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August 4 Friday sunny Bicycle touring Norway We go to a Fina gas station to buy a map of Norway. Its scale is 1:350,000 and the slogan is: A successful journey begins with a good map. That's good enough for me to fork over 79 Krullers ($16). We pull our touring bicycles to a stop to eat at picnic tables by a lake. A bike path circles the lake. Arran and Rebecca head to the ferry across the next fjord. Arran squeezes his rubber horn and they wave good bye. Sharon and I finish breakfast and hop on our fully loaded touring bicycles to make our way to the ferry crossing. On the way, we meet Ralph, a bicycle tourist from East Germany. He has the heaviest loaded bicycle I have ever seen. In addition to huge Karrimore front and rear panniers and a load of stuff on his rear rack, he has a pair of running shoes and a pair of hiking boots hanging off the front of his panniers. He looks like a traveling shoe salesman. The East Germans are usually so thrilled to be able to travel and are excited about the whole venture. Ralph is no exception. He regales in the great bicycle trip he's had this summer and the hiking he has done in the park. He tells us that at one waterfall he waited to take a picture until a cloud had cleared the sky. Just as the cloud scuttled across and left a brilliant blue patch of sky, a whole bus load of Japanese tourists showed up. They took over the entire area and spent the next half hour happily clicking away. I noticed on the ferry that the Norwegians must be very strict about air quality. On the ferry a sign reads: No Under Overfarten. The view of the fjords and mountains are commonplace in Norway. I could get used to this. Talk about a beautiful country for bicycle tours. Sharon and I stopped our bicycles at a Spar store for ice cream. We also bought ten delicious nut-covered chocolate "Noors." We can't read any labels anymore. Or rather, I can read them, but I don't know what it means. Good thing most products have pictures - even though the photos have fooled me in the past. Food in Norway costs about 4 times as much as back home in Canada. Ten kilograms of flour is on sale for $16, two litres of ice cream is $18, half a dozen eggs cost $3. Meat is so expensive I don't even dare try to convert the exchange on it. We leave town and bicycle up a hill past a local bathing spot. There are lots of blond, and surprisingly (for me anyway) red-haired people. The grade increases. My speed slows. I make a hasty shift on to my granny gear and my chain blows off. I stop to put the chain back on, ripping off a handy nearby raspberry leaf by the roadside to use the leave to help put the chain back on while keeping my fingers greaseless. Once I get my chain back on, we look over at the splashing people below us and Sharon decides we should go for a dip. As we turn our bicycles around and bicycle back down the hill to the beach, people there smile and say to us, "We wondered if you would turn around. There was a big discussion." Sharon wades out about 100 metres, trying to get to water deep enough to swim in. Finally, the water still only thigh-high, she gives up and sits down. At 6 PM the sun ducks behind a mountain. An instant coolness pervades the area. Everyone, except us, packs up and leaves. Sharon dries off and we mount our bicycles to try the hill one more time. We wheel into a summer home, atop the hill. The woman provides a bottle of water for us. They have a cistern out back and collect rainwater off of their cabin roof. When she sees my two two-litre bottles she says, not unkindly, "I can fill one for you." We thank the woman for the water and pedal off a short distance from the hilltop abode to find a spot to make pasta. About 9 PM I bicycle back to the cabin and enquire if they think it will be all right if we camp down by the beach. "One night should be okay," they decide. "The farmer doesn't mind people relaxing there," she says, "but he doesn't like them camping." (In Norway, you are allowed to camp most anywhere for two nights according to law, but we still feel it is polite to ask permission.) Talk about a great place for free bicycle touring camping, eh? |
