Distance so far: 4358km
Not much to say really. Phew you say. The last three days have been spent mostly riding on what must be some of the most fantastic roads in the world for a motorbike. High mountain roads, switchbacks to get up there … and back down, long winding quick roads along impossibly gorgeous fjords and even tunnels, that are sometimes so long they have rest points at which the lights go blue and yellow to “simulate” a kind of daylight. It’s apparently also to counter the soporific effect of driving in the dark in a long straight line for kilometre after kilometre. Mad as it seems we entered the longest road tunnel in the world at over 24km, stopped to survey the lighting 6km in and then u-turned and went back out the way we had come in. All perfectly normal. And the reason? Because we had wanted to first go over it on the “snow road” possibly one of the prettiest roads I have ever seen - and very quiet as most people whizzed through the tunnel, 1000m below us (as did we eventually!)
Bit of snow left then
We’ve stopped at lovely ancient wooden churches with romantic history I have already forgotten,
…crossed fjords on ferries with the locals,
…and stopped at some of the most jaw dropping waterfalls. We have also passed literally hundreds of them, but if we had stopped at them all we would be here until Christmas.
The infrastructure in Norway is astonishing, necessitated by its geography, and without which small towns and villages would be largely cut off from each other despite being only a few kilometres apart. The mountains are high, the fjords are deep and long, and the weather in the winter can be brutal. But the extensive network of ferries and the frankly unbelievable number of tunnels simply bored through the mountains, make even the the remotest places accessible. Occassionally we have had to be convoyed through while they do repairs. But that has just been an excuse to chat with the locals in our fluent Norwegian!
And so our 4 days in Norway come to an end. Later today we take the ferry to Denmark. But we are already thinking about how we might come back and get up to the far north. If only there was a ferry direct from England to Bergen, Stavanger, or anywhere on the west coast really. There was, but not anymore. I’ll write to Stena! Do they not know who we are?!
It’s time for breakfast, so without further ado I am going to sign this one off, with a few more of the pictures to try to convey the majesty of the 1000 or so kilometres we have travelled since crossing the border from Sweden. We have loved it.
I’m going to get the best shot. No, I am!
Its all about the bikes!
Get out of my picture Rob!
The old stave church at Roldal
And inside it
Just one of the places we have stayed
Legend has it a bear was found that had hoarded all these treasures. (That’s legend according to my to idiot mates). But a bizarre art installation to find in a cave in the mountains! Did we sing “The Bear Necessities”? Of course we did! Utterly bemused the Norwegians!
Even the public toilets have a view!
It’s all about the bike!
Even Rob’s arms aren’t this long. Taken by a Norwegian sheep farmer who was just about to close the road to release her 250 sheep (allegedly - we wondered if it was a dare!)
A final selfie at the most wonderful waterfall: Rob, Eric and the bodyless me!
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