|
August 3 Thursday overcast North Sea 'calm' (it's a relative thing) Bicycle touring Norway In the morning, I awake to find bodies lying haphazardly everywhere. I do mean haphazard. And I do mean everywhere. And, apparently sometime during the night, our numbers increased. Fellow deck chair recliners had helped themselves to mattresses in our U2 cabin. There were no less than fifty people bunched together on the floor. It looked like a giant orgy with clothes on. I'm serious. There are some pretty compromising positions out there. Wish I had remembered to bring my camera. This is money-making material. Showers are at the pool from 8 to 11 AM. Expecting a big line-up, and rationed hot water, we head down at 7:50. No one is in the men's shower. I enjoy a leisurely and hot shower. The young woman at the pool desk tells us she works four weeks on and then gets four weeks off. "It's a great job," she says. "Lots of time to travel." The waves in the pool are sloshing about two feet high. This is what I call a real wave pool. When I comment, the pool attendant says today is calm. In rough weather the waves hit the ceiling and they have to drain the pool. I suspect it would do a pretty good job of draining itself. That Norwegian sense of humour must be kicking in: They've been paging a Dick Wit for the past twenty minutes. I wonder if that's the guy who was parading around our cabin in only his underwear. Rebecca and Arran join us for lunch. We take over a table in the Mira Room. We learn that Arran just finished law school ... not that one would mistake him for a lawyer when he's decked out in his bicycling clothes. He has one sister a year and a half older. Rebecca is a Science journalist. She had just finished writing a book on New Zealand's volcanoes and earthquakes. Her dad was a professor at Wellington's university. He started the book and then handed off the project to his pretty and intelligent daughter. Rebecca still has a few pounds of papers in her bicycle panniers relating to the manuscript. The scenery is mainly small islands as we approach Bergen, Norway. It reminds me a lot of the west coast of BC. The ferry arrived in Bergen, Norway, at 9:40 PM. Not the greatest time of day for touring cyclists to arrive. Sharon and I are the absolute last to disembark. Oh, wait, remember those two cyclists who are navigating their way to the Arctic Circle? Well, they haven't even shown up for their bikes yet. Maybe they're still wandering around on Deck 7 looking for cabin U2. Is this some crazy rock group joke? A crewman looks at the unclaimed bicycles, then says to us, "Guess we'll take them back to Newcastle." Crickey. They're planning on navigating on their bicycles to the Arctic Circle and they can't even find their way off the ferry? Well, in all fairness, I guess, it can't be that hard to find the Arctic Circle. Just head north. Right? As we are in the long lineup preparing to unload with the other traffic, Arran keeps honking the horn on his touring bicycle ... much to the chagrin of the Harley riders next to us. I can tell already I'm going to like bicycle touring with this Kiwi guy. We manage to get off the ferry without being run over by rigs or Harley drivers. We head for customs. The agent says he likes my Norse name: Anderson. He actually was processing Sharon's passport first and told her, "I like your Norse name." Sharon responded that she just acquired the name through marriage. "Good choice," he says to her. "I liked his legs," she says. He stamps our passports, and says, "Spend all your money in Norway." "From the reports we've heard," I say, "that won't be difficult." Next are customs' officers. "Nothing to declare," I say. "Glass containers filled with booze are too heavy to carry on a touring bicycle." A ship blasts its horn twice, drowning out all sound. When the air clears, I say, "Excuse me. Ferry food gives me bad gas." They laugh and wave us through. Bergen, a seaport in southwestern Norway is the center of Norway's fishing and North Sea oil industries. It is quite large; it's the second largest city in Norway, with a population of 213,344. Approximately. Two cruise ships are docked. The area along the pier is going full swing for a late Thursday night. Being this far north in the summer does has its advantages. It is still light enough to cycle. Lots of traffic and pedestrians. I stop at a Mini Bank (Norway's Instant Tellers) and pick up 1000 Norwegian Kroners. Sharon already calls the Norwegian currency Krullers. 4.5 Nok = $1 Canadian. We bicycle out of Bergen, following Arran and Rebecca. Safety in numbers and all that. We never did see the other touring cyclists that made the crossing with us from Newcastle. Rebecca finds a likely looking free camp spot by an electrical substation building. Lots of traffic goes by noisily. By the time we have our bicycle touring tents erected it's 12:10 AM. And it is not even completely dark. It starts to sink in that we are pretty far north on this bicycle tour. |
