-necessities. There was 1 shop that had on display a home penis moulding kit, which was pretty funny, but we couldn't fit it on our bikes. The only other shop of note was the biggest bloody lolly shop you will ever see. It was probably the biggest shop in the centre and had masses of big open bins full of loose lollies, and then shelves of boxes of chocolates and jubes and everything else stretching way up to the ceiling. The idea was that you pick up a bucket on the way in and just shovel all the lollies that you wanted into your own little bucket. And if you filled your bucket, no worries, as there were empty buckets everywhere. For us, we got a little bag of lollies, just for the novelty of it all.
We received many a stare after making our lunch on a bench seat in the middle of a walk way. Apparently we became the first visitors to not eat junk food in a shopping centre in all of Scandinavia judging by the looks we received. The prices were cheaper, but still not cheap enough for us to splurge.
After lunch was done and browsing was finished, it was still a long wait until the rain started to back off. We were running out of riding time so we went for it and managed to put another 20km behind us and leave the main road far behind. Our travelling theory was the same: take the backroads and camp in the wilds, and maybe if we were lucky we might get invited in by kind hearted locals. And one of the keys to the getting invited in thing was the getting lost thing. As it was our first night in a new country we figured we should see if it would work in Sweden, and it did. Hooraa! After finding that a few roads didn't appear on our map we were stopped at an intersection with not much about. There had been no rain now for about half an hour, and after a few minutes of map checking we looked up to see an old fellow walking up the sideroad towards us. He greeted us with an energetic sentence of gobbledigook before we were able to explain our situation. As we had found in Norway, his English was decent, and he was able to explain that he was visiting friends just down the road, so he didn't know the area, but his wife and local friend would be along in a minute. When Ulla, the local lady arrived there was confusion over the map, but then a deal was struck that we would accompany them back to the house where her husband Per would be able to help us. On the way to the house it started pissing down again, so we were told 'hop on your bikes and ride to the yellow house up ahead on the left. When you arrive just go in and tell my husband what is happening.' So that is what we did. We had parked our bikes in various out of the weather spots around the end of the house when a confused looking man came out. He took it all in his stride and had us strip our wet gear off and come in for a cuppa.
Once settled we were introduced to the daughter Elin, then they made us sit down for a coffee and completely relax whilst they put on the fire and filled the table with pie and chocolate and homemade pie and beer and homemade blueberry pie and coffee and sweetbread. It was more than we could have asked for and they kept giving willingly, happy to see us warm and happy and to hear of our travels. As it was still belting down outside we were invited to stay for the night, which we gratefully accepted. A little while later the rain stopped, so Per took us for a walk up the back track into the woods and told us of the area and his family's history in the area. It started to rain again whilst we were walking, so it was a quick turn around and back home for a bottle of wine and more chocolate. We were shown our rooms later and were very happy to see an actual bed, which was soft and amazing. During the night I woke and had to visit the toilet after all the amazing food, but I would do it all again.
The visit was topped off with a huge breakfast the next morning before they waved us off. Talking together later and pooling all the info, we had learned that Ulla's mother had died a month before, and Per was out of work. We were also told that this was officially the wettest summer in Sweden for 50 years. So, it was a shit summer all around, but still they took us in and treated us like life long friends. I am so pleased to have met these people, but nearly feel guilty for accepting so much hospitality during their tough times. I hope that our visit somehow lifted their spirits and gave them something to laugh about. And I hope I get to repay their hospitality somewhere down the line.
The only problem now was, at this had been our first night in Sweden, we had big expectations for the rest of the country.

