August 18, 2013
Mountains, fjords, mountains and fjords: And some goats
I regretted my decision to camp up in the mountains. It didn't rain much more that evening and so I wasted a couple of hours of decent cycling weather, and then it got very windy in the night, the noise of which flapping at my tent meant I got very little sleep. I got up early to try and make up for this, but the weather took another turn for the worse and the rain started coming down heavily. I was cursing myself for not doing the descent the evening before. I passed Klaus in his tent. It was quite a nice location, but I wasn't stopping to say hello.
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The rain got worse as I rode down the mountain into the face of it. Eventually I got so fed up of it I sought shelter in a railway station waiting room. It was nice to be somewhere dry. Every half an hour or so the train carrying tourists up and down the mountain went by. It never stopped at this station. I don't know why tourists would want to go up to see the mountains in this weather, all shrouded in dark clouds as they were. Whenever I heard the train coming I would stand at the window and stare out blankly for the tourists. One time I saw one see me and try to move his camera to get a picture of me but the train was going too fast. It was funny.
After about three hours the rain eased a bit and I made a break for it. I soon came to an incredibly steep section of switchbacks that descended down the mountainside along a spectacular waterfall. Down the valley it looked like I was descending into the bowels of hell. A wet rainy hell with dark, foreboding mountains on either side. At the last of the switchbacks I came to the gatekeepers to hell:
The downhill went on and on. Because it was all wet gravel I couldn't go that fast and I realised I probably wouldn't have got down before dark last night anyway, so it actually was the right decision to camp there. The scenery was still truly spectacular, particularly some of the waterfalls, of which there were many.
But finally I did make it to Flom and at the same time the skies cleared and everything was alright. Flom is a tourist town if ever there was one, with the train platform to take them up into the mountains merging with the harbour to take them on boat trips out into the fjords. I cycled away as fast as I could. A road took me around the fjord, Aurlandsfjord, which is a tongue of the Sognefjord which extends some 200 kilometres or so inland from the sea. It was strange to be at sea level, essentially by the sea, but such a long way from the open ocean.
I remember reading that National Geographic Traveler voted the Norwegian fjords as the best destination in the world, and now that I was theren for myself, I understood why. The mountains that surrounded the fjord were very special - rising steeply, majesticly, from the calm waters. And the confused weather had launched a rainbow over the water, completing the scene perfectly.
After cycling about seven flat kilometres next to the fjord around to the town of Aurland, the road no longer followed the fjord, presumably because the sides of the mountains were too steep. For the traffic then, a chance to drive through the longest road tunnel in the world, 24 kilometres straight through the mountain. Of course, I could not cycle through it and so for me there was a 48 kilometre road over the top of the mountain. Marvelous!
The switchbacks up the side of the mountain were very steep. Luckily the view of the fjord was spectacular. The pictures I took show how very quickly the weather changes in this part of the world:
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Beyond the look-out point, the road pulled away from the fjord onto a flatter plateau, except now the road went straight instead of switchbacking, and so it climbed just as steeply. Now I was above the treeline and ahead I could see more switchbacks as it climbed over another steep section. Up and up I went, it getting colder and windier and the road never letting up until finally after 12 kilometres I came to the brow of the hill. I can barely remember having more anticipation of what I might find over a summit. A Frenchman I had met on the way up who took my picture, told me that it was like Iceland. Boy, was he ever right. I breached the summit and came to an area which was treeless and windswept, the rocks were green and blue in places, there were lots of little lakes, rocky mountainsides. It really did look like Iceland, just exactly the same place. It was absolutely wonderful.
But I couldn't sleep up here, it was too exposed. I rode quickly across this summit plateau and down the other side, the tarmac road meaning I flew down in no time. After the dizzying descent I was once again next to an arm of the mighty Sognefjord. It was almost dusk as I spoke to some fishermen at a parking /rest area next to the water and asked them about the ferry from Lærdal, a town four kilometres away. They didn't know anything about it. It didn't matter, I would find out in the morning. The fishermen left and I set up camp by the fjord. It was truly a spectacular place, far away from the real world, just me and the water and the mountains. I touched the water to my lips because I wanted to see if it would be salty. It had only the faintest hint of salt, we were so far from the sea.
Today's ride: 85 km (53 miles)
Total: 3,144 km (1,952 miles)
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