Norway 2007

Monday - That deflated feeling

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Monday 24 June 2007

Checking out the breakfast room this morning, it seemed our East European cousins must have departed sometime yesterday, 'Whohoo' it's safe to go in!

09:03 With a filling and peaceful breakfast inside us, it was time to go exploring.

And this is today's route, we're going anti clockwise (as per the red arrows). We drop down south out of Bergen, take the ferry over Bjornafjorden, then ride by the side of Kvinnheradsfjorden and Hissfjorden. It's a 154 miles long trip, so quite a bit easier than yesterday's run.

09:45 We took the E39 south from Bergen heading for Halhjem and the ferry, just 40 mins later we were stood on the quayside. We didn't have long to wait, just 15 mins later we were boarding the ferry for the crossing to Vage.

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(This ferry crosses the Bjornafjorden, its a 7.6 mile/35 min trip and cost us 58kr - £4.92 for each motorcycle and rider)

With the bikes parked up on the car deck (not tied down, it's as calm as a mill pond) we had 35 minutes to kill, I decided to raid the cafe upstairs for coffee and a bun. The hot dogs on the board above the shop assistant seem to be the staple 'hot snack' offered at most of the larger filling stations and road side supermarkets.

10:33 Land Ho! Approaching Vage, it's time to get back to the bikes.

10:59 Once off the ferry we headed south on the R49 toward Hodnanes, passing through Uggdal. A little way down the road we found a filling station, not knowing what's ahead of us we all stopped to top up. After filling up, Dave S came over and said the fuse on his intercom had gone again. Hmm, very odd this fuse blowing, but as luck would have it, the shop attached to the filling station sold small glass fuses so it was quickly replaced, and a few spares pocketed. 

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11:20 A little further down the road things were really looking up, the Sun came out!, John in the lead with Dave J following

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From roughly the same place as the above picture, a shot of the ferry crossing from Jektevik to Hodanes.

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11:39 According to my mapping, this is overlooking Lokksundet Fjord, who lives in a house like this! Well, I wish it was me :-)

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11:54 Riding high on the bridge over Hardangerfjorden was this view north toward Bjornafjorden,

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12:20 Still on the R49 we stopped at Hatlestrand and raided the Spar shop by the filling station for refreshments. From the picnic tables overlooking the harbour we watched the ferry Kvinnherao swallowing up cars, just look at the snow on the mountain tops bathed in sun, beautiful.

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13:21 Taken from Omastranda, overlooking a tiny Island with what looks like four homes on it.

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14:00 After passing though Kvam we turned on to the R7 heading North, eventually to join up with the E16 back to Bergen. Just a few miles down the road we came across  Steinsdalsfossen. According to Wikipedia this is one of Norway's most visited waterfalls (and we didn't even know it was there!).

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Its probably so famous because you can walk behind the falls near the top, it's almost completely dry. This is John walking up to meet Patto behind the waterfall. You definitely want this waterfall on your hit list, it's a cracker!

After drinking in the delights of the waterfall (and avoiding the tourist shops) we went back to the bikes and got ready to go. But John wasn't going anywhere... his back tyre was flat :-(

John's bike was slowly rolled backward until Patto spotted the glint of glass stuck deep in the rubber, a blob of spit confirmed this was where the air was escaping. To get the glass out, Patto probed around with his Leatherman, and eventually prised out a long slither of glass.

Repair time, I got my old tubeless repair kit out. It's one I purchased form Hein Gericke around six years ago, fortunately I'd just replaced the rubber cement before the trip so we had no problems with 'out of date' glue. The roughened auger end of the plug installation tool was used to clean up and 'key' the hole, then the insertion end of the tool was covered with cement and pushed though the hole a few times to lubricate it. Next a plug was inserted into the eye of the insertion tool and well lathered with rubber cement.

It really doesn't seem possible that great big plug is going to fit in that little hole, but with all that rubber cement for lubrication, and a good shove, in it went (I'm sure I heard the tyre squeak :-)

The installation tool was pulled out promptly leaving the plug behind, all that's left to do now is cut the plug off flush and pump the tyre back up.

We had a good supply of those mini air cylinders between us to inflate the tyre, but even better, Dave S had his electric pump with him so we let that do the work. Ten minutes later (and after replacing a couple of fuses blown by the pump) the tyre was inflated and ready to go. You'd hardly believe it, but having checked the times of the pictures, fixing this puncture took no longer than twenty minutes, a much better option than waiting for breakdown assistance to recover us to some garage, that really would have spoiled the day.

Then it was on our way again via the excellent R7 road which takes you over a mountain of around 1500ft before finally joining the E16 (and its numerous tunnels) back to Bergen.

Back in the foyer of the Montana Hostel, Bergen, we celebrated a successful days riding and repairing with coffee and a few cans. This evening we're going down to the town again, firstly to do a little sightseeing, then hopefully a meal, but this time we're catching the bus!

This is basically what we came to see 'Bryggen' (The Wharf) It's a famous row of old wooded buildings on the quay side, some of which date back to around 1702. Oh! I have to tell you this, we priced up a pint of beer on the harbour front, it was around £8 a pint!!!

I just love the right hand lean of this shop

The little board walk lanes between the old buildings on Bryggen are probably more interesting than the fronts, but only a couple of them are as good as this one.

After a brief look at the boats in the harbour, we went into the city centre looking for our evening meal and came across a photographer doing a fashion shoot with three girls. My goodness, what long legs they had!

They were very professional, stomping up and down the way modern models do and completely ignoring the gathering crowd behind the photographer.

But after all that excitement all we could find that suited our pockets for a meal was TGI Friday's again, everywhere else was just too expensive for us. Still, they were good burgers, but at this rate we'll have paid nearly £90 each for four burger meals by the end of this trip, and your can't live on burgers can you...

We need a cunning plan!

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Today we travelled 154 miles in 7h2mins, average speed 22mph

Garmin tracklog available here

Mondays elevation graph: We just made it to 1500ft today and another mysterious trip below sea level.

Mondays temperature graph: Perfect weather for biking!

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