7th July 2023 (drizzling on and off in morning, sunny late arvo) 44km

Turns out going to sleep at 8pm was not such a good idea.  Woke up when Pete went to the loo and thought I may as well go too and save getting up and disturbing us both again later. Can't tell what the time is by the light as it is never dark now, so checked my phone when back in the tent....10.30pm. 

In the two and a half hours I'd been asleep,  the wind had got up substantially and was buffeting the tent around and making quite a racket.  I lay there thinking drats, should have got over the upcoming bridges while the going was so good yesterday.  They are a highlight of the very popular Atlantic Coast Highway, (a scenic tourist route for vehicles), and there is no quiet bike road over this section,  so our plan was to go to bed early and if we woke early, get up and do the bridges while the road was quiet.  I'm hoping this wind calms down by the time we're riding that section.   The one saving grace is it is a tailwind.

It's currently 1.30am and I haven't been able to sleep for the last three hours, mainly due to the wind but it's also surprisingly warm tonight.  Not warm enough for just the silk liner but too warm for the sleeping bag.  The birds are chirping away like it's 5am and even though we're closer to the sea tonight, weirdly there's no raucous seagulls.  Right, time to lay my head down and try getting some sleep. 

After pitching in a field last night, we are always aware that we may receive a visit from someone, and last night's visitor was a roaring stag.  He obviously visits these parts on his rounds and must have come out of the trees and thought

"Hang on...that's new, it wasn't here last night". 

Anyway he gave a few roars and galloped off back toward the mountain.

Neither of us slept well due to the wind rattling the tent, but good old Vango saw us through another night and we got up at 6am.

Today we are meant to be bridge hopping the islands.  Ideally, we would have liked the forecasted weather, which was fine and sunny, but as I write, it's overcast and cloudy.  There was even a mention of a shower around 7am.  To be doing these bridges in strong winds, is not our preference, but we don't have much of a choice on this one.

Hey, what's that man-made shape in the distance Pete?

Can you see it?

We have to cycle over that?

Although the weather wasn't kind to us for the "seven bridges road" (not the Eagles) we still managed some shots before the rain came down.

In the early 1900s the local fishermen and their farmer wives requested from the government that they needed easier access and could they put a railway in to connect the transportation route.   Initially, they agreed, but put it on hold.  Nothing was ever done and in 1933 a proposal to build bridges across the islands was put forth.

Time moves very slowly in these parts and it wasn't until 1961, after it had been forgotten for thirty years, that it once again was the talk of the area.  In 1983 they began work which wasn't finished until 1989.  They regard this stretch of road as one of the most beautiful coastal routes in the world, but as we found today, you have the wind and rain to contend with.  At least it wasn't dangerously windy and the wind was kind enough to be a tailwind.  We were bundled up against the cold and nice and snug as we cruised along, taking photos where we wanted because everyone else was still asleep.  

You first, Ju

View from the top

Here comes Pete

A beautiful area and so glad we got to see it before the rain came. 

Motorhomes had been well catered for in this popular area with plenty of people taking advantage of the multitude of park up spots.  There were even free WC's halfway along this epic ride, which are always welcome. 

It started to rain as we neared the end of the bridges so when we saw a gas station, we went to see if they had a cafe.  They did, but didn't open until 9am.  We parked the bikes under the overhang of a building to shelter and went into the adjacent supermarket to stay dry and grabbed a banana and a bun each to munch on. 

We have 34 kms to travel and part of that includes unpacking our gear from the bikes and then loading it onto a bus to take us on an undersea tunnel to Kristiansund.  Bikes not permitted.  From there, it's about 9kms to a campground.  Not sure if we're going to stay anything like dry today.

We are currently holed up in the service station next to the supermarket and have just bought two lattes from a machine for $4.50 each. If we had an option to send them back, we'd have done it.

So I'm now relying on my good luck charm (being Julia) to turn this weather around.

Well she doesn't often let me down. We were just getting cosy and eyeing up the food cabinet to see what we'd have next and noticed it had stopped raining.  So back on the bikes and we began cycling toward Kristiansund. Once again we had a good riding surface although the road was quite busy.  A couple of idiots cutting in too soon, because they shouldn't have attempted an overtake anyway.  Do they not realise that we are the only ones who come out on the wrong side of the ledger.

Got to the busy little village of Bruhagen which looks like it services the traffic up and down the Atlantic Highway. Got our usual breakfast supplies as it's our favourite meal of the day and we missed not having them this morning.   We ate at a bench over on the far side of the parking lot, talking about getting through the upcoming tunnel.  Apparently you can catch a bus for $10 each but we didn't know how often these came through.   Or you could call a taxi and be charged $20 each, but might wait up to an hour.

