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.