My Norwegian Cycling Adventure - Part 8

Day 10 (cont) - A snowy mountaintop to a small hut on the mountaintop 5km in 30mins

'Hello' said the voice from behind, 'are you English?' I turned to see a tall, young man of around twenty years of age. He had light brown hair and was dressed in a tee shirt and shorts like me. On his feet he wore a pair of flip flops over white socks, a big no no in England unless you're over 45. His feet put me at ease, 'He's too geeky to be an aggressor' I thought to myself. 'Yes' I replied, 'are you English?' I knew he wasn't English before I asked him. I could tell by his accent. I just wanted to know where he was from. 'No...I'm from Norway. We live in Ardal,' he said. 'We?' I thought to myself. I was still in a bit of a tiz at this point because I had no idea where this young lad had popped up from. There were no vehicles or buildings around; and certainly no other people. It was as though he had just materialised out of thin air like some kind of conversational mountain spirit.

I looked around and said 'Where have you come from?' He must have got the gist of why I looked so confused. 'We're at my fathers hut just up there' he said as he turned and pointed to the large bushes by the side of the road. I looked and could see nothing but bushes. 'We're staying overnight to fish on the lake', he said. 'Do you like fishing?' he continued. The picnic table I sat at was perched next to a large, dark lake. There was snow around but it was amazingly warm. I had no need for any extra clothes. It was a very strange experience. I'd never been able to go outside in my shorts and tee shirt with snow around in England but then again I'd never seen snow in England at this time of year. 'I love fishing' I replied and he smiled at my answer. 'Where are you from?' he asked. 'Manchester' I said. I've gotten used to saying Manchester now in situations like this because no-one has ever heard of Wigan and Manchester is the nearest city of note. His face lit up at my answer and he said 'Manchester United is my favourite football team. I've been to Old Trafford to watch them.' I didn't have the heart to tell him that I wasn't really from Manchester or that I had no interest in and knew hardly anything about football. Instead I feigned enthusiasm. To be honest I was still wondering where the hell this hut was, where were his friends and how many of them were there. 'Do you want to come up to the hut for a beer?' he asked.

Of course moments later I found myself pushing the bike across the road towards the bushes. The young man reached the bushes and pulled them to one side. Behind lay some concrete steps which climbed up a steep embankment and over the top. I stood next to Hannibal on the road wondering what to do with him. 'Can I bring the bike up' I asked, hoping he would turn around and help me lift him up the steps. 'Yes no problem' he said as he turned away and carried on up the steps. 'Charming,' I thought to myself as I began to hoist the bike up the steps. I only got the bike up a few steps when I realised this was not going to be possible on my own so I pulled him back down and locked it up against the bushes on the road. I didn't like the idea of leaving the bike there unattended. It carried everything I had and everything I needed. 'Oh well at least I'm not in Wigan,' I thought. Had I been in Wigan, the bike would probably have attracted the attention of some undesirables but here in the middle of no-where I needed to relax and overcome my conditioning.

My new friends.

With Hannibal safely stashed I climbed the steps and there was a lovely mountain hut. The young man and his three friends were sitting there drinking bottled beers, having a laugh. I'd been listening to the young man talking to his friends in Norwegian as I climbed the steps. I had no idea what he'd told them but they all looked at me as though I was a mad man. They all seemed happy enough though and said 'Hi' to me. One of them held out a cracked bottle of cold beer and said 'here'. I thanked him and got stuck in. It tasted fabulous and didn't touch the sides.

As it turned out the only one of the four young men who spoke English was the young man who had come down from the hut to meet me. One of the others knew a little bit but not enough to hold a conversation and the other two knew no English at all. The next few hours turned out to be something like charades as my English speaking friend acted as an interpreter between us and I told my tale up to that point. The lads kept trying to divert the conversation towards football and I'd already used up my brief football knowledge. It was as though they expected me to be a football expert being from England. Where I come from, Wigan, football is a second class sport, overshadowed by Rugby League. I could have gone on all night talking about Rugby League, regaling the stories of my heroes I'd seen on the field over the years but alas, Rugby League had not reached Norway and they knew nothing about it.