An eye opening comment from our new friends as we were leaving was that one of the towns that we would come across later in the day (about the distance we would have made it if we hadn't been invited to stay the night) had been hit with a small cyclone overnight!
After our big traditional Swedish breakfast we finally got going at 11.30. For the first while we had a tailwind pushing us along on our north easterly path, passing through countryside made up of small farms with horses and sheep. It didn't take long for an hour to slip past with us gently riding along, chatting and watching the country roll by. After this hour we came to a stop to check the maps, with a bit of contention as to how far we had moved on the map. This was resolved with Jon turning right onto a dirt road that he believed would be a short cut to the next town, and with Nadia and I continuing on the sealed road that we knew would take us to the next town. We agreed to meet at Arvika for lunch and headed along our chosen roads. It would have only been 5 minutes later that Nadia and I arrived at a major intersection and knew exactly where we were, and exactly where Jon wasn't. I toyed with the idea of racing back to grab Jon, but he would've been having fun on his dirt road, so I left him to it. We made it to town and found some benches to sit and prepare our lunch. Jon arrived half an hour later, very happy with his adventure.
The supermarket in this town also became our shelter for an hour as the rain came down again, but thankfully this was to be the last of the rain for the next few days. We made the most of this dry afternoon by putting 74km on the clock for the day. Our campsite was planned for a little beach on the banks of a small lake. It was easy to find the lake but proved more difficult to find the beach, and the local holiday house owners were not very welcoming or helpful. But perseverance proved enough and we had a very relaxing night on our own little beach on the banks of the lake. That evening while Jon worked on cleaning his bike and Nadia picked some blueberries, I let the colourful sunset help ease my tired muscles.

The Norway Recap

All in all at the end of our Norwegian odyssey, we had been in the country for 52 days, riding on 31 of them. We had covered a distance of 1,573km around the coast between Bergen in the west, to Oslo, down to Ski, and then across the western border into Sweden. We had averaged a daily distance of 51km on the days that we rode. Of our 52 days, we camped on 46 nights, and an impressive and beautiful statistic – it rained on 26 days, half our time in the country!

I had a great time in Norway, starting in the amazing Fjordland area around and to the south of Bergen. We then learned a bit of the Viking history in the Avaldsness region. The 2 weeks of waiting in Stavanger gave us our best weather and a good chance to recuperate, as well as checking out the area. The crazy hills around the Flekkefjord region quickly put us back into riding mode, and put Nadia into the doctors to receive her first stitches ever.
At Kristiansand I said goodbye to Nadia for a week of her own travels, leaving Jon and I to slog out the remainder of the ride along the North Sea, meeting a Winter Olympic skating champion along the way, picking untold kilos of veggies and berries, having everything drenched in the rain, spending a night in Helle, and having a great time.
We had a few days of riding up the western side of Oslo Fjord, managing to camp for free all the way even though we were approaching the capital city. When we reached Oslo we unloaded our bikes and gave everything a slightly overdue clean, before relaxing for a few days, with Nadia rejoining the party after her week in Denmark. The way from Oslo to the border was straight forward and we had the good fortune to meet Rune and receive his friendship and hospitality.

We learnt a lot, including enough basic greetings and politeness to get through most language difficulties. The level of English that the Norwegians have is very high, which makes it so easy to travel.
The worst thing about Norway is the cost of everything. It was depressing to see how much we were spending just for basic camping food. We picked a lot of berries, found a few vegetables and even caught a few fish, which helped us to save a bit of money. Chocolate was left off the shopping list due to the extortionate cost, which was very unfortunate, as we love chocolate, and it's good for energy.

I think Norway had some very nice ideas that Australia could implement. The free camping was great, and fairly simple – not within 150 meters of a house. Norway has houses all over the place, but we still managed to 'wild camp' every night. The second part of the law – that you are not allowed to stay more than 2 nights – is also fine. I'm sure in Australia, with its wide open spaces, and all its outdoors loving residents, could allow this.
Another cool thing was the bottle and can recycling system. It was country wide, it was in just about every supermarket, it was a machine, it only took a few minutes, it was a damn good reason to keep your cans and bottles, and it was so bloody easy! Why the hell do we need to drive all the way to South Australia just to claim a refund for recycling? An easy to fix problem – whack a 25cent tax on all bottles and cans that are sold, and make it a 25cent refund for whoever takes the empty bottle/can to the recycling machine in the supermarket. I'm pretty sure most Australians would be doing that just so they can 'stick it up the government'. And the only people who wouldn't recycle are the rich variety who don't want to lower themselves to recycling. And they don't need the money anyway, and then the poorer person who picks the bottle up and takes it back gets 25cents. Brilliant!
After my limited travelling around the world, and working with tourists for many years at home, I have already seen that Australia is a long way behind in recycling practices than a lot of other countries. Over here they even have a box in the supermarket to recycle your household batteries. What do we do with them in Australia?

