Bergen. The land of Sun?

Day: 21
Location: Bergen, Norway
Km ridden: 300
kg of Mussels in white wine sauce consumed: 2

So after waking up in the retirement town of Måløy to see the clouds still as thick as a tart's makeup, Vanessa and I decided that enough was enough.  Whilst we were both sure that Norway has a lovely scenery, the driving rain and heavy fog meant that we were going to see bugger all of it.  It was time for us to put on some serious mileage.

After layering up in the rain gear again we pointed the bikes in the vague direction of Bergen and rode off.  Whilst the sky was heavy with cloud, we actually managed to escape the rain and we finally saw something of the countryside.

The further we rode, the better the weather actually became and we slowly started to change our minds about just getting out of the country.  During a fuel stop, we took a short smoke break and decided that we should head to Bergen for the night, and try and get in contact with a friend of Vanessa's.  We had planned to stay with them on the Monday, but due to the crap weather, we found ourselves somewhat ahead of schedule.

As a side note, also during this break I saw this:

It really quite rare to see a BMW Z1 these days, so this little gathering was quite interesting.  We also got a masterclass in Norwegian parking at the same time.......

To get to Bergen was only about 300 km, but it took us almost 8 hours to do it.  Thats because the shape of the coastline up here means that you have to take a ferry quite often.  We ended up having to take about 3 to get here from Måløy, and in total since getting into Norway I think we're approaching double figures.  It's actually quite a nice way to travel unless it's chucking it down.

We continued motoring on until we got into town at about 6pm.  Bergen is the second largest city in Norway and whilst it's small by UK standards, we certainly began to appreciate having more things to do whilst we were here.  Sadly we didn't get in touch with Hilde in time so we went to the trusty Tourist information office to get ourselves a hotel.  It turns out that it's high season here at the moment (even the Queen Elizabeth was in port), and most of the hotel rooms were booked.  Vanessa seems to have got quite a good grasp of sarcasm now, but sadly her comment of "oh, are they all here for the sun?", didn't quite get the desired reaction from the person behind the counter.  Still we managed to get a room and set off to unpack and get out of the 37 different layers of clothing.


I know I've said it before, but Norway is sodding expensive.  Whilst the scenery is nice, from a financial point of view, I'm very glad we spent most of our time in Sweden............

After a quick call with Hilde to arrange what we were going to do the next day, we headed on out into town to enjoy being once again in the company of people who are dry, under 80 and not related to each other in ways that are only legal in some southern U.S. states.

I have to say it, Bergen really is nice.   It has a vibe that was certainly lacking in Trondheim.  We spent about an hour wondering around before heading towards the fish market where most of the Restaurants seemed to be based.  It didn't take long for us to decided that we were going to be spending a few days here.

I will be writing more about he city tomorrow, including the Fishmarket and a great bar we found.  I'll also be talking about the great hospitality we've had from Hilde and her family, but it's getting late now, and I'm dead tired from walking around the city all day.  So I'm off to get some much needed beauty sleep.

Q: What do you call somebody in Norway with a tan?

A:  a tourist.......

Day: 19
Current location: Måløy Norway
Km ridden: 210
Hours of sunshine: 0

Ok, we've zig zagged up through Sweden and then over in to Norway.  2 Sunny days spent with Vanessa's family in Trondheim before bidding farewell to the sun and dry clothes for what feels like an eternity.

I'm very sure that Norway has some lovely scenery, in fact I know it does as I've seen it on T.V., however trying to see it for yourself is bloody difficult as if you can see through the pouring rain, then it's all hidden in thick cloud.  Speaking to a local today it's been like this here for the whole summer.  Whilst I might think the Norwegians are nice people, God obviously has a serious grudge against them. 

It's difficult to say what the country is like.  The only things that spring to mind when pressed would be;

a) How wet this country is.  It's not stopped raining
b) How expensive this country is.

Ah yes, the expense.  Living in Switzerland I'm no stranger to a high cost of living, but this place takes the piss.  Well over £2 per litre for fuel and that in an oil rich country.  I'm sure that were the weather not so atrocious, I'd be having a lovely time here, however corners on a Motorbike are not so much fun when you're stuck in a heavy downpour.

So now we are in a quandry.  We have an appointment in Bergen later on in the week, but that would mean hanging around for a few more days.  At the moment, we really do not feel like hanging around.  We've left the sun far behind us, and in the middle of August, that's not really something that we're enjoying.  So tonight we have to make a decision.  Hang around getting soaked, or start the journey home early.  

It has to be dry down south surely??

As you can see, we've already done a huge distance across Europe.  Whilst it would be a shame for the weather to put pay to the hole trip, I don't think that we've done too badly so far.

TIRED!!!

Day: sort of blurring together
Km ridden: lots


Decent internet connection finally however now I'm too tired to blog.......

Oh, and I'm superstitious.....

.....and that last post was no.13.

So I didn't want to leave it like that.

Norway, the land of the 14.4 Modem

Much as I'd love to post all about the ride from Sundsvall to Östersund, the really great Segway city tour, the fantastic Mussels that we had, and finally the ride over the border into Norway I sadly can't.

The reason I can't is because it seems that dispite more oil money than you can shake a big stick at, the internet infrastructure is shite.  It's taken me about 45 minutes to get this far and lord knows exactly how long it's going to take me to save.

So I'm afraid that I'm going to have to leave this post here and update you at a later time.

