In Norway the tunnels are scary.
Cyclists should be quite wary!
Cars drive past
going terrifyingly fast.
It really does feel quite hairy.
– Limerick by Victoria Green
We meant to get up early again, but clearly ten hours of sleep wasn’t enough. So we actually woke up at 7:45am. After breaking camp, having oatmeal and tea, and setting off, it was 9:45am, with a steep hill to start.
The route today around the Lofoten Islands was beautiful! The road winded around whole islands and bays. There were mountains surrounding us the whole time, often still with patches of snow. The weather was nicer today. It was actually fairly perfect. We didn’t need any sunscreen and there were only a few spots of rain. We started the day by using the rack to dry our laundry, and by the end of the day, it was mostly dry.
Have we told you yet about the tunnels in Norway? There are a lot of them! Today we had three. They’re pretty scary beasts. Riding up towards the start of a mountain, you’re greeted with a little blue sign that says the tunnel name and the number of meters. Viki is fairly adamant about wearing reflective vests through the tunnels (which is good practice and makes it much safer!) In Senja, there was often a box at the beginning and end of the tunnel with vests for cyclists. Anyways the tunnels are most often quite dark, sometimes dripping, and a single car sounds like the loudest thing on the whole planet. You can’t tell which direction it’s coming from and up until the last second it sounds like you’re about to be squished to death. Fortunately Norwegian drivers are nearly always extremely considerate, slow down to almost a complete stop, and very slowly overtake, using the farthest portion of the oncoming lane. It’s always a very comforting feeling to be passed in this manner, and certainly beats death.
Lunch today was rather rationed. The other day we found these potato wraps, 10 for 40p, so we bought 30. They’re rather revolting. Even when you’re starving. We didn’t realize they were made of potato until we tasted them, thought “how awful”, looked at the ingredients, and saw “poteter” something-or-other as the top ingredient. Anyways, we each got three of these, three slices of chorizo, and two slices of cheese for lunch… and a granola bar.
The final stretch towards the ferry at “A” was really very beautiful. There were nicely coloured houses reflected in still ocean water, with mountains as the backdrop. See the pictures at the end of the post!
Now we’re camped a minute away from the ferry terminal planning to catch the 7am ferry to the mainland tomorrow.