Morning Logistics

At the Hofles pier I ran into a Swiss tourer who was waiting for the Lund ferry. Since the guy was from Lausanne I got to vent to him about that time when I passed through his hometown; I very vividly remember that 300 m climb from the altitude of Lake Geneva just to get out of the city again. Not surprisingly he said he wasn't overly impressed by the climbs he'd done in Norway thus far.

Interestingly, it was the first ferry so far that asked for a fee (35 NOK) despite being operated by the Torghatten company that seems to run most of the ferries in Nordland and Trondelag. Asked about that exception the ferryman replied they were "working to fix this", whatever that means.

Wind of No Change

The forecast had predicted tons of rain for today so mentally I prepared myself for the worst. Fortunately, worst didn't come and I only had to deal with "second worst": a constant, relentless wind blowing from the sea. Which tends to hit the coast almost orthogonally so for me this meant a fierce cross/headwind combo, gusts northward of 20 knots included.

And that wind is bringing a freezing cold with it. Temperatures remained around 9--10 degrees all day. A dark, almost black cover of clouds was threatening to unleash the rain every minute.

To Namsos

At the far side of the ferry connection the road continues through a fjord over a series of islands and peninsulas connected by bridges and causeways. A short climb led to a bog on a rocky plateau. The scenery up there was fascinating: much less dense vegetation, mostly shrubs except for the odd coniferous tree. Where they weren't laying bare, the rocks were covered in a melange of lichen and moss that touched on every part of the green part of the color spectrum. Outrageously beatiful that place.

These boggy stretches on the hills were reminiscent of the tundra north of Alta. While at the same time just a few hundred meters away, but closer to the sea level, the vegetation was pretty much the usual central European mountain tree mix. Coulda been somewhere in Switzerland.

At Namsos I hunted down a bike shop to replace my cycling cap and get my tires inflated. Strangely enough they didn't sell any caps. The mechanic who handled the air pump spoke to me in flawless German; turns out his parents immigrated from Munich.

On the road it was France day as most bike travelers I talked to were French; quite a contrast to last week when it was basically 80 % Germans. Apart from an older couple on pricey looking ebikes they all were headed north though, and judging from their travel plans all of them seem to enjoy multiple months of vacation time.

No Day without Rain

Even if I ignore the wind the route was considerably harder today than yesterday, mostly due to a neverending series of small uphill sections that can reach gradients of eight to ten percent at the steepest part. With a loaded bike it's near impossible to take these in the big ring even with some residual momentum from the last descent. The constant up- and downshifting added another dimension of annoyance.

While it didn't rain during the day, the weather went crazy soon after I had reached the campsite. Due to the wind gusts the rain is moving horizontally it seems. The kitchen here is rather spartan and uninviting, but there's this hut right by the sea with a big open fire stove in it that offers some protection from the weather. I've been sitting in here for an hour now typing this entry and munching on cured moose sausage. It's getting cold, but in any case it's good to know there's a place I can retreat to should my tent get torn apart by those winds.

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