The train arrives in Trondheim at 7.40am and I get breakfast at the train station cafe as I did before and chat to the American cyclist for a while. I study my 1:250,000-scale map. I study hers. It's nice and details various cycling routes. I want one.

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Trondheim may be 'the world's seventh most bicycle friendly city', but today it's cold with a strong wind blowing right through my thin layers of clothing that convinces me that I ought to think about either staying put or taking a bus or train to get out of the city. There are no train lines running to where I want to go, so I pop next door and pick up a bus route booklet and then go off in search of a shop to buy the detailed cycling map just like the one that the American has.

The city is windswept and chilly and has a Monday morning air. It feels like winter. I find the tourism office where I'm given a list of book shops, but none have the cycle map I want. It rains and I retreat to McDonalds and use the Internet and soon decide to get the bus at 1.30pm south-west to Surnadal. The fare is 200 krone plus another 100 for a bike (about 30 euros total) and I arrive there at 4pm, getting dropped off right outside the town's cultural centre where I get a coffee and some details of local accommodation.

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I ask about a cycle map and the assistant asks me if I'd like to do a ride that I'd remember for the rest of my life. Do I, indeed. He proceeds to show me a basic map with a line wiggling south from the nearby town of Sunndal. He uses a black pen to highlight it and talks about a massive waterfall (not flowing this time of year) and the remoteness, the challenge and its raw untamed beauty and I'm all ears and tell him I'm in and would like to get going there and then.

The cabins and campsite are nearby - walking distance - and I hand over 500 krone for a heated wooden hut and scrub my rubbery Shimano SPD sandals in the sink (they stink), leaving them outside the door to dry while I then pop back to the cultural center to use its free wi-fi service. 

It's gone 7pm and there's a music concert on and the complex is crammed with school children and parents, so I retreat to the lower level and find a chair and plug my Eee PC into a wall socket and search for 'Norway weather'.