Landlocked

No sea today whatsoever. No Atlantic, no fjords, no seagulls, no ferries. One of the two parts of the entire trip with this property, if I'm not mistaken, the other one being Sognefjellet day. No sea doesn't imply no water though, there were numerous reservoirs along the route that provided the characteristic look and feel of a coastline.

I had checked the forecast during breakfast, it asserted a tailwind and generally dry weather. However, what I got during the first quarter of the day, when I was rolling down Setesdal, was headwind and frequent rain showers. The air got rather cold and remained so all day. No wonder the Telemark region became famous for being the cradle of skiing -- judging from the temperature I'd say we're no further than two weeks from the start of ski season here.

Didn't meet a single cyclist the entire day. No tourers. No roadies. No commuters. No grannies on e-bikes. Strange, as the road I followed was marked a cycle route with all the official signage etc.

Just outside Valle I took the road over the pass to the east which involved a 500 m climb up to around 800 m of altitude again. That pass is the highest point of the road connection across a plateau covered in pine trees for the most part but in quite a few places also by tundra style vegetation with short, stubby shrubs or shrub versions of trees, lichens and moss.

From the watershed on it was pretty much a long (50+ km), straight descent for the rest of the day. To my surprise the wind played along now after all and I got a gentle, permanent shove by a decent tailwind. I've been waiting for days for that moment when I was finally on the right side of the weather and today that day had finally come!

gallery