10th June 2023 (sunny and hot) 52km

Julia and I were up again at 4am and wandered outside in the early morning. The sun was rising, the moss, ground cover and pine needles from the abundance of trees, was crackling under our feet and the massive rock, that makes up this island, was preparing to absorb the heat on another beautiful day. We heard, what I initially thought was a dog, but I should have known. In this "Bambi" like setting, it was a deer roaring as we watched it run along through the trees down below.

Petter's cabin

We took a stroll along the path leading in the opposite direction from the way we'd approached Petter's cabin.  It was cool in the trees, but you could feel the warmth of the rising sun.  Back at the cabin we had coffee, whilst Petter and  Henrietta slept on.

 

At 8am we thought we'd better have breakfast as the ferry was leaving at 9.10am.  Had breakfast of prunes, blueberries, banana, quinoa with milk and yoghurt. Good start to the day.  We started packing up and Petter emerged and is coming to join us for some of our ride today.

We were getting a bit nervous we might miss the ferry if we didn't get a move on, especially with our penchant for getting lost and taking photos so we left for the ferry at 8.55am with Petter saying that he would follow us down. We arrived in only a few minutes at a much bigger docking area and were confused.  It was not the same place that we landed yesterday and Petter had said we should go back to that one, which was 2 km away, (when you didn't take the scenic route as we had the day before!).  

So we headed back to the first ferry dock, really cranking it now to get there in time.  We got there 2 mins before it arrived, pushed our bikes on and were just leaning them into the side of the cabin, when the ferry started reversing out of the dock!  I hadn't even been up to pay and I had the thought maybe we had caught an earlier ferry going to a different place.  So I rushed up to the captain to check our destination and pay and to let him know there was another person coming.  

At that moment Petter pulled up on the dock and the captain graciously went back to get him.  Phew!

Made it!

We didn't go back to the mainland to the same spot we left from yesterday.  Instead of heading north, the ferry went west and after a pleasant 15 min ride, we docked on the mainland, headed for Larvik about 27km away.  Some were cycle tracks alongside roads, others were quiet lanes. On both it was pleasant riding.

After riding and chatting we arrived in Larvik at 11.30am. Found our way to the library for wifi and across the road was a supermarket, so we grabbed an ice cream.

Sat talking to Petter about his upcoming trip, work and family, then wished him well for his big adventure. I'm sure he will rediscover a long lost love after 25 years of no bike touring and getting back to spending life on the road (even African roads).

Julia and I hit the library to keep our audience up to date with the news as the wifi is better by far, than anywhere else.  After two hours writing, plotting courses and planning our food for the weekend (shops are closed here on Sundays) I hopped back to the supermarket and bought lunch and it wasn't long before we were riding into town, where we found a circular gathering place with tables and chairs, but no occupants. Looked like it was right up our street. We forgot that we'd used the last of our water, so Julia using her initiative, filling our bottles from a fountain. We figured we were boiling it anyway.

Then the afternoon began. At first it was gradual gradients, then not so gradual, until we had a good sized climb to finish our afternoon. 

Amazing to see these tunnels being created.  We think the yellow pipes were to probably funnel fresh air into the workers as these tunnels can be kilometres long.  

At one point I had stopped to take a photograph on the opposite side of the road and Ju, unwilling to break her stride, continued the slog. A racing cyclist came alongside her and chatted to her all the way to the top.  She greatly appreciated this as it took her mind off the climb. Soon after, I too joined them for a chat. He wished us well on our trip and rode away.

That was a fair old climb but we had really enjoyed the whole ride today.

We were getting close to the campground we'd picked out for the night when we saw our friend the racing cyclist waiting for us to lead us through a complicated arrangement of road cones and make sure we didn't miss the campground.   That was so nice of him and we shook his hand and thanked him profusely.

We needed to get some shopping for tonight and tomorrow as all shops are closed on Sundays so we went to the supermarket before pulling into the campground about 6.30pm.   While we waited for somebody to come to reception, we noticed a couple of bikes parked up, loaded to the gunnels.  Their front and back panniers and front bag were all stamped with Globe Trotter and we wondered about all the places they might have been.

Said globetrotters soon returned to reception with the camp owner and after a quick chat it was established they came from northern Germany,  through Denmark, caught the ferry to Sandefjord, where we passed through this morning and are now heading south to Kristiansand, as we are.

The camp owner then showed us our tent site and it was within viewing distance of theirs, so that meant one thing.....the race was on to see who could get their tent up first. They had a slight headstart but had squandered this advantage by casually chatting to each other....complete rookies! We got ours up first and casually strolled past their site, just so they knew who the winners were. Went to reception to pay.... 300 NOK or $50 NZ for the night, which is what you would pay in NZ.

This is a lovely little campground,  with a beach at the edge of the fjord but there was a cool wind blowing so we settled for 5 min showers instead of a swim. Of course my money ran out before I'd got the conditioner out and I thought it would be OK, having enjoyed many cold showers when the weather was hot.  But this one turned glacial and I stayed under only long enough to get the worst of the conditioner out and had to bail when feeling an ice-cream headache coming on.

While we were eating our delicious salad for dinner which we'd got from the supermarket salad bar, the kid at the next camp site started coughing her lungs out.  Covid Kid kept at it all evening so we gave that site a wide berth. 

Washed some clothes and arranged them on our bikes and tent to dry in the still warm sun.  Pete decided to clean his bike, I thought "what's the point?", and plotted our course for tomorrow.

As the evening wore on, the sun dipped below the hills and the temperature dropped dramatically.  It's going down to 9C tonight so we made up the beds and jumped in our sleeping bags at 10pm.  Blogged a bit and sleep at 10.30pm