Cycling the Land of the Midnight Sun

What is it about waking up next to a gently flowing river. It's very soothing and relaxing.   After constant rain during the night, which itself was fine, because Vango was once again protecting us from the elements, the change from rain pattering on the tent, to the babbling brook noise of the river, making its way through the mountains was peaceful. Although yet to stick my head out of the tent, the forecast is for rain to cease for the day around 8am.   Then we are due to have cloud, with sunny spells for the rest of the day. Saturday in this area looks to be a great day, but next week is terrible, so movement today is vital if we want to avoid that onslaught.   With no access to shops for 30km and the next campsite 68kms away, we have to move nearer to civilisation. It's 6.25am and Julia is asleep next to me.   We've both settled into good sleeping patterns.  I n general we'll get to bed about 8.30 or 9pm and sleep until 5 or 6am. ...

  After a good sleep, woke at 6.30am to overcast sky, as predicted on the forecast.  Th e rain had ceased, that too had been estimated to stop around 5am and because my last couple of hours were restless, I'm picking they were pretty much bang on. Vango had survived another night, with rain constant in the early hours, so the fly sheet was soaked, but inside, our cosy little space was dry. At present we are about a week ahead of schedule, so we have time up our sleeves.  In  this game though, especially being so weather dependent, not just for riding, but for photographs, we feel we must ride when it's dry.  We were very tempted to stay another night at this campground,  simply because it's so nice and we're feeling a bit tired, but with nice weather forecast, we packed up and hit the road. Rolled out, heading for Naustdal about 10.15am. Tent all dry and Vango repair still in place, so we will risk not having to buy another tent just yet. The ideal outc...

A fter a very good sleep, waterfall and all, we were up at 7.06am and after packing the inside of the tent, decided to let the outer dry in the most welcome, morning sun. Puttering around over breakfast, I moved the tent and put too much pressure on the front curved pole and it snapped.   It's not something that you can replace. It would be hard enough to replace a pole in the country of origin, but in Norway, not a hope in hell.  T ried a patch up job with a bit of webbing and superglue, but will have no idea if it's successful until we set up tonight. Cycled away from our site at 9.40am on an undulating, but primarily downhill route, after coming down from the mountain.  After visiting the snowline four times in a week, our legs are tired.  Consequently we are researching our routes a bit more thoroughly.   Today's route was going to be all on small roads, over tunnels etc, including a 1000m climb, but we decided we needed easy, so chose the 610 alo...