15th August 2023 (fog, drizzle, rain, wind, cool) 10km

At 11.15pm I had been woken by a voice which sounded concerned.  I realized it was the encroaching neighbours and initially thought they had woken me up for no reason, other than they were talking too loudly.  But as I lay listening, I knew something wasn't right.

Since they arrived the night before last, we noticed what appeared to be a mother, father and two daughters.  One daughter in her early twenties.  Confident and strong personality, but the other, I would put at mid to late teens, very quiet, almost terribly shy and retiring.  You could possibly think there may be issues there.  The two girls were sharing a tent with the parents in the other.

The older sister sounded very concerned and was waking the parents.  Because of the tone in their voices and what I thought may be the younger sister struggling to breathe, an asthma attack was my pick.  Call me Dr. Dolan. Charge is in the mail.

By the time I had tried to untangle myself from my sleeping bag and liner and contort myself to be able to put my trainers on, it had gone quiet.  Julia, of course, heard nothing, even my contortions.  From the snippet of information I'd heard, I believe they had taken the younger girl over to reception, who maybe contacted a doctor, because as I climbed out of the tent, I saw a car come past the site heading toward Nordmela.

By now the rain was heavy and constant.  Did a very quick check of Vango and climbed back into my sleeping bag, where I remained, nice and cozy until 5.15am.

The noise of the father moving around the tent with an occasional cough and no one else talking led me to surmise that during the night, the mother and sister had gone with the other girl to get assistance and had contacted Dad to pack up and come to them.  Before I could even get myself together, he must have literally thrown everything into their hire car (I did hear the clicking of tent poles being dismantled) and driven off.  I certainly hope the young girl is well.

Now I know Pete has given you his version of what he thinks happened, this is my version.  At about 5am I was woken by the sound of a car leaving.  I was vaguely aware it had been raining all night and thought aye aye, someone's tent failed and they're bailing, then went back to sleep.

When we woke at 7am, (yes, despite Pete's concern for our neighbour,  he was able to fall asleep again), I poked my head out the door and saw they were gone.  Yippee I thought....3-1 to us, game over!  That'll teach them.  I figured their tents had leaked profusely and they had gone to shift into a cabin, but then Pete told me what he had heard.  I prefer to believe my version of events as I don't want to have to feel sorry for them.

Back to Pete. I checked Vango to find water which had been blown under the vestibule (it was facing the sea and the wind had changed direction), but other than that, a quick wipe down in that area was all it needed.  I did adjust the pegs and tension a couple more guy ropes.  But, for a tent that has done numerous nights over the past five years, it really stood up to a battering last night.

As I wandered over to the kitchen this morning, other people had tents looking worse for wear and the Frenchies behind us were literally bailing out their tent with a bucket.

So we had two coffee sachets left, a few handfuls of cashews, six crackers and some liver paste.  That was breakfast this morning.  Just after finishing the last of our coffee, in walks an Italian couple, Francesco and Francesca, who kindly offered us some of their espresso coffee. Well we're never going to refuse coffee, so we gratefully accepted and had a nice chat.

Meanwhile, it had stopped raining so we had a dilemma.  Do we stay at this nice little campground and eat paninis for lunch and dinner (as this is all they have on the menu), or do we break camp and ride to Bleik, 10km up the road which has a campground and a Joker mini market.  The rain had mostly subsided, so an attempted ride, 10kms to the next shop and camp was GO......

We should have known that as soon as we began to dismantle Vango, it would begin to rain, increase in intensity and not stop.  We left the camp heading into a low, heavy mist, with the rain right on our tails.  Clicked along at a good speed, singing Credence's song "Have you ever seen the rain" progressed to Dragon's "Don't you Go Out in the Rain", as the rain poured down and as we signed into the campsite and set up in a deluge, the Travis song "Why does it always rain on me".

We were now in Bleik, 10kms away and believe me....it was very bleak, indeed.  We had done a massive shop at a Joker on the way in, dripping water all over the shop floor.  Being on limited rations for the past two days and the threat of having nothing to eat, made us shop up a storm. 

We set our shopping down in a dry area while we set the sodden tent up, the rain pooling in the fly sheet.  Water was cascading down the arms of our raincoats and as we tried to transfer the soaking gear from our bikes, into the vestibule of the tent, without it getting any wetter, we could only laugh.

The receptionist had given us a spot behind the building as I'd asked for a sheltered spot, because Vango was an old tent and a bit weather beaten.  Same for her owners.  The actual tent sites were right on the front, overlooking the sea and staring straight down the barrel of a howling Nor easterly.  Once the gear was stowed, we commandeered a spot in the cafe type area, for campers, as we watched other wet stragglers stagger in.

Glad we have this lounge to hide from the weather.

A couple head to the beach. 

Not sure if they were intending to get a swim, but they got one anyway.

Reminds us of paritutu 

Vango all set up for another onslaught.

One such couple were two German bikepackers who have been touring Europe for the last 15 months.  That is impressive.  They had climbed the same mountain today as we did yesterday, but couldn't see a thing.  That is not so impressive.  Have they not heard of weather forecasts?

Began blogging and uploading photos and checking on the Women's World Cup semi, between Sweden and Spain.
Spain won 2-1.........damn.

McCartney has retired, now Wordsworth is in action....  

This was written while we were having our pre-dinner drinks in the tent.

She sat there in her little tent 

She was smiley, tanned and chic

The rain outside, it chucked it down

In a town they just called " Bleik"

The man he was her husband

And he sipped upon a beer

And they gazed upon the zipped front door

Wishing the skies would clear

In a Norway town they had arrived 

To hike the mountain tracks

But the rain it came in bucket loads

And fell upon their backs

The forecast mentioned rain galore

The next day winds that blow

And so to while away their time

They drank their drinks quite slow

Their normal bedtime, it was nine

They looked forward to their sleep

But that was still six hours away

Best start counting sheep

Bleik by name, bleak by nature 

But soon this day will pass

To turn into a day of wind

A right pain in the arse.

At 6.30pm it was back to the kitchen/lounge area where we cooked up a delicious dinner of rice stew, mushrooms and kjottbollers. The receptionist informed us they were a Swedish thing....here we were thinking we were eating typical Norwegian fare.  She went on to inform us that in Norway they have Supkjottbollers which are bigger sized meatballs. So when I said "oh, so you tell the Swedes that you have bigger balls?" , she thought this was hilarious.