Off the road, Norway

Day two 85 miles 4233ft

Sitting outside in the sun this evening, we just cannot believe our luck, with hardly a cloud in the sky and the temperature reaching a balmy 23c, it’s more like the south of France than inside the Arctic Circle. I expect Spain will be cold and wet!

To treat Monica, my personal medical cover for the tour, to a bit of culture, a detour from the planned route to see the Prehistoric rock carvings at Alta was arranged, so an earlier departure from Skaidi saw a cool start in mountain mist at 8am, but thankfully it burnt off within the hour.

As usual, the days cycling was split into three stages but each had quite a different theme, the first 30 miles was effectively all uphill, climbing 1200 ft at a gentle gradient onto a plateau.

Stage two was back down to sea level at Alta to see the rock carvings which were only discovered in the 1940s. Looking at the photo below it looks as though Stone Age man invented the railway.

It is incredible to note that Alta was raised to the ground by the Nazis in WW2 and its fjord also paid host to the battleship Tirpitz trying to hide from the Royal Navy.

Stage three out of Alta had a flat start then a 1000ft climb up the Alta gorge, reputedly the biggest gorge in Scandanavia, apart from one relatively steep section at around 10% it was more of a grind uphill, with some cheering halfway up from Nigel and Monica who had stopped to check I was ok

We only saw a couple of other cyclists today and after 85 miles called it a day by a lake where we are wild camping having enjoyed a barbecue of Reindeer sausages and Monica’s special Beetroot and Apple salad, after having cooled the legs down in the lake.

Tonight will be the last night in Norway before we hit Finland sometime tomorrow afternoon

We have found everything clean, well kept, and all facilities have been first class. The weather too has been out of this world, so the next 8 countries have a lot to live up to.