After a few more beers and talk of all sorts of things from football to the wedding (I'll get to the wedding later) to the state of the Norwegian water supply, the lads appeared to be getting a little tanked up. I wondered how many fish they were expecting to catch and when exactly they were planning on doing any fishing. When I'd drank enough beer that I felt comfortable with, having to get back into the saddle soon, I asked them about their fishing plans. The English speaking lad (it's embarrassing that I can't remember their names and that I didn't jot them down) explained that they had abandoned their fishing plans for the night and were going to head back down into Ardal soon. I was glad that they weren't going to be driving back down into Ardal and assumed that someone would be called to collect them and with that I said my goodbyes and made my way back down the steps to Hannibal.

I certainly didn't fancy cycling much further today after the gruelling events of earlier and with a few bottles of beer swilling around my belly, so I began to look for a suitable place to camp as soon as I rode off. It was only about 5km down the road when I saw another mountain hut. This one was much smaller than the one I'd just seen and was in full view of the road. It had a decked patio area overlooking a lake. It was absolutely beautiful and looked absolutely unoccupied. I eyed up the decked area and thought to myself 'What a lovely place to camp that is.' With that I knocked on the door of the hut to see if anyone was in. As I expected, there wasn't. I immediately set up the tent on the decked patio and took a little look around. A small wooden walkway crossed over a small stream that fed into the lake. Realising that I was very grubby indeed, I stripped off and got into the stream. Naked and surrounded by snow I washed myself and my dirty clothes before drying off and getting in the sack for a good nights rest.

Day 11 - A small hut on the mountaintop to Fagernes 97.74km in 4hr 33min

Diary excerpt:

I awoke early this morning as it was fairly cold up here. There was snow around the tent so once again I got another nice, hot bowl of porridge on the go. It worked a treat as I was soon up and taking a wash in the stream only a few yards from my tent. I then set off on what turned out to be a most beautiful ride through the mountain tops. It is scenes like these that make the hideous climb of yesterday seem worth it. There was a mix of crystal clear blue lakes, partially frozen ones and some fully frozen over. Lovely mountain huts perched on the edge of these lakes and had beautiful snow covered peaks as a backdrop. It truly was a picture of serenity. The road seemed to have been ploughed at times as I was cycling through trenches of snow. Walls of snow 6 to 10 feet high lined the sides of the road and I could see nothing over them, only the road ahead.

Over the top we go.

Looking back I remember that as I rode across the top I could see over the top from time to time as the road reached its peaks. Then as the road descended, the walls got higher and higher on both sides until the road climbed again until I could see over the top again. I stopped to take a few snaps in places where I could see the view.

Mountain huts nestled in the snow.

At one point I took off my sunglasses and was blinded by the glare as the intense sunlight bounced off the snow into my eyeballs. It was a surreal experience. I was wearing a vest and shorts and I was sweating hot, surrounded by snow and ice. I soaked up every minute of the ride across the top in full awareness of the effort it had taken to get there and eventually the road began to descend.

It had taken me 6 hours to reach the top. It took 37 minutes to reach the bottom and my god what a ride that was. I hardly touched my pedals the whole way down. For 15km during the descent I didn't touch them at all. It was thrilling to say the least. I can't say what my top speed was because I was too afraid to take my eyes off the road. I know I wrote a few episodes ago about hitting 65kph at one point. Well this was most definitely faster than that. I was flying.

The descent had started with me passing through what looked like a small ski resort. There was an hotel, restaurants, shops etc but everything seemed to be closed. I guessed it was so quiet here because it was summer. There seemed to be enough snow around to ski as far as I was concerned but I knew nothing about skiing. The shallow descent then started to get steeper as I dropped beneath the snowline and the road continued on like this in a more or less straight line for the next 15km.

