August 20, 2013
To the high mountains!: For the last time!
So the next day I had to do another steep climb and the scenery was beautiful and bla, blah, blah. This is all getting a little boring and repetitive now isn't it? I think in the movie, my whole time in Norway will just be edited into a montage of me struggling uphill and whizzing down again next to rainbows and snowy peaks and waterfalls. I imagaine we'll need a good soundtrack for the movie, something like Eddie Vedder's soundtrack for 'Into the Wild.' In fact, here you go, here is what it will look like, except it will be a movie, so there will be moving images and it will be a lot more professional.
The lady in charge of music has just been fired.
For those of you with more time on your hands, here are the details of the day. I cycled up a very steep climb, probably the steepest of the lot, or maybe I was just getting more tired. On the initial switchbacks out of town I was continuously frustrated by a group of old ladies who were walking at about the same speed as me. "Can't you at least pretend to stop and look at the view or something, so I can cycle past without losing face" I almost screamed.
Eventually I left the old women trailing and was able to keep up my steady 5.8 kilometres per hour. The weather was cold and cloudy, and when I eventually reached the summit (which believe me took a lot longer than has been implied here) everything was covered by cloud and mist. There was a barrier at the top because this was a toll road and you had to pay to drive it. I have no idea why this was a toll road, there were only about four cars the whole day. But one of them got to the barrier at the same time as me, actually as I was trying to sneak around the barrier. A man got out and walked purposefully towards me. I imagined he was about to scold me for trying to get through without paying. Instead he told me to put my hands out and he dropped into them a massive handful of heart-shaped chocolates. It was lovely.
Also at the top I met two German cyclists that had come the other way. We hid together out of the wind behind the toll booth and talked. They had started from Turtagro, a hotel a few kilometres further along, and the woman said they were planning to cycle to Øvre Årdal and then back again and that she had thought it looked like a nice ride in the mountains. The weather and the gradient may have made her think again. I told her that it was straight down from here to Øvre Årdal and one hell of a ride back up, and then I left them and continued on my way. A few minutes later they came up behind me and cycled on back towards Turtagro. "That was quick" I said.
At Turtagro the road intersected with the 55 highway. This is a National Tourist Route, coming up from Sognefjord to rise to 1434 metres, the highest point on the Norwegian road system, it goes alongside the mountains and glaciers of Jotunheimen National Park, which also has the highest mountains in Norway.
Obviously I wanted to cycle this road, so I turned right and was climbing again. Turtagro was at about 900 metres, so I had another 500 metres to climb, and now had camper vans and caravans and tourist buses to share the switchbacks with. But actually the traffic was slow and infrequent and I could enjoy the views. I only wished that the weather was better.
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At about six in the evening I was almost at the highest point and I cycled next to a lake. Across from the lake I could see the bottom of glaciers but all of the mountain was hidden behind the clouds. I was sure this was something worth seeing so I stopped for a while to wait for the clouds to clear. They did not. Finally I decided to just set up camp in the hope that tomorrow the clouds would be gone and the full beauty of the mountain would be revealed to me. It was a very cold night though. I was quite relieved that I didn't have a blue parakeet with me to look after. He wouldn't have appreciated the temperature at all.
Today's ride: 49 km (30 miles)
Total: 3,313 km (2,057 miles)
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