August 19, 2013
Another day, another mountain: Too much up
I woke up keen to get to Lærdal early. All of the maps that I had seen showed that there was a ferry going from there over to Kaupanger from where I could continue on the Northern side of the fjord, but I didn't know what time it would leave at. Assuming it would be infrequent, I didn't want to miss it by a minute and have to wait four hours. So it was with some dismay that I discovered one of my tires was flat. I took the tube out to patch it but I could find no hole, even when I held it in the fjord to look for air bubbles. I put the tube back in and cycled off, frustrated at the delay.
I need not have worried. When I got to Lærdal I could see no ferry in the harbour. I stopped to ask a woman about it and she said there was no ferry from here, it went from Aurland. "Oh, wonderful, you mean the Aurland that I was in yesterday, on the other side of the 1300 metre high pass that I already cycled over?"
She looked at me strange. "Is there another way out of town?" I asked.
"Yes, through the tunnel."
"Can I cycle through it?"
"No, not really"
"Oh dear"
"But don't worry, you can just take a bus through the tunnel"
"That seems unlikely"
So, now I was thinking that I was going to have to cycle all the way back over the pass where I had just come from. I got to the harbour. There was a sign pointing to it with a picture of a ferry on it. A big orange line crossed it out. Not good. But I saw a map of the area next to it and there was another road that I could take, but it would mean climbing high up into the mountains again. A girl I spoke to in town confirmed it. The ferry had stopped running last summer. I was worried about missing it by a minute, and I'd missed it by a year.
So I set off up this pass. The route I had planned to take on the other side looked flat, right next to the fjord. This way was going to be much longer and take me back up to 1300 metres or so before dropping me back down to almost sea level again. On the plus side, the valley began very wide and not too steep, and most of the time there was a secondary road to keep me off the main road, which wasn't busy anyway. The scenery here was no longer extraordinarily spectacular, it was more like averagely spectacular now.
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1 year ago
Anyway, so I cycled uphill for the most of the day, then the road went downhill for a bit, but then it split and the road I wanted went back uphill so I had to reclimb all that altitude. The road just went up and up and up. I was getting really frustrated. At the top there was a flat bit next to a lake and it was beautiful but I was just mad because now there was a headwind and it felt like I was still going up. Then after the lake, it went up again.
Eventually the big downhill arrived, just at exactly the same time as some big rain clouds. I was really mad now. It was like waiting for Christmas, this descent that I'd been looking forward to all day, and now Christmas was here and all I got was a bucket of cold water thrown in my face. Over and over and over again until I was drenched and cold and even more mad.
But then I got down below the rain and began to enjoy it. The road was steep and I could go really fast and it was super fun. I could see the town of Øvre Årdal below me and it looked very scenic situated as it is next to a big lake. The lake is slightly above sea level, with a short river connecting it to Sognefjord, but it looked like it was a fjord itself buried among the mountains.
A series of steep switchbacks dropped me into the town and I camped next to the lake, exhausted and ready to do it all again in the morning.
Today's ride: 120 km (75 miles)
Total: 3,264 km (2,027 miles)
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