Monthly Archives: July 2011

Day 30 Another scenic picnic, originally uploaded by Big Al!.

Eating breakfast buffet sandwiches again. Usually it’s "frowned upon" to snaffle food from the buffet, but last night’s camp even provided sandwich bags and cling film. Very enlightened.

Day 30 The Snovegen, originally uploaded by Big Al!.

Another candidate for top 20 world’s best biking roads. Desolate isolation, snow banks lining the road, frozen lakes. The road surface has deteriorated in parts, bumps in the braking zone on the descent into a tight hairpin bend, covered in water and goat poo, tricking the ABS into action, briefly releasing the brake and causing a few heart-stopping, "Not stopping!" moments, staring at a deadly, all be it scenic, two thousand foot plunge off the unguarded road into the Fjord.

Day 30 The Snovegen, originally uploaded by Big Al!.

This view beats any I saw on the Fjord cruise, and there are absolutely no tourists here to spoil it. Chinese or otherwise. Just solitude, the sounds of cascading water, and an utterly magnificent, majestic landscape.

Day 29 Osterbo, originally uploaded by Big Al!.

Decided to do the tourist thing and see the fjords from the water. What should be a peaceful way to enjoy inspirational scenery is a little spoiled by the disgusting behaviour of hordes of obnoxious Chinese tourists, shouting, pushing, showing more interest in feeding the seagulls than paying any attention to the amazing landscape. Escaping to the front of the boat, I find a little calm in the company of some much more polite and well behaved Germans, and can finally enjoy the sheer rock faces, water falls, and villages nestling into the tiniest area of flat ground, many without road access. Returning to Flam, I ride the mountain train, again swamped by tourists. Guide books all rate these two trips as "must see", "spectacular", and so on. Guide book writers obviously haven’t ridden a motorcycle through this country. If you want to meet no one but tourists and see nothing but souvenir shops, then do the tourist things (bring lots of money). Me? Looking forward to hitting the road in anger tomorrow, now on a mission to Nordkapp. The day ends with the forecast downpour, and this time the freezing cold, pitch black tunnels offer a welcome reprieve from the stinging rain. I arrive at the only place I’d been able to find cheap out-of-the-rain accommodation, and it turns out to be a tiny little hut that looks like a dolls house (or maybe more of a trolls house). It’s bigger than it looks on the inside, warm, and dry. There’s a stuffed polar bear living in the lounge next door. It’s cold here at 60mph in the depths of a mountain tunnel, but I didn’t realise it was cold enough for polar bears.