Almost half way

Day: 12
Current location: Sundsvall
Km ridden: 270
Other Swiss bikes we've seen: 2

Ok so I last left you all in Stockholm (christ, I've still got some catching up to do here).  After our day out we packed up our gear and rode on to Gävle and decided that we wanted to go Tenting again.  So far we've sort of been blessed with good weather, as we've only had to drive through a downpour a few times.  It stayed dry on the way to the camp ground thank god, otherwise I'm sure I would have turned in to a 5 year old and thrown a tantrum.  When we got there, well it was nice, but it was worlds apart from the one we went to in Öland.  Still, it was on the coast, they had a bar and it was cheap so we decided to book 2 nights there.  After one evening in the bar, we then decided that we needed to improve our cooking situation.  The next morning we set off into town to go looking for a supermarket.  It was at that point that our luck seemed to depart from us and we rode straight into a hail storm.  Watching a hail storm from the comfort of your living room is one thing, riding a bike in it when you also have to factor in your own velocity when impacting on those little bastards is totally different.  It bloody hurts!

Still, after a successful shopping trip, we made it back to the camp ground with our new portable BBQ (it looks like a bucket).  The rain soon passed us and things started to dry up.  The thing that I suppose I will remember most would be the huge volume of very strange looks we got.  Those of you who have seen the pictures will  know that we're flying the Union Jack, but we also have Swiss plates.  I'm not entirely sure that people can work out where we're from.  Additionally we appear to have managed to load a massive volume of stuff onto our bikes, and I'm not too sure that people can get their heads around how much kit you can actually fit on to a bike.  Here are some "tenting" pictures by way of example.

One thing is obvious, it 'aint a small tent.  We could actually park the bikes in there too if we so desired, but even I think that would be overkill.  As I stated in a previous post, there is nothing actually wrong with tenting, if you factor in the lack of room service, it's just that for me, there is a maximum distance that I'm willing to walk to the bathroom and back.  Normally about 4 meters.  If you only have to walk that distance when camping, you have a really "shit" plot.

So, 2 nights later we're back on the road up north heading towards the town of Mora.  The roads are very much like one would imagine riding in the U.S. to be.  Very long, straight roads with barely a hint of a corner.  This caused us some confusion nearer to Mora when Vanessa and I became convinced that we had entered a time warp.  For at least an hour or so (check her blog, this isn't an exaggeration), pretty much all the cars we saw were vintage American cars.  Caddilacs, Studebakers, Chevy etc, etc all of them from the 50's and 60's.  I have never ever seen so many old American cars in my life.  After getting to the town, we found out that there was some sort of crusing event going on nearby, and it would appear that anybody in Sweden who owned an American car had made their way to the area.

Even though we've not yet (by then anyway) reached the geographical mid point of Sweden, it appears that every kilometer we go north, the place is becoming more desolate.  After leaving Mora this morning we headed up north to Sundsvall.  It's very hard to describe the countryside without using the word "desolate", however I think "untouched" might be more polite.  It really is totally empty here.  Here is a pic to demonstrate.....

However that said, with the state of my bike at the moment (and yes, she still isn't charging above 5k rpm), it's very nice and relaxed to be able to drive at 100 km/h (62mph) the whole way.  At least that way I can be sure that she will start the next day.  Well, 95% at least.

So now we're in Sundsvall and just got back from dinner.  Tomorrow we're up early as we have a citytour planned on Segways.  This should be interesting!  After that, we back "tenting" at a place which apparently has lots of stuff to do like canoeing etc etc.  

Day 11
Current location: Mora
Km ridden: 250 ish
Painful and annoying Mosquito bites: ca. 15

So trying to catch up on the blog, I think I'm still a few days behind.  On the last post we were staying in Karlstad with Jonas, a friend of Vanessa.  Not really too much to say there.  A nice dinner on the harbour before we we thought we would go for an early night.  Turns out it was early morning as we crawled in at about 1 am.

The next morning we planned to ride through to Stockholm, where it was Vanessa's turn to book a dodgy hotel.  Actually, thats not really fair.  The hotel was actually very nice, but it wasn't anywhere near Stockholm itself.  It might have only been a 10 minute ride on a train, but on the roads, it seemed to take forever.  It didn't really help that the sat nav had no idea where it was and wanted us to take the ferry over to Finland.  Which means that when the 3 of us (Jonas was still with us) finally got there, and a drunk Russian tried to talk to us dispite us being already in the middle of a conversation, I lost it.  Thankfully, he didn't understand half of what I said, otherwise I'm sure a punch up would have ensued, but I'm sure he got the message....

Jonas left us on the Sunday morning to go back to Karlstad, so Vanessa and I thought we would go in to Stockholm itself to check it out.  Its a very nice city built on several small islands.  We brought tickets for the hop on hop off boat service.  It was a very nice and relaxing day, and we stopped off half way to check out the Aquarium and then have a few beers before heading back.  One thing that both of us have noticed, is that the further we are riding, the more fatigued we're both getting.  Thats one of the reasons I've not really been updating the blog as often as I should, or in my normal, slightly irreverent and borderline offensive style.

From Stockholm we rode slightly north to Gävle (site of yesterday's post) and stopped at a camp site.  Another 2 days of doing sod all and trying to get some energy back.  More will be posted tomorrow (hopefully I'll not be so tired), but in the meantime, here are some pics of the days so far.