The scenery along the way was simply stunning. The Fjords area would hold me spellbound for many a year, both on the mountains and in the fjords, preferably seen from a sea kayak. I guess I haven't gone into too much detail in the blog in terms of describing the nature we were amongst and the views we were treated to, but I'm sure I've crapped on enough already anyway. And of course the next part of this adventure is getting home, making some photo albums, and then answering all the questions that my friends have of all our adventures. So when you come around for a beer and a bbq, you'll hear a bit more about it all I'm sure.

Anyway, that's it for Norway. It was great, and I really would like to go back with a sea kayak or yacht in the future. I'll get the first Sweden blog entry up soon, but for now we still have a long way to go on this slow way home.

Oslo Fun And Norway’s Done

The weekend was spent in Oslo, where we got everything clean, wandered the town, found a few bars, and generally relaxed. The Saturday night we hit the town and unfortunately just missed the last bus home, by about 3 hours. But as per usual, these situations often lead to random encounters with some funny folk of the night time.
We met a weird African home-boy at the bus stop where we were pretty sure a bus was coming in the next 10 minutes. Our new best friend though was convinced that there was a better bus stop just around the corner. After the 10 minute walk to the bus stop 'just around the corner' we found that the last bus here had been 3hrs ago. So we discovered our new best friend was full of shit, and were now resigned to the prospect of a 10km hike home at 3a.m, but even this wasn't truly horrible, as the rain had stopped and even at this hour there was enough light to see everything. So we left the bus stop with our home boy in tow. Along the way he explained to us how he is a pretty big deal in Oslo town, and tried to prove this by talking to all the passers-by that passed by. Thankfully when we hit the outskirts of town he decided we weren't fun and headed back to the party area.
We then got started with our big hike home. We were able to walk along the bike path following the main road all the way, which also gave us the chance to try our luck with hitch hiking. There wasn't a great deal of traffic when we started, but as the hours got closer to normal life, the cars started to increase. We had 2 cars stop for us. The first car was 2 fellas looking to start their own taxi empire, but scored no love from our empty wallets. The second fella that stopped was a very friendly and talkative man who was happy to give us a ride so he had someone to talk at. He was an ex something-or-other who had been kicked out of the country due to his political views. He was stoned and happy and told us his theory on the female body, but didn't want any of our chocolate muffins. Anyway, that got us home at about 6.30 in the morning.

When we woke later that day I had a message from Nadia, saying that she was catching a train from southern Sweden up to Oslo later that afternoon. So we cooked up some pancakes and headed back into town to meet Nadia at the station. It was a grand reunion that called for beers. But we only had 1, as I then had to ride with Nadia back out to the flat.

The Monday was spent in similar fashion – a sleep in, pancakes, and a trip into town. This trip was so I could get myself a necklace of Thor's hammer. I've become a fan of the Nordic legends whilst on this ride, and found a nice memento to hang around my neck. The next stop was at Dolly Dimples, a pizza restaurant that was offering all-you-can-eat lunches on Monday's only. A few hours later we crawled out of there with our bellies hanging on the ground.
Anders (the fella whose flat we're staying in) was due back in Oslo this day, so Jon went off to catch up with him, whilst Nadia and I finally found one of the bars we had been told about 3 days ago, and that was that.

The Tuesday was the return to riding, but not before we re-packed everything, cleaned the apartment, went for a swim at the local beach, and helped Anders to help the new tenant of his apartment move in. Jon had some things to do in town, so we left him there and got on the road.
We had only made it 18km and were studying our map at the side of a road when a car pulled over and the driver jumped out to find out if we were ok. His name was Rune, he's a local police officer, he had travelled in Australia in 2000 with his wife and they had loved it. Rune was a very positive fella who had been wanting to help lost tourists, and we were them! So he gave us directions to his house and then raced off to see his wife before she headed out to a Madonna concert in Oslo. Unfortunately she left just before we arrived, so we didn't get to meet her. We were first invited in for some energy drinks, but this soon turned into dinner and drinks, and then into bed and breakfast, you ripper! So while Rune cooked up a delicious pasta meal we relaxed on the couch with a beer and looked at photos and played with his 2 young sons. After the kids were put to bed Rune joined us with a bottle of red and told us of his adventures in Australia, and told us some colourful stories of policing in Oslo. He probably knew our home-boy friend.

