Day 23 – Crossed 2,000km

Trip odometer: 2,066km

We woke up in the ferry terminal dry, at last! On the down side, we didn’t sleep as well as expected as the room was lit by automatic lights that had a sensor that seemed to be aimed right at us. When either of us rolled over the lights would turn on for about ten minutes.

After packing up and cooking breakfast we caught the 9:05am ferry from Rysjedalsvika to Rutledal. The first 35km of the day were tough – there were large hills and Viki was underfed. Finally, we crossed the island, and seeing that we could just make the 12:45pm rather than 1:45pm ferry from Solvag to Leirvag, I burst on ahead and grabbed some mackerel and rye bread for our sandwiches and met Viki at the ferry, perfectly on time for departure.

On the ferry we had waffles – we’ve eyed them hungrily, steaming in front of us, on all 1000 odd ferries that we’ve taken and finally decided to treat ourselves on the last ferry of the trip. Leaving the ferry, after an extended lunch in the waiting area, we saw our first biking route sign to Bergen! Only one more day’s riding!

The next section was really nice cycling, along highway 565. The road was very smooth, hills were very gradual, and we were able to cover distance quite quickly. Eurovelo 1 unfortunately brought us off this fast highway onto slow and steep side roads that meandered through farmland. While quite scenic, the roads were rather traumatic for Viki, and we were a bit disappointed to be following the “official” Eurovelo route rather than maintain our fast speed on the highway.

Making it to Alversund, we found a nice graveyard to camp by (remember that graveyards are typically well mowed and have running water for watering flowers for dead people cooking, washing up our pots, and drinking). A very kind lady came up to us as we were cooking dinner and shared her experiences doing long bike tours across Europe with her husband. She even offered to let us stay the night with them, but as we we already had the tent set up and will have showers tomorrow in Bergen, we decided to stay in the tent one last time.