The day dawned sunny and warm. The birds were singing and a warm breeze wafted into the tent and gently woke us from our slumber…
Ahem, back to reality…
The day dawned cold and wet. The rain drummed on the tent and a nippy wind dragged us out of bed. We packed up the sodden tent, slapping and cursing at the tiny bitey buzzing insects. We rode for a little while before stopping for breakfast at a little table surrounded in little piles of digested grass. We eagerly tucked into a delicious breakfast of dry muesli and cold cous-cous before continuing our merry way towards the bridge to freedom. After crossing the bridge to freedom we discovered the tunnel to freedom with a sign saying no bikes allowed. Luckily there was a small path that looked like it skirted around the tunnel so we followed this for an hour or so. The path was a little too curvy and upy-downy and also a little too dead-endy which unfortunately we found out after the up and downy. So we turned around and headed back with our proverbial tails between our legs.
Instead we waited at a bus stop just before the bridge. We waited, and waited and no bus came. Eventually I tried the luck of my thumb on a van that was driving past. The van continued driving and I noted that I was probably too ugly. A few minutes later it seemed that this was not the case when the van came driving back the other way and stopped. The driver happily loaded our bikes into the back and us into the front and drove us through the tunnel and some way further. Yay for friendly Norwegians. I suspect there are very few countries where this would happen. I suspect you could probably get a lift in NZ after quite some time but certainly not on the first try of the thumb. In Germany the driver would probably have called the police.
Anyway, we are very impressed with Norwegians. Very.
We did some more rainy cycling for quite a few hours before we had a short ferry ride to Urke. We found a camp spot near a huge waterfall at the seashore around 9 pm. It was quite a nice spot complete with little shack with picnic table, two hammocks slung between trees, and a ready made BBQ area. We cooked a yummy curry for dinner and then tried our best to clean our persons in the chilly stream descending from the waterfall.
Around 11:30 pm we were treated by the glimpses of a sunset off through the clouds somewhere. Perhaps tomorrow we really will be woken by a soft warm breeze caressing our cheeks…