Norway!

Well, we've made it to Bodø! The trip was long and required staying up way past our bedtime, butwe persevered and have been rewarded with the most stunning scenery we have seen in a long time.

After Lärkan drove us to the rest stop in Gävle on Thursday night, we waited in the small convenience store for our bus at 11:30. We tried the chocolate balls that we have seen in numerous places, and those, along with a cup of hot chocolate, kept us buzzed until the bus arrived. At this point we received quite a shock: the bus driver came out and told us frankly that bikes were not allowed on board. This was not at all what we were expecting as we had taken our bikes on this very same bus company when we rode down to Järbo! Images of being stranded on the side of the highway in the middle of the night (that was actually dark enough for us to see stars for the first time this summer!) flashed through our minds.

Luckily we convinced the bus driver to take pity on us and shift his luggage system a bit to fit our bikes inside. In truth, there was plenty of space, he just had to relax his no bicycle policy. We were relieved that our travel would not be derailed on the first leg.

The bus turned out to be entirely full - quite a surprise for a midnight bus on a Thursday! We were forced to sit at opposite ends - apart? What? - and had a fitful few hours of sleep until we arrived in Sundsvall at 3 am.

Then we rode our bikes to the train station - our earliest cycling yet! We had to wait two hours until our train departed, so we pulled out sleeping bags and snuggled up on a platform bench. Luckily the train doors opened early, so we jumped on and claimed two of the four bicycle hanging racks. This was the first train we'd encountered that featured these storage systems for bikes! Wonder why? The train was Norwegian. 

So tired...

Grateful to be finished with bike-unfriendly Swedish transportation, we spread out on the train and slept most of the way to the border. Then everyone had to debark, get on a bus to ride twenty minutes across the border, then board a different train on the Norwegian side. What a strange system! We wondered if it was a temporary measure.

Only an hour later, we arrived in Trondheim! It's amazing how narrow Norway is up north here. And, as is typical on the west coast, we were greeted with wet clothes and rain. We've quickly come to regret sending most of our warm clothes back to England! We've decided that we'll just be pulling our sleeping bags out more frequently. 

We had twelve hours in Trondheim, so we figured we had to do some exploring, though really all we wanted to do was sleep. We discovered that there was a food festival taking place, so we walked up and down the long rows of booths featuring Norwegian cuisine. It was mostly meat, fish, cheese and flat bread. And pancakes or waffles with strawberry sauce and cream! Of course we had to try this delicacy. We also found some vegetables at one of the few produce stands and snagged those. 

In addition to the food festival, we happened to be in town at the same time as St Olaf's Festival, the annual Christian pilgrimage. We explored the cathedral grounds and the medieval booths set up around it, where we watched black smithing and tried out the stilts. With great difficulty we resisted the sugar roasted almonds, satisfying our sweet tooth with a homemade flapjack instead: a granola bar mostly consisting of butter and honey. We made them to help us face the steep mountains of the coast, but decided we'd better try one to make sure it was okay!

We also tried the bike escalator built on a steep hill - the only one of its kind in the world we were told. You stand with your right foot against the metal plate and your left on your pedal, then push a button and the plate powers you and your bike up the hill. Sounded straightforward, but we couldn't get it until a local showed us how. Pretty fun, but not very functional as it's fairly slow and takes some personal instruction. But we attracted quite a crowd of onlookers while trying it out!

Finally, at five pm, we were too tired to do anything more. So we found some benches at a small university, pulled out our sleeping bags and pads, and quickly fell asleep, just as the sun was finally breaking through the clouds. After a hearty nap and a dinner of lentil curry on the camp stove, we headed back into downtown to find a bathroom and wait for the train. We sat by a picturesque harbor, read Harry Hole, the Norwegian detective series, until it was late enough to head to the station.

The night train to Bodø was the best part of the trip! Why? Because we splurged on a sleeper cabin. The 4x8 foot compartment was like a palace to us! We immediately fell into bed, ecstatic to be horizontal, and were lulled to sleep by the rocking motion of the railway. 

We woke at 8 after a much-needed eight hours of sleep, and discovered the glory of the coast outside our window. 

The stark mountains rising above the fjords are truly breathtaking! The last hour of the ride quickly passed, and then the trip was over!

After a summer of constantly feeling like we had a destination to reach, it now feels strange to have no itinerary, no time constraints. We have two weeks to play in the Lofoten Islands, and all we have to do is catch our flight home at the end. We've luckily been able to confirm with the bike shop here that we can get bike boxes from them at the end of our trip, which is a relief after worrying about that for the whole of our travels. 

So we're off! A month without cycling has made us feel a bit out of shape, but a few mountain passes we'll surely whip us back into line. We're just hoping for warm days and no more injuries!