So after 1 and a half months of cycling through Norway, we were finally invited in for dinner and a shower, and bed and brekky to boot. But just as the people of Norway started to open their doors to us, Norway came to a close. We began the next day with a traditional Norwegian breakfast of bread, bread rolls, 2 types of salami, 2 types of cheese (1 goat's cheese), tomato, paprika, cucumber, caviar, liver pate, some other spreads, and juice and tea for drinks. This feast was had while looking at more photos and discussing which roads we should ride along. By the time we started riding we had good directions for the day, and Rune had told us of a good campsite not too far away, and that's where we spent the night. We only had a 60km ride to get to the camp, so we took our time, collected some more bottles and cans off the side of the road and took full advantage of the taste testing on offer at the bakery and delicatessen sections of a supermarket we stopped at.
We arrived early and got stuck into some bike maintenance, while Jon arrived a few hours later after coming the extra 20km from Oslo. It was a nice day, but ended with another huge downpour.

Thursday the 30^th of July was our last day in Norway. It started with Norway giving us a cracker of a send off, by pissing down all morning. Our start was delayed until 11.30, waiting for the rain to at least ease up, if not stop. But no, so we got riding in the rain. The hope of hopes was that once we made it to Sweden the weather would improve, because surely it wouldn't be horrible weather in Sweden also. Surely the border ahead of us would be big and well manned and not allow this weather to be in 2 countries at once. When we made it to Sweden we were welcomed with a beautifully refreshing downpour, washing away all the rain of Norway. So much for that!
In total for the day, we managed 48km of riding, half in Norway, half in Sweden, the 3^rd country of our tour.

The Curse of Stavanger

The Curse of Stavanger

I know we have long since departed the Norwegian city of Stavanger, but I also compiled a blog entry for the significant stopover town and never posted it, due mainly to laziness.

If you have forgotten, or not read the entire blog, Stavanger was a beautiful, small harbour city on the west coast of Norway where Wally and I met Jon Cope, a long time friend of Wally's, who joined us for a while in Scandinavia. Up until Stavanger we had felt rain on our skin every day (even though it was summer) since we left our origin town of Braemar in Scotland – over 1 month earlier. It seemed like our luck was changing for the better when we rolled into Stavanger, at least with the weather.

We arrived a day before Jon in order to get jobs done and minimise the time we needed to stay in the city. We serviced our bikes and stocked up on a few different things that are unavailable in small towns, and when we met Jon at the airport he was under the impression that the bike should have also arrived, or would do, within a day or so. That belief was quickly crushed during a phone conversation to the shipping company who couldn't tell us where the bike was, or when it would be arriving in Norway.

This seemed to be a turning point for us. The bike did not arrive for 2 weeks, and within that time there seemed to be a lot of extra things going wrong than previously. Don't get me wrong, we enjoyed glorious weather with long daylight hours, but as far as possessions go (and we only have a limited amount that can travel with us on the bikes), it was quite a disastrous period in our journey.

The first event occurred on a beautiful day while the boys were off climbing a huge slab of rock above one of the fjords. I decided I would go and sit on a nice patch of grass next to the beautiful lake by the camping ground. I took my diary, my book, my music, the computer... yes, the computer, and that's where it all went wrong. I was just settling down on the grass, arranging my bag as a nice back rest when I heard a slight click, barely a crack. I thought it was just one of the buckles on my bag, or a couple of pens bashing each other, so I lay merrily in the non-burning sun and watched the ducks float past and people jogging, thinking I was the luckiest person in the world.

