Norway 2007

Sunday - Rain, fog, snow & sun!

Fri/Sat - Sun - Mon - Tue - Wed - Thu/Fri

Sunday 23 June 2007

The breakfast room opened at 7.30, but a horde of our East European cousins beat us to it, we retreated until the dust had settled rather than getting trampled. Staple food at the buffet was bread/toast, sliced meats, cheeses (including that delicious brown goats cheese, yum, yum) cereals, thick natural yogurt, jam, tea, coffee and a few other bits and pieces, all in a modern dining room with quite a view over Bergen, so no complaints here.

08:00 We're getting ready for the first run out. As we're staying in the Montana Hostel the whole trip there's no need to to re pack luggage each day, so we're all travelling light.

And this is today's route, a 249 mile loop going clockwise up to Sognefjorden, crossing it twice then riding back to Bergen and the Montana hostel via Voss. The red arrows show which direction we're going in, the black squares on the map are via points to pin the route, so even if the GPS does a recalc, we should stay pretty much on course. What we might find on the way was a bit of a mystery, I just hoped the ferries would be running as this is Sunday!

08:10 It was overcast as we rode out through Bergen, the roads were pretty much deserted which was just as well as the GPS said 'keep right', which we did, straight off the E39, on to a roundabout and into a tunnel, the GPS immediately squealed 'Off route, re calculate?'. Not a good start :-( It took a short while to sort out, but thanks to the lack of traffic we were soon back on the E39 again.

09:11 Some 70 miles later, and having picked up some local bikers en route, we arrived at Oppedahl for the ferry over Sognefjorden to Lavik. The boats called 'Gloppen' and operated by Fjord1 who seem to operate many of the ferries north of Bergen.

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The 3.5 mile/20 min crossing cost around £4. Unfortunately the light rain we had encountered coming in to Oppedahl became heavier, as you can see from the picture below, the cloud base was very low, things didn't look good for the rest of the trip :-(

10:50 We rode off the ferry and headed east on the E39 in worsening rain until we reached Vadheim in a little inlet off Sognefjorden. The lights were on at the Esso filling station so we turned in and topped the bikes up with fuel before going inside and raiding the coffee machine. While we were stood outside under the canopy looking at the rain and drinking coffee, three German bikers came in with a campervan and trailer following. Talking to them it transpired they were on an expedition to NordKapp 1400 miles further north, and as one of the bikes was a Vmax the extra fuel on the trailer might just come in handy!

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13:37 After half an hour standing around hoping the rain would stop, we decided to push on. From here we turned right on to the R55 and rode 47 miles in dismal rain to Dragsvik for the ferry back over Sognefjorden to Vangsnes. The only respite from the rain we'd had was the five mile long tunnel from Hoyanger to Lane (map) and that hadn't been great either, it was noticeably warm in the tunnel and everything misted up, glasses, visor, screen, the lot :-(

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Time for... The Bergen weather joke

A tourist in Bergen asks a local boy "Does it ever stop raining here?"

The boy says... "I don't know, I'm only seven" :-)

Standing in the rain, it seemed a much longer wait for the ferry to come in than the 20 mins it actually was, but eventually the ferry turned up and  we were allowed on. What a relief it was, getting the bikes in to a dry area so we could sort ourselves out.

This ferry cost £3.88 for the 3.6 mile/20min crossing, you would have expected it to have cost quite a bit more in Norway, but there you go, ferries are quite reasonable.

Having crossed the fjord we joined the R13 road heading South, after riding just six miles to Vic, you'd hardly think it was the same day, the roads were nearly dry, where did all the rain go? While some of the others were refuelling I took this picture of the traditional red painted wooden houses and sheds by the side of the Fjord, the Hawthorn was just starting to blossom here making them around six weeks behind the UK due to the latitude.

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From Vic the road lead us inland, in the distance we caught glimpses of snow on the mountaintops. Riding on, the road steadily climbed and the weather slowly changed to that more like mid winter, the temperature dropped from a none to high 16.5c to 11.5c in just over eight miles. Suddenly we rode through the snow line, can you believe it, it's late June, and there's still heaps of snow up here slowly melting away on the mountain top, and its not that high up here either, just a tad over 3100ft.

John poses at the tunnel mouth where the snow had drifted many feet deep.

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Foggy and cold, but we still  stopped for more pictures, I let the others ride ahead for a moving shot then followed on alone for that 'Lone rider in the frozen North' feeling :-)

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14:42 Further down the R13 we were just dropping out of the mountains when we came across this monster waterfall by the side of the road. If this waterfall was anywhere else in Europe there would be signs up giving its name and height plus a visitors centre and cafe, here there's nothing. I guess from that you can deduce there's no tourist trade here. Some weeks later writing this report up I really struggled to find this waterfalls name, eventually I contacted Olaf who runs the World of Waterfalls website and he identified it as Sendefossen, cheers Olaf!

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To get a better idea of the scale of this waterfall, that's the headlights of one of our motorcycles bottom right of the picture coming down the pass.

Three pictures taken from the top of Sendefossen and stitched up in to one. Pity I didn't get a little more of the waterfall bottom right as it tumbles down in to the valley bottom.

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Riding on through Vos and on to the E16 the temperature rose steadily and the sun came out, and after riding through a bazillion tunnels, we finally got back to Bergen at 16:53 in perfect warm sunny weather. But what a day, we've had rain, a bit of fog, snow and lastly sunshine.

After getting cleaned up it was decided to take a walk in to Bergen for our evening meal. It's a good walk down, and I'm not famous for physical exertion of any kind. But I have to admit it was a pleasant walk, first through the back streets then, by the side of a lake, eventual arriving in the city centre.

Found in Bergen's city centre was this fountain and statue in tribute to 'Ole Bull' look him up on the Wikipedia

After looking around for an economical place to eat, we ended up in TGI Friday's for a burger meal. To tell the truth it was a very good burger meal, served by a very nice waitress too!

Dave J and John, all burgered out...

I'll give you a sample of the meal cost:

Burger with fries    154kr - £13

Apple pie                74kr  - £6.25

Coke                       36kr  - £3

The total bill for five was 1318kr - £111.80 or £22.36 each. still, it was way better than McDonalds :-)

(The Coke came with unlimited refills (a large jug of coke was plonked on the table)

We caught the bus back up to the hostel (No 31 bus marked 'Laegdene' costing 23kr - £1.96) which was just as well as I doubt I would have made the return journey up that hill!

Next day

Fri/Sat - Sun - Mon - Tue - Wed - Thu/Fri

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Today we travelled 249 miles in 8h43mins, average speed 29mph

Garmin tracklog available here

Sundays elevation graph: (quite how we managed to go below see level I don't know :) and you can clearly see the mountain starting at 150 miles we rode over.

Sundays temperature graph: Showing the temperature drop when we rode up the mountain and in to the snow.

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