Beside the Seaside

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In Which It Rains. A Lot.

August 13, 2006 by Mike

Sorstraumen, Norway

Route: Alta - Oksfjord - Sorstraumen

Set off from Alta in such hot weather that I took the thick, padded lining out of my trousers for the first time since Finland, (bet you really wanted to know that), and still had a good sweat going as I left (ditto).

I should have known that I'd be in a thunderstorm before long.

The road south from Alta hugs the coast, although it starts off by heading north. This is Norway, remember, and I'm entering the stretch with all the wiggly bits. After 40 miles the road turns round a sharp headland at Isnestofte to point southwest down one side of Langfjorden -- which isn't particularly long but is certainly a fjord, very narrow with emerald green waters beneath steeply towering hills. One fjordbank in shadow, the other sharply picked out by the sun. Farms and boathouses and homes painted red and yellow and blue and green. Curve after curve after curve in the road. No traffic.

I love this kind of landscape, the more so on this trip when I could look across and see the road on the other shore that I'd soon be riding. Round the base of the fjord and northeastwards, now, then over the hill to Øksfjord. A light sprinkling of cloud gathered behind the hill.

Can you believe the people of Øksfjord don't market the hell out of t-shirts and sweatshirts with "Øksfjord University" printed on them?

Truth be told, the place is too small and remote, at the end of this deadend road. There are ferries out to nearby island communities, to Hasvik and Nuvsvåg, which I had a mind to take if the ferries were around, but there was nothing for several hours. And as beautiful as Øksfjord's position is, the lure of sitting idly in the sun was narrowly beaten by the stench from the fish processing plant, which hangs over the community like some kind of communal punishment. These people must have been very naughty in a previous life.

The road back presented glorious views of the Øksfjordjokelen glacier. It's Norway's 9th largest, donchaknow, but the biggest to flow out straight to the sea. The sky behind it was speckled now with darker clouds.

The 'gammelveien' (old road) to Øksfjord has been preserved as an unusual reminder of how it would have been to travel here 100 years ago. It's rutted and pockmarked and circles high and wide around one outcrop where the current road simply cuts through via a tunnel. Needless to say me and the Bonneville had a quick stab at the gammelveien before beating a cowardly retreat to the undemanding tarmac of the modern highway.

One stop to fill Mike with coffee and another to fill the bike with petrol was all the time it took for the weather to change. I was monitoring the black clouds ahead but while they held my attention, a band of white cloud overhead started spitting, then cascading, rain down on me.

Torrential showers are common here, but so too are fabulous views of stunning fjords. And whenever there's a stunning view you know you can't be far from a campsite. With 'hytta' (small huts) too.. the kind that have rooves and walls and doors and electricity and all the other things a hammock doesn't have. I checked in sharp-ish, and managed to get myself and the laptop indoors without getting too wet. Spent the afternoon whistling at the weather and editing my second video and getting paperwork up to date.

By which time the rain had passed, the sun was out and the temperature was hitting 28 degrees. I stayed inside and beavered away.

In next door's hut were a couple of German bikers, a man and a woman, caught in the same storm. They stayed locked in their cabin too. I didn't hear the sound of typing so they may not have been updating their blogs, but by the sound of it they were certainly spending a lot of energy doing something.

Next door in the other direction was an elderly German, who told me in charming Norwegian that he spends every summer in the same cabin, fishing out on beautiful Badderfjorden. Sure enough, his cabin was crammed with his things, pictures hanging on the wall and clothes hanging out to dry in orderly rows; fishing rods sacked neatly in the corner. (The hytta are sparsely furnished, to put it mildly. It looks like a bomb's hit mine within about 30 seconds of me arriving.)

And in the cabin beyond him, a Russian man of similar age. His cabin was full too, neat and homely. A long term resident. Perhaps he too had been coming back to the same place for years. Living in the cabin next to the German.

It was a bit of a Brokeback Mountain moment.

---

Hot morning gave way to wet afternoon gave way to fresh evening. I wandered down the hill. How can anyone expect to achieve a peaceful state of Zen-like communion with a tranquil, Arctic summer sunset, sitting completely alone looking out over a still lake with wisps of icy cloud drifting across the quiet water.. when the song playing in yr head is Good Golly Miss Molly by Little Richard?

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