Ju says, "what we need is a campervan with an empty bike rack."

There were two campervans in the supermarket carpark and as I took the rubbish over, Julia asked me to check if either had an empty bike rack. 

I reported back. Yes, the big one with Norwegian plates has an empty rack.  Julia says,  "well, they can only say No", and walks over to ask the guy and his wife if they could take us through the tunnel.

Well, of course he said "Yes". My good luck charm strikes again.  So, unload our gear from the bikes and Gier lifts them onto his empty bike rack and we throw our luggage into his storage area.

Inside his palace, we meet Anita, his wife and Connie, a six year old Cairn terrier.  Chatted the 10kms to the tunnel and down, down we went, 3kms and then started climbing 3 kms back up to daylight.  I was astounded to see someone overtake our wagon as we were humming along I thought, but when I checked the speedo, it only said 30! Must have been in mph, but it still felt like we were going faster.  Guess we're just used to snail pace now.

Gier and Anita dropped us at the bus parking bay and also invited us to come and stay if we are in Trondheim.  Lovely people and you saved us a lot of messing around, so thank you for taking us.

Kristiansund 

Heading for our campground for the night called Byskogen on the outskirts of Kristiansund and called into a shopping mall for a look around and because they had a supermarket.  Looked at Sport Outlet and some of their gear was very reasonably priced, unlike the coffee, which was $10 per cup.

Of course they probably guarantee your heat level and provide hot cheese scones in that price too.

Found the campsite, which was lovely.  We were the only ones there, but since then, others have trickled in.  No other bikepackers though.  Tent up, gear in, lunch eaten and then took coffee over to the lounge area, where we can write, blog and charge.

Showered, did washing, had dinner, checked upcoming routes, potential campgrounds and frequency of supermarkets.  Charged phones and powerbank while we were at it.  All the while listening to the planes from the airport next door, taking off and landing with alarming frequency.  Hope that doesn't go on all night.

Camp for the night and the sun is out.

Got talking to a Bulgarian guy, Ivan( pronounced Ee van) who has his tent next to ours. He's riding his BMW motorcycle through Norway to Nordkapp, then heading down through Finland, into the Baltic nations, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, into Poland and home.  He's got a month.  To get here, he rode three straight days of 1000kms.  He was telling us that he rode Trollsteigen, one of the must see tourist spots, (we didn't see it, mind you, turns out he didn't either!).  He couldn't see three metres in front of him and he was soaking wet the whole time. He said it was alright for him because of how quickly he could do it, but the cyclists he saw would take hours to get up and over and wouldn't have seen a thing or had any photos of the experience.

Because he can work remotely, he's just finished a trip to Greece and down to Crete. Nice guy.

That's why we are trying whenever possible to keep an eye on the forecast.  With Trondheim the approx. half way point, we will take a few days to rest up ready for the final push.

We ate dinner on the bench, in the sunshine, next to the tent.  Bit different to the start of today.  For Saturday and Sunday, weather is nice, but then a week of rain😭😭.

I don't know if I was a mass murderer in my former life, or the assassin of a Pope, but as anyone knows who follows our blogs, that whereas Julia sleeps through nuclear wars and big bangs, I seem to struggle with most anything that makes a noise.  Over the years, I've written about railway tracks and trains that have endless carriages that go on for half an hour, the relentless coo cooing of pigeons.  Oh and of course just general noisy bastards.  Last night, we did have a roaring stag and wind blowing the tent around, but on the whole, it was peaceful.

Fast forward twenty four hours.  On the way to the camp today, I saw the sign for the airport was pointing the same direction.  Not an issue. Airports have to be somewhere.  Only this airport is right next door.  If I threw a rock, I could hit one of the many airliners taking off or landing.  From our tent I can wave at the air traffic controller, in fact I think the bastard is laughing.  Even Julia....before she fell asleep, said she couldn't believe how loud those jet engines were.  Loud....if we were any closer we'd be inside the bloody engine.

It's currently 10.07pm.  Time for a game of " Guess the last flight."  But my burning question is:
Who would put a campground next to an airport?  Not that I'm getting paranoid, but I think they waited for us to come along on our bikes today and turned the signpost around the other way.  Somewhere 3kms in the opposite direction is serenity.  Where the only sound is a stick insect climbing to the top of a blade of grass.  Enjoy your sleep little fella.
I'll tell you how many flights got off the ground tomorrow.