11th June 2023 (sunny and windy) 33km

Last night I shunned my blow up pillow and just used folded clothes in a dry bag to lay my head and this was much more successful.  We both had a fantastic sleep, (the longest since we got here) and at last slept through the night until 7am.  This was also probably due in no small part to the drop in overnight temperature.   When we got here and set up the tent, I got my silk liner out and thought, no way I'll need my sleeping bag tonight. 

Fast forward a few of hours and we not only got out our sleeping bags, but zipped them together for extra warmth and got out warm clothes ready by the side of our bed in case we needed them overnight too, (we didn't).

Woke this morning (God's day) ?? to the sound of the woman in a massive campervan in front of us, coughing her lungs up. Not quite the same as waking up to a nice hot cup of tea.

Cleaned my bike last night, so my trusty steed is " Lookin fine baby".  The beauty of these long days is that you cannot only ride for longer, but also get other things done as you need to. However, that temperature last night provides a warning for what is to come once we start north and get into the mountains.

I sent off some messages to my friends in England last night and it was great to get their comments back. Five years since we've caught up. Looking forward to seeing them again, but not on this trip.

The sun hadn't hit our tent yet so it was still pretty frosty sitting on our bench seat so we walked around in the sunshine, taking in the surroundings.

 

The beach at Nystrand

Back to the laundry and washed some more clothes under the tap, as I had last night. For some reason the tap water didn't feel as glacial as this morning. Then we tucked into breakfast as our table was at last in the sun.

Julia began uploading the blog and I started our pack up. Getting the sleeping mats folded and stored, sleeping bags in their stuff sacks. Gear out of tent, fortunately at present, into full sunshine. It's a bit different in the wet, nothing is done leisurely then.

While I brushed my teeth etc, Julia cleaned the breakfast dishes, filled the water bottles and packed away "the kitchen". We are quickly finding a rhythm where we get done what has to be done, and it's amazing how busy this life keeps you.

We didn't get away from Nystrand Camping until 12pm. Washing was drying nicely and we were feeling relaxed.  There were three bikepackers at the camp aside from us. The couple from Cologne who we'd had the tent race with and a female in her thirties on an E bike.  She too was jam packed with stuff.

Wind was quite strong this morning (and a headwind, obviously!), so progress was laboured, but hey, we're in Norway, the sun is shining and we are able to go as fast or as slow as we want.

Because shops are closed on Sundays, 10 km down the road in Stathelle we decided to pull into a Shell station and grab some lunch. Grabbed two rolls filled with cheese and ham salad and two pastries.  On the way out we noticed they had a nice little seating area so we sat in a booth seat and logged into their free wifi.  As we sat there we noticed they had a coffee machine. Well it would be rude not to. Total cost for lunch was $40. Not bad. We certainly would pay that in Federal Store back home.  But the coffee would have been waaaay better!

Brody face timed us for half an hour and he's having a blast in Newquay. Working at a hostel and surfing already. He looks and sounds great. Exactly what we wanted for him.

We refilled our water bottles and hit the road out of Stathelle, taking back roads on the way to Kragero and generally following national cycle route 1.

I thought we did "leg day" yesterday, I said to Julia as the afternoon, as beautiful as it was, also threw in some gnarly little hill climbs.  Every day is leg day now.

 

Admiring a fine old ruin....and the church ain't bad either

We came upon a gorgeous lake and just had to go in. I was the guinea pig. I couldn't believe how warm it was. We both agreed that it was at least 20 C.

A young couple from the area who were sunbathing there, were checking out the water after we'd been in. They needed a bit of prompting but finally jumped in together. Had a good chat to the young guy and he was telling us a bit about the district and how that particular lake last winter was frozen solid and there are some lakes that you can drive a car on.
Hard to believe when you're enjoying the warmth of the sun on your back, drying you off after a swim.

Sunbathed and relaxed on the grassy bank and everything was right with the world.  It was 4.50pm and a warm 20C.

By 5.50pm, we had only covered a total for the afternoon of only 33.3kms as we had stopped to take so many photos!  We spied an ideal freecamp. It was however quite close to three houses, although they couldn't see us. We are very early setting up a freecamp as it's not even near dark at 11pm.

Just in case we shouldn't really be camping here, we sat quietly doing our own thing until 6.30pm, when the sun had gone off our site and it was not so hot.  Then we enjoyed mackerel in tomato sauce on bread rolls.  Now, when we are at home, we would never eat that, but out on the road, whatever meal it is, it tastes delicious.

This was all going on without any noise which led into "wild stealth camping 101".  To put the tent up and set up the inside, we decided to wait until cars came along the scenic route we were on and the noise would cover any movements we made, as by now we had heard the house residents on their deck.  We noticed how well the sound carried on this windless evening.
Not many cars use this road however, so it's now 3am and we are just about to zip up the final sleeping bag.