Day 18 – Turtagro to Flam – Safe Return Doubtful

63 miles (102 km) – Total so far: 1,078 miles (1,735 km)

Just as I hit the last hairpin bend last night the rain started. It continued all night and was something more than drizzle in the morning, lost in cloud at 900 metres.

The hotel / bunk room was a real experience. The food was excellent, soup of the mountain, salmon of the river and cheesecake of the kitchen, and plenty of everything. Only the cheesecake was average. Lots of people staying are hikers so plenty of conversation until I was falling asleep.

I had two options this morning, one to go over the hill to Ovre Ardal on the little mountain road, which gains 500 metres immediately into the dense cloud, or the other to descend to the fjord at Fortun, the slightly longer way round. With the rain and cloud as it was I descended. It’s not easy descending 900 meters in the rain at 10% gradient on wet roads, add to it the smell of burning of car brakes and clutches. So it’s slow going.

From Fortun there is the option of the small 331 road on the opposite side of the fjord to the main road, a much better option. It heads 31 km to the Stave Church at Urnes and there were practically no cars on it. Also it goes through 4 unlit tunnels, up to 2 km long, completely dark, very exciting. From Urnes there is a little private ferry across the fjord, then a steep uphill, and the day changes…it joins the very busy pure 5 which at Sogndal becomes E17 for probably 20 kilometres to Kaupanger, and up some decent hills. Not a lot of fun with hardly any shoulder and lots of traffic of all sorts. However, the last 7 km is a downhill to the ferry and the last 3 of those are through a downhill tunnel. Good fun.

There was always going to be a problem after the Kaupanger ferry, as to Laerdal is a 7 kilometre tunnel, and directly after, the longest tunnel in Europe, at 26 km. Neither allow bikes. In the ferry I asked a guy wth a pick-up truck and he agreed to take me through them. In his own words he ‘built railroads’, sounding like something from the Pacific Coast in the mid 1800s. Actually he worked to provide electricity, but for new ones.

From where he dropped me it was a short ride into Flam. Having been dry since I got out of the cloud this morning, it was now raining again. Flam is a bit like Geiranger, extremely touristy. It is the end of the famous downhill mountain bike route, the Rallarvegen. I have been here twice before with school groups. The ferry (that doesn’t run any more) from Newcastle to Bergen and a rented house in Geilo for a weeks riding. I had thought at one time of riding / pushing up. The gradient is 35% in a few places, but also the track was only clear from snow a few weeks ago, and there are still uncleared rockfalls, it would be pretty much impossible. So reluctantly I will get the train up to Finse and continue from there.

Distance 63.1 miles Time left (waiting the rain out, one more cup of coffee…) 11:10 am Time arrived 6:00 pm Time riding 5 hours 37 minutes Height gained 838 metres