I let Hannibal go with no effort and he just kept getting faster and faster as we descended. My heart was racing and I imagine my lips probably looked like Mick Jagger's being buffeted around in the wind. I was in descent mode. I had my arse high in the air, my head as low as I could get it and my arms were tucked in neatly. It was amazing. I have no idea what I passed; it's all a blur.

At one stage I reached maximum speed because Hannibal started to wobble. I applied the brakes ever so carefully and he responded by straightening up. So I continued on in this vain, touching the brakes when I could feel him begin to wobble and letting him respond until eventually, I turned a corner and could see a lovely little town called Tyin nestled at the bottom of the descent.

I rode through the town until I saw a large wooden establishment with a coach parked next to it on the car park. Also on the car park was a telephone box. I noted in my diary:

At the bottom just past the town of Tyin was a phone box and a cafe. I phoned Kelly and had a very happy conversation with her and the kids. They were revelling in calling me a poohead. After this very uplifting conversation I decided to treat myself to a salmon dinner and a cup of coffee as I had only eaten porridge and soup for the last two days.

Something happened here that I didn't write in my diary for some unknown reason. I put down the phone, left the telephone box and saw that loads of Japanese tourists had exited the cafe, obviously the occupants of the coach. I grabbed Hannibal who had been leaning against the telephone box and rode slowly across the car park towards the cafe and the Japanese tourists in search of somewhere to park up.

Across the car park running along the front of the building were lots of very tall flagpoles, each topped with a flag from a host of countries around the world. One of them was the Japanese flag and the Japanese sure like their cameras. They all held a camera and almost all of them had their camera pointed at the Japanese flag; until one of them saw me tootling across the car park towards them!

Immediately they all aimed their cameras at me and I was bombarded by a hail of photographs. I felt like Indiana Jones. There were long shots, close ups, selfies, double selfies, triple selfies and all the camera gymnastics that the mercurial Japanese could come up with. They were amazed. I noticed one of the men taking a keen interest in the large UK sticker on the back of my panniers (which were motorbike panniers that I'd borrowed from my father in law and I'd had to drill a couple of small holes in to get them safely strapped on and weighed a ton btw. I know....it's madness. I know better now. Like I said, I was a total amateur). On seeing the UK sticker he'd said something to the woman next to him who turned and said something to the guy next to her and so on. It was like a mexican wave of information and it was as though they were all saying 'That explains it.'

After my brief moment of celebrity I parked Hannibal by the front door and re-fuelled in the cafe. The salmon dinner and coffee were superb. As I'd noted, I wasn't exactly fuelled up to the max at that point and I felt great afterwards. The price didn't matter because I was within days of Oslo now and a flight home, back to my family, back to being jumped on and called 'a poohead'.

The next part of the ride was fairly flat, if anything it was probably slightly downhill. I was now headed for Oslo at sea level so I expected a long smooth descent all the way there. Eventually I came across a campsite just before the town of Fagernes. This was the first campsite I had seen in Norway and I couldn't let the opportunity pass by so I pulled in.

The campsite had loads of log cabins which were available for hire. I looked at the prices and got my tent pitched up in a nice spot in the far corner, under a tree. The campsite was as you might expect, pristine and spotless. It had all the facilities you could need. I had a nice, long, hot shower and sat on the grass in the shade writing my diary. A few families were staying in the cabins and the children played around on the grass in front of me as I wrote. It was delightful.

Soon after I decided to call it a day and tucked myself in ready for the following day. The families were all tucked away and it was all calm and serene. I'd had another almost 100km day today and was now only 200km from Oslo. And with that I lay back and immediately fell asleep.

Thanks for coming along for the ride friends.

Please join me tomorrow as I make my way towards the finish line in Oslo.

Until then may joy be your companion

STEEMONKEY🐒