After not using the computer at all while I lay on the grass I was totally deflated when I opened the screen of our little netbook back at camp to see a crack stretching across a large part of the screen. I closed it and re-opened it hoping that it had been my imagination. Then I was convinced that I must be dreaming because I couldn't possibly have broken the screen, I've never broken anything like this before in my whole life, I had too many sisters watching me to be able to properly destroy anything. As I booted up the computer I felt horrible as the images flashed up with a nice black streak through them. The up-side was that you could still use the computer, and even though you couldn't see everything, you could scroll up or down to see what the crack obscured. As I talked to my sister on the internet I felt like screaming and crying at the same time. I was so mad at myself and even after observing the broken screen while I typed away, I still thought that maybe it was a dream and I would wake up soon. Unfortunately, that didn't happen.

When the boys returned Wally was very nice, as I knew he would be, and that made me feel a little better. It did not make me feel better, though, in the following days when they would say 'I can't see the command, there seems to be a crack in the screen'.

I won't bother you with stories about all the mishaps, but there were many other minor things that occurred also. I will list a few of them. To begin with, when Jon went to find his book so he could read before bed, he realised he had left it on the plane. Then when he went to have a shower he realised he had also left his towel somewhere along the way. That was no problem because we had a spare towel that he could use. And use it he did, until he realised he was without it once we'd left Stavanger. He blamed the gypsies for bundling it up with their washing (for more information, read Wally's 'Stranded but sunshine' entry). I'm pretty sure we broke some of our cutlery, and we lost a friends saucepan. My tent managed to get a hole torn in it, the same night that it poured with rain and the tarp managed to trap the water under the tent rather than diverting it away. The last major incident that occurred, the day after the tent breakage, but the day before leaving Stavanger, was when my new watch broke! If you saw it you would say 'that's ok, it's just the strap', but no, my strap is special and isn't stocked in the stores. It needs ordering. Before we stopped riding I tried numerous types of superglue from numerous types of shops, without success (mainly because I couldn't find that stuff we have in Australia that has such strong fumes you can hardly watch whatever it is you're gluing, resulting in your fingers being INSTANTLY stuck together while you're panic stricken trying to figure out the safest way to separate them without ripping your skin off).

So out of all of our possessions that are worth anything, the only things (and most important things) that survived the curse of Stavanger, were the bikes. We rode away from Stavanger, happy to have been able to spend an extended time in such a beautiful city, and also happy that we left before our bikes crumpled into a heap.

We travelled for just under 2 more months after leaving Stavanger, and once we decided to live in northern Germany for the winter, we also decided to send our computer to the German repair facility for our particular brand. We thought this was a wise idea, Germans are so efficient and ... well, that was good enough for us. It soon became apparent that Germans are not so efficient, at least not the German branch of this global company. With an initial quote of just 1 to 2 weeks including postage both ways, we received our computer (with new crack-free screen) almost 2 months after sending it away.

So it seems the curse of Stavanger lingers with the items that suffer there. Still to this day (January 28, 2010) I am not wearing my beautiful 'new' watch. I think it has now been broken for more than half the time I have owned it. After deciding to stop riding during the winter, you would think I had time to order a new strap, months ago. But by the time we had a stable address, we basically worked every day of the week for the few months before Christmas. Now that I am unemployed AND stationary, more than 6 months later, I am very happy to say that a new band has been ordered, and, if the curse is willing to permit it, I should be wearing my 'new' watch again this week.

