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In Which I Take a Happy Wrong Turn
September 2, 2006 by Mike
Skeid - although it's also spelled Skei
Route: Ålesund - Volda - Nordfjordeid - Skei
I'm sitting this evening in the rain in a smelly, tatty cabin about 12 feet from the E39, the main road between Bergen and Trondheim. These are the second and third largest cities in Norway.
The UK equivalent would be to hunker down in a smelly, tatty cabin about 12 feet from the M6 on a Saturday night... where, if memory serves, you would be unlikely to hear not one but two waterfalls out of yr window as cars passed, slowly, at the rate of one every five minutes. It's like a different country over here.
I'm actually away from the coast tonight. Plotting a route southwards and coasterly from Ålesund isn't easy. I certainly skipped roads that were closer to the coast than the route I took, but they weren't necessarily coastal. Or, if they were, they include ferries which may or may not run too often on a Saturday in September.
(I still had to take two ferries today: both sail once an hour, though I didn't have the times to hand, just rolled up in hope rather than expectation. Unbelievably, I had to wait a total of eight.. count 'em, eight... seconds in totsl before boarding the two ferries. And the deckhands on the second one refused to take money from me, chatting instead the whole way across about bikes. I must have done something REALLY good in a previous life.)
The other reason I skipped going so coastal today was the rain. I had some incredible meteorological escapes -- watching rainstorms rage in one valley as I rode up the next, in sunshine; seeing the rain on the other side of a narrow fjord but staying dry myself -- before finally getting a prolonged soaking in late afternoon.
All day, the worst of the weather was west of me - on the coast. So I avoided long, wet, not particularly coastal roads around the Nordfjord and Sunnfjord peninsulas.
I did see a spectacular rainbow, with a pot of gold that can't have been ore than 100 metres away. It was a nice reminder that my sister has just got a job at Rainbow in Norwich. Kongrats, KC!
More wonderful roads. They look like the 'intermediate' stage on a PlayStation game: dramatic but undemanding; curves but not too curvy, just enough to let you lean into the turn, without having to show off. No traffic in the other direction. Perfect tarmac. Great panoramic views. The 651 south of Volda, a 30-mile detour taken in lieu of a five-minute ferry, was ace. Sun on recently rained-on heather has to be the most beautiful smell in the world; old-fashioned farms clinging to perilous slopes down to the blue-green fjord.
Even the road signs here come from another age - the girl on the sign before each skool wears pigtails; the boy, shorts of a style not seen on real children since 1953.
More family business
.. which is, in my usual manner, a long-winded way of getting to the highlight of the day. I decided at the last minute to head southeast to Sogndal, in order to work my way westwards, or seawards, along Sognfjord. This is by no means the most straightforward or logical way of 'riding the coast' as it involves heading cross-country past the Jostedalsbreen glacier & national park, but will give me more of the long, famous Sognfjord to ride.
But...
within two minutes of turning off the main road I came upon a sign pointing to * Astruptunet*. By now, even complete strangers reading this blo-- I mean diary will have noticed that Astrup is my Ma's maiden name and, yes, Astrupturen is the former home of Nicolai Astrup, celebrated (in Norway, at lest) 20th century painter and first cousin to my maternal greatgrandfather.
I knew the place existed but thought it was much further south. If I hadn't decided on the spur of the moment to take that turning three kilometres earlier, I would have passed by in blissful ignorance, only to curse myself when I checked its location in the next couple of weeks. What DID I do in that previous life??
I rode out there in the late afternoon rain - a tight country lane skirting the Jølstravatnet lake. It's not quite the back of beyond, but you can see it from here. Remember that I mentioned the smell of heather earlier? No such luck here, it's the smell of cows wherever yr nose turns. Can you guess what the cows have all been doing, which smells so strongly?
Astrupturen itself was closed but -- thank the heavens and despite the fact that summer and the tourists are long gone -- it's open tomorrow. So more on yet another distant relative in the next bulletin.
I'm glad today has been family-oriented. My mother's mother would have been 100 years old today. She's been remembered, today as always, with enormous affection in Norwich, in Paris, