Hills, hytter and headwinds

As we head out of Norway, we thought we’d reflect a little on our time here. Mostly pretty mundane observations but some that may be of use to others who might be considering visiting…and some that shine a light on Blighty? We’ve both gone through our photos and notes to try to cover some of the things we have experienced. Some that we were anticipating and some that we weren’t...

It’s worth stressing that we have cycled a tiny fraction of Norway. It’s hardly a comprehensive guide. We’ll also add to this post as we remember things.

Shared post box points

One of the first things we noticed that was different from the UK - a place where everyone comes to collect their mail. Usually at the bottom of a shared drive so the postie doesn’t have to visit every house. No letterboxes in doors. These shared spaces vary in style. A place for communal notices and for people to meet when picking up letters and parcels?

Kindly folk

Extremely helpful people (mostly speaking in English - see below). We have received accommodation, food, and help. People have been very welcoming and interested in our trip, and we have gone with the flow in terms of their recommendations for where to go next. One thing we have had to get used to though is that, on the whole, the Norwegians are not overly responsive to our eye contact, broad smiles and cheery ‘hellos’…

Inspirational folk

We have a separate post coming up about our inspirations but just wanted to give a big shout out to all the other cycle tourers we have met. We’ve loved sharing a smile, raising a fist of solidarity, or stopping and chatting with you. You’ve kept us going. Doubly so those travelling solo. You’re all amazing. We are always left feeling full of admiration and with our faith in the world refreshed!

English by default - German as a back up

Snakker du Engelsk? A good start and widely answered with ‘yes, a little’. Younger folk appear to be more confident but nearly all speak English to a standard that allows us to get by. German tourists are everywhere and if not Norweigian, the person you’re speaking to is probably German, which is a bonus with Sam’s second language. We have grown in confidence speaking and understanding bits of Norwegian during our trip. We’ll add a few bits in a separate post soon.

BIG views - though often not expansive

Big fjords, big rocks, big hills. Though often the view is broken by another fjord, rock or hill so the views are not wide-ranging like we’re used to seeing in the UK. There are exceptions but we’ve certainly seen less in the way of large farmed expanses and gently rolling hills. At least this was the case until we moved south again, towards Oslo. Where precariously perched small holdings were the thing across many of the areas we had explored to that point, it seems large scale agriculture is more a thing as we headed south from Lillehammer.

Hills - crawler gear

There are hills. Gear one was too low for much of England but now you’re wishing for just one more. Fully loaded bikes up 27 switchbacks uses the crawler gear to its fullest. In fact, for a long while the only gears we really used were 1st and 14th, our lowest and highest gears.

Headwinds - pedalling furiously down hill

Despite plans to travel with the prevailing wind, the coast is windy. You think you’ve got a headwind, then turn 180 degrees around a fjord and there’s still a headwind. No matter which way you cycle, there’s a headwind. We also got battered by Storm Floris on our way south, despite being pretty far inland.

Hytter

Huts. Brilliant shelter and an opportunity to rest and get washed, charged and use facilities. Wooden and cosy. Great views (see cows at Ådneram). Members of DNT support the upkeep and reduce overnight stay fees. Day drop-ins are extremely good value. There’s also a skeleton key you can get to unlock a good proportion of the DNT huts, so you can arrive at one and just pay for your time there. We didn’t use these as much as we could’ve because we didn’t really understand the system (or have a key) until quite near the end of our time in Norway. A great option to explore fully though if thinking of visiting. As a DNT member you pay a reduced rate on stays and food at serviced huts etc.

Flowing water

Norway has water in all its forms. It impacts the landscape and the soundscape. Though in some areas we have experienced silence in a way it can often seem hard to, the almost ever-present running water sound—from babbling brook to white noise waterfall—can be as disruptive to the soundscape, and sound recording, as the hum of motor traffic. Of course it does mean that we haven’t struggled to drink at any point on this trip.

Clean water

Sometimes Sam jokes with Beck (who is a little more risk averse than he is on the water front) that we might be the first people to die of dehydration in Norway. Clean water abounds. So much so that on our walk up 4444 steps, the guide suggested not taking too much water up as you can refill directly from the lake at the top. Locals seem pretty sure all water sources are safe but we have mostly filtered the water to be sure (we’re also testing if Beck is sensitive to anything less than tap water…)

Cycle infrastructure

Having sold our house, we sometimes say that this trip is about identifying somewhere we’d like to live. Deciding Factor #1 for us is the quality of the cycle infrastructure. With a population density as low as Norway, in less popular areas, there’s no real issue. In more popular areas, it’s very mixed (see Tunnels below). But in our experience when you get to anywhere more populous, it is pretty excellent already, and is being improved. This was particularly the case in and around Stavanger (watch for a nerdy post on this by Sam in due course…). They also like turning old roads over to walking and cycling, rather than allowing motorists to continue to use it as an alternative to the major roads. Nice!

Cycle parking

As above really. Norway seems to put in a lot of cycle parking, including large robust lockers in city centres, which are good value and fit our bikes in fully loaded - and that’s not even the cargo bike lockers!