The Road to Oslo

On Tuesday, the 21^st of July, we got out of Helle as quickly as we could. Well, 10.15 anyway. The morning was uneventful apart from the collection of a heap more cans and plastic bottles on the sides of the roads. Now we are pretty good people, and do our fair share of community service, and it does disappoint me to see the beautiful countryside de-beautified by passengers in cars throwing rubbish out their window, but there was also the reason of cash for cans.
After our good collecting this day we decided it was time to cash all our dockets in that you get for taking the empties back to the supermarkets. With all of the cans and bottles that we had been collecting over the last few days we got NOK$ 34 (about AUD$ 6), which isn't too bad for a few quick stops on the way.
We arrived at the town of Langesund to be told by a young tourist info worker on her school holidays that there wasn't a ferry leaving town anymore. This was disastrous news, as we had come a long way from the inland road to catch this ferry, and the last 10 minutes had all been downhill. But a hunch told me not to believe everything you get told by a young kid forced to work on their summer holidays, so we did some research of our own and found that the ferry was still running, had always been running, and would be arriving in an hour. So lunch was taken while waiting for the ferry across to Helgeroa.
The ferry, when it arrived, turned out to be a boat, and a very popular one at that. Luckily we had chosen a picnic table right in front of the boats final landing place, because we were instantly surrounded by 40 other people wanting to board. Luckily once again there were many other bikes, so the crew decided it would be best to get all the bikes and their owners on first. At this announcement, that we couldn't understand, there was movement all around us as 12 other bike owners tried to squeeze past us and around us and over us to make sure that they got a seat onboard. And third time lucky for us, a friendly old lady who had also been waiting there for a long time voiced her disapproval of all these people pushing and shoving and declared that Jono and I should be the first on, and so we were.
This ferry ride took us on a meandering path amongst quaint looking houses atop their very own little rocky islands, through narrow passageways between steeply overhanging rock faces where the local kids entertained by launching themselves into the water, and past rickety old boat sheds and piers with no other access than by water.
In the afternoon session we made our way across land to Larvik, then back to the coast at Ostby, stopping only to replenish our potato and onion supply. This night was spent at a beautiful grassy picnic area sandwiched between 2 long rocks laying parallel to each other. At the entry end of these rocks was a little boom gate designed to keep traffic out, and at the other end was a little beach and a diving board, with yummy muscles living on the rocks. This beach turned out to be a closely guarded secret amongst the locals, with all the beach goers that afternoon enquiring as to how we found their 'private beach'. They were all happy when told we were just lucky, and that their secret would remain safe. After this they wanted to talk about our trip and told us of an old Viking village in the next bay around.

The lovely sound of a man and his mower welcomed us into the new day, as did some cracking weather. We were fully packed by 10.00, and were being joined by the first few locals who were starting to appear ready for their day in the sun. We joined in the early morning swim, had a friendly chat to everyone there, and headed on our way, stopping at the Viking village that we had told us about. We left the village with clouds visibly approaching in the southern sky. Half an hour later and the clouds had caught up to us, and then half an hour later again the rain started. It drizzled for a while, then was heavy for a while, then drizzled for a few hours more, and then put in 1 last effort around 7pm. So after a bright start this day gave us wet everything, again. We slugged it out though, spending 5 hours in the saddle, and getting us 84km closer to Oslo, which was now only very close to the north of us. This day's ride also took us past 2 massive fields of snowpeas, which tasted very nice fresh, and good with our potatoes and onions that night.

On our last full day of riding before reaching the capital of Norway we had a fairly easy day by Norwegian standards, with only 2 killer hills late in the afternoon. The weather had improved to just heavily overcast with only an hour of drizzle. The day was cold and there was thunder in the distance.
During breakfast we noticed our remaining blueberries were looking tired, so Jon mashed them up, added some water and sugar and put them on the boil for 20 minutes to make a very tasty, very energetic drink for the day. Once on the way we stopped in downtown Naersnes to let some young boys at the sports shop have a go at straightening Jon's ever increasing buckle in his rear wheel. The boys hadn't actually tackled a wheel this bad before, so they pointed us in the direction of a good bakery and we left them to it. An hour later we had seen the town and found the boys had done a decent job on the wheel. They didn't charge, as they put it down to a good training session.
After getting out of town we had a great tailwind for the first hour, but then swung 175 degrees to follow down the other side of the fjord. This meant we had the same wind in our faces for the next hour until we finally rounded back again and soon after rolled into Svelvik. In Svelvik there is a ferry that takes passengers to Klokkarstua. Klokkarstua is approximately 120 meters away, but with no bridge, there was no option but to wait the twenty minutes for the just departed ferry to return. The first of the massive hills was straight off the ferry and it took a good 45 minutes before breathing deep at the top and taking in a view that nearly made the climb worthwhile. It was our first view of Oslo Fjord, with the city of Oslo lying at the head of the fjord. In the afternoon we saw several enormous cruise ships moving up and down the fjord. On one of these ships was my cousin, who works with the stage show. I would hopefully be catching up with him the next day in Oslo.
Our camp for the night was found at another little grassy beach with a few 'no camping' signs dotted about the place. Already camping there were a few tents full of young Polish university students who had come up for some summer work. Once again we were entrusted with a secret. This time not the location, but the vocation; they were going door to door and hiring themselves out as professional painters and handymen, and good luck to them, as they were a friendly lot and gave us hot tea.

