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In Which I Smell Fresh Again - Phew!
August 27, 2006 by Mike
Sandnessjøen
Route: didn't go anywhere; just stayed home and washed clothes. It was great.
'Home' being Belsvåg campsite, a short way south of Sandnessjøen. Actually, 12 miles. I know that because I rode into 'town' to call my brother but couldn't find a payphone. Or a single living, breathing person to ask the whereabouts of any such beast. (Sandnessjøen is by some distance the biggest place for many miles around.) So I rode home again.
It's a brilliant place to stop. I'm in the hammock, strung up in a short avenue of trees leading from the main farmhouse to the small campground. But the owner offered me a cabin in which to cook and to store my stuff from the rain. So I get the best of both worlds.
The owner, a gentle man and quite possibly a gentleman, bicycles everywhere around his extensive lands. He gave me a rundown of the place as well as the run of the place. The house has been in his family for generations. In the late 18th century it was the residence (palace?) of the very first Bishop of Nordland and Finnmark.
As well as the main house, there are stables, a barn and guesthouse, arranged around a neat lawn. It's a peach of a place: symmetry and order, just a hint of decline around the edges but not of neglect - clearly, it's much loved but just a little too big for one man.
His son, you see, has built his own place just up the hill, a stunningly ordinary farmhouse (with stunningly smelly cattle in the field next to the campsite, but that's all part of the charm. I tell myself. Through gritted teeth.) Lucky him: no doubt there's room for a satellite dish, microwave and somewhere to park the tractor. And the 4×4. And the Mercedes; an old Chevrolet; a couple of trailers; a caravan, of course. But what becomes of the bishop's p(a)lace? I like to think when I come back to Sandnessjøen 100 years from now on my boat trip round the coast of Europe, it will still be here, with the same owner wobbling about on the same old bicycle.
I ambled down the road a-ways and stumbled upon the local bathing hotspot. Hot being relative: the water was freezing. Using the old "but these y-fronts don't even look like swimming trunks" excuse, I limited myself to paddling scepticly in the shallows. If I'd tied knots in my handkerchief and worn it as a hat I couldn't have looked more quintessentially Englishman-all-at-sea. The shame.
But by far the greatest thing I did today -- and believe me, there will be letters of thanks in the local press round here when news gets out -- was to wash my biking trousers. For everyone's sake, I won't go into too much detail, but the water curdled when I put them in to soak. Could someone remind me to do this again in a few weeks time? It's nearly the end of the month: high time I changed into my other t-shirt too.
--
Deaths in Turkey. Tourists warned to stay away. Is someone trying to decide for me where this journey is going to end? [Reminder: I don't know where 'the coast of Europe' ends. Where Russia meets Georgia? Where Turkey meets Syria? Somewhere else? I would value yr suggestions
--
This part of Norway is called Helgeland. The marketing boys have decided that Helgeland is 'Norway in miniature' - mountains, fjords, plains, little red farmhouses, ridiculous prices, the lot. It's worked - on the locals at least. Everyone repeats the phrase like a mantra.
I'm also very close to The Seven Sisters - a celebrated range of mountains rising side-by-side out of nowhere. Everyone here is very proud of them. The Coastal Steamer detours just to see them. There are postcards and souvenirs of them everywhere. They certainly have a family resemblance, viewed from the right angle. The only problem that I can see (and I don't dare mention this to anyone here, because everything is called 'The Seven Sisters' something or other), is that there are only six of them. I've practically ridden around the whole mountain range looking for a kid sister. Nope. She's done a Cinderella.
Is this the Norwegian sense of humour I haven't heard very much about?
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By Misha BB | May 12, 2007 2:37 PM
The solution to the riddle: One of the six mountains have two peaks and is called "The Twins" (Tvilingan).
But actually, theirs eight of them: According to tradition, the "eight sister" is a solitary mountain called Lekamøya somewhere south of the Seven Sister.