No pavement parking

Our assumption is that pavement parking is illegal in Norway. We haven’t looked into it but it’s a real revelation. It totally changes the experience of streets if the only blockage cause by cars is in the road itself. Seems to slow traffic and not pedestrians. We met a guy (Benny) from Nottingham (now living in Stavanger), who was on his first cycle tour and he said that people are come first in Norway, with cars many rungs below. Strong approve.

Children playing (signs)

In general, provision for play seems really good in Norway. It seems to have a great mix of informal play in all settings, mixed with formal play and sports. There also seems to be an emphasis on playing in the street…and alerting motorists to this prospect. This seems to be done through bespoke and regionally variable signage, or just by shoving a trike somewhere visible. Or a combination of both of those approaches.

Outdoor space

Norway seems to excel at outdoor provision. Picnic benches, shelters and even toilets seem to be fairly commonplace in relatively remote spots.

Outdoor pursuits

We also found lots of provision for people involved in more formal sporting and leisure activities, including many that we’ve rarely encountered elsewhere. As we passed through Ål, for example, we were struck by the plethora of such facilities. There were lakeside saunas, pump tracks, motorcycle stunt tracks, mountain bike routes, frisbee golf courses, climbing routes and parks, adventure golf etc. Oh and more people than we’ve previously encountered get about in this manner…

Rocks - all the way down

Rocks are everywhere. The tops of mountains are rocks, soil is full of rocks. Beaches are covered in rocks. Rocks are placed on top of rocks and squished in between rocks (see the Kjerang which we didn’t get to - and Sam would’ve been freaked out by anyway).

Spiced buns

Every boller (cake) seems to be spiced with a mix of cinnamon and cardamom. Comes with raisins, chocolate drops or plain. Delicious.

Ferries

There are lots of ferries. Some fit more into the cruise liner category, such as the Hurtigruten and others that service much shorter routes and fewer passengers. These tend to fit more with what we are comfortable with using - though sometimes we have to use larger vessels. Many of the smaller ships are electrified. Like the ferries we took across the Hardanger Fjord. Also, foot and cycle travellers cross for free on many of the shorter crossings.

Tunnels

Not a fan. Cold, dark, often narrow, and very loud. Can’t tell what vehicle is behind, could be a mini, could be an enormous motorhome. Avoid where possible. This audio recording of a small car passing in a tunnel gives you some sense of what it can be like…

Wild fruit

We are hardly master foragers but we have often stopped to collect vast quantities of wild fruit. Bilberries and raspberries are particularly abundant. A real treat when added to your breakfast cereal (in lieu of milk - as we normally just add water to avoid trying to keep milk).

Wild camping

Before heading to Norway we were assured that wild camping was allowed and that Norway is keen to encourage people to engage with the outdoors. We found this to be broadly true. The one issue we found though was that many areas we planned to camp often forbid camping. Even remote spots often carried a sign staying ‘Camping forbudt’, or similar. It’s possible this mostly stems from an issue with camper vans, which are omnipresent, but at times such signage and the otherwise inappropriate terrain for camping left us scrabbling for places to stay.

Ants

There are many (often rather large) ants in Norway. We have loved seeing their ant hills and watching them go bout their business. Did you know, it is estimated that there are 2.5 million ants per person on earth.

Heat

As much as possible, we hope to flow with the seasons on our tour. No doubt we’ll mess this up at points but we started with good intentions and every so, we didn’t really succeed. Many days in Norway were over 30ºC, rendering much of our clothing obsolete, making the hills harder and making our daily hygiene routine all the more important. More on our daily routines soon…

No doubt, there are many things we have missed from this post. We plan to come back to it. Without doubt Norway has been a delight to cycle tour in. Hard going but the legs get the hang of it and it’s extremely rewarding when you get up high. Not least the downhill that follows. We’ve met some amazing people en route and it has been great following the recommendations we have received. Over planning is something we have been counteracting for many years now in our tours. I wonder how we will look back on Norway in time. It has been amazing and our friends Marcus and Kirsty did warn us that starting in Norway means we will be experiencing one of their favourite places to cycle tour first. Will it all be down (up?!) hill from here? We’ll see.

Next though, we plan to lean on public transport again to get us back to the UK. We’d love to just ride back but the few days we will save by using the Flix Bus again should come in handy when we travel into Schengen again to visit family (and scatter my gran’s ashes) later this year. We had read that ferries may recommence between the UK and Norway, which would make it easier for us to return one day but the note in red at the bottom of this page doesn’t bode well. We’ll see. There’s undoubtedly much left to explore in Norway. Thank you for having us!

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Oh, and lastly, a few stats in case anyone is interested:

Between the 12th June (leaving Worcester) and the 6th August (arriving in Oslo) we have:

Been on the road for 56 days
Ridden on 52 of those - even if just to the shop/pootle
Spent 49 days in Europe - The Netherlands, Germany, Denmark and Norway
Ridden 2,285km - averaging 44km on riding days
Wild camped 27 nights and camped at campsites another 12 - in total we camped for over 70% of our stay.
Slept 6 nights in cabins
Slept(!) one night on a bus and one night on a ferry.

We haven’t ridden since arriving in Oslo but we will do a little more riding on our way back to Newcastle. Though we plan to use the FlixBus again to keep as much of our Schengen quota intact as we can. Yay Brexit!