Our morning swim on Friday the 24^th was very short, with a swim out to the jumping platform to do a few flips, then back to the rocks to dry before a quick getaway from camp. This was the first time in a long time that we had any sort of agenda, and on this day we had 2. Firstly was to get to the port of Oslo before 2pm so I could catch up with my cousin, working on the Emerald Princess. After this we had to meet a friend of Jon's sisterat the main train station, as he had agreed to let us stay at his place for a few nights.
The ride into Oslo was to be as expected when heading into a big city. We had a bike path to follow most of the way which was nice, but even that got confusing as we got closer to the city, with more and more bike paths beginning and crossing each other, and then disappearing altogether. We arrived at the harbour a bit before 2pm, and raced around to the first big ship, which happened to be the right one, but unfortunately the gang way was already raised and even after telling them none of these millionaires would mind a half hour delay, there was still no way of getting on board, or even getting in touch with my cousin. So that was that, the first time I would have seen my cousin in about 3 years and the best I could do was get a photo standing in front of his boat. The photo's probably better looking without him in it anyway.
The next of our appointments thankfully went smoother. We caught up with our Oslo contact at the train station where we shook hands, introduced ourselves, and then he gave us the keys to his apartment, told us how to get there, told us he was off to Bergen for the weekend and jumped on a train. And that was our second meeting over and done with. With that freeing up the rest of our day we decided to head straight out to our new digs for the weekend. It was another 14km away and 1 damn big hill. After half an hour we finally had all our gear into the apartment and we were starting on the first of 3 loads of washing. Some shopping, another 2 loads of washing and some raiding of the fridge and the afternoon had left us behind. Our first night in a big city in a few weeks and we decided to give it a miss, as we were tired, we had a comfy mattress, and we were already reduced to our underwear anyway, as everything else had gone through the wash. Jon was still keen as he had a decent set of undies, but eventually we just fell asleep.

Death of a Wheel, and a Night in Hell

The day after the Ho-down! It brought with it the 50 year storm that they were looking for in 'Point Break'. When sleeping in a tent the noise of gentle rain on your dome sounds vicious, so when we awoke to torrential rain, it was a fairly scary sound, and didn't inspire much movement from the 2 of us. After half an hour the volume of rain seemed to back off a bit, so we dashed out to have another crack at getting my rear wheel apart. Failing again pretty much planned our day for us. Now I had to go and find a bike shop, which would take a while, and would leave us with only a few hours of riding time, so a rest day was declared.
Whilst I kitted up for my day of bike repairing, Jon affixed my rear wheel to his back rack (in the rain, what a good friend). He then crawled back into the shelter of the tent as I started the ride up the now muddy dirt track back to the main road. The rain had penetrated through to my skin everywhere by the time I made it to the little town of Fevik where I found bugger all. I was then resigned to pedalling all the way back to Grimstad, which we passed 10km back the day before. I rode as hard as I could, knowing that it was Saturday, meaning the bike shop might not be open, and even if open, might be too busy to help me. But after an hour (with a bit of being lost) I arrived to find an open bike shop with no other customers. The other customers apparently deciding that today was too wet and you would have to be silly to be outside on a day like this.
An hour later I emerged from the shop with a whole new wheel. My original wheel had 2 broken spokes, which was easily repairable, but on closer inspection there were another 8 spokes ready to break on the next bumpy road. This was due to my chain jumping over my cogs at some stage and crunching against the spokes. So a new wheel it was, and then back to camp through the endlessly pouring rain.
Upon my return to our beach camp I found that Jon had had a very productive day, managing to finish off his supply of chocolate and the communal liquorice! It was about now also that we noticed a puddle at one side of the tent... that seemed to go under the tent... and out the other side of the tent too. We dragged the tent out of this now apparent low point (which seemed like such a nice spot for the tent yesterday) and found that Jon had been lying in a 4cm deep pool, which had been slowly seeping through to the inside of the tent.
The afternoon dragged on with me catching up to Jon on the chocolate consumption, playing some harmonica and talking shit. About 7 in the evening the rain stopped for the first time all day. We were straight out and into the open air, happy to stretch our legs and survey our surrounds. The amount of rain had been incredible and a lot of the grassy area above the beach had been washed away. The beach was covered in litter and the water was brown with silt and mud.
Back at camp we were thinking about dinner when 2 friendly ladies strolled over and started asking us about what we were doing and having a good look at our bikes, our gear and even inside our tent. At the completion of this snap inspection they invited us to use the kitchen in their rented hut which was just a 5 minute walk away. We met the 3^rd of their party when we got to the hut. They turned out to be 3 friendly christians from Oslo. So we cooked and chatted and went on our way, happy to be dry and have a warm meal in our stomachs.

The next day the storm had mostly passed. It rained hard just as we were finishing our packing and starting our ride, but that is something we have come to expect. As we were leaving the beach area we passed a massive cherry tree which was being weighed down with too many cherries, so we decided to help by removing a shopping bag full of deliciously ripe cherries to munch along the way.
The rest of the day was fairly uneventful, and for Norway, fairly flat. Arendal was the only exception for the day, being both busy and hilly. The water front town of Arendal was in party mode, with the national jet boat race series being in town for the weekend. Most of the streets were closed to traffic, so we had to detour up some bloody steep hills, and even this we didn't do well, as when we came back to the water front we were still in the middle of it all. We weren't going to cart our bikes back up these ridiculously steep roads, so we pushed through a partly closed barrier and followed the water front right through the media and corporate areas. We got a few strange looks but no one stopped us.
Later in the day we moved inland and came into very flat country dotted with little lakes. We looked to camp at most of these, but found all of them too wet from the rain the day before. Eventually we found a lakeside area that was steep enough to be dry. Camp was made and Jon collected some blue berries whilst I tried my luck fishing, pulling in what I think was a small redfin, which proved to be damn tasty. When we set up camp for the night we found most things were either wet or damp, including my journal and map. Even though the clouds were much thinner this night we still dug some trenches around the tent.

The Monday started with the collection of blue berries. We collected berries for an hour, ending up with about 1kg in the bag, and half a kg in the tum. We actually checked the prices at a supermarket and found that blue berries were selling for $60 per kg. Some quick maths suggested that we had picked over AUD$100 of blue berries in 1 hour.
Once riding, the day was spent crossing 2 peninsulas. There would be a beautiful downhill taking us to the tiny ferry piers, where we would load our bikes on next to numerous others and enjoy the scenery of the short rides. The ferry would then leave us at the bottom of a very steep climb to the top of the next peninsular. At the top of the climb we would be looking at nice gentle rides in the cool sun, slowly taking us to the next downhill ride to the next ferry.
During the day we passed through the small ferry towns of Risor, Oysang, Stabbestad and Kragero. At Stabbestad we arrived just as the ferry was pulling away, which meant we had to wait for an hour and a half before the ferry came back. Once we had climbed the hill above Kragero we found ourselves in a fairly residential area, with lots of small communities crowded onto the steep land above yet another fjord. We had to ride for a while before finding a grassy bank beneath the main road. The area was surrounded by houses on both sides, the fjord and private jetties below, and the road above, but there was good tree cover and we were hoping some friendly fellow would come to share his beer. No beer arrived, but we did chat to a few people, had a good dinner, got the bikes cleaned, tried to catch a fish and had a good stretch.
The community that we camped in this night was called Helle. We made many jokes when entering 'Hell', camping in 'Hell', and again the next day when leaving 'Helle'. This also happened to be the end of the second month since leaving Braemar, so 2 months after starting this adventure, I had arrived in Hell. We of the bike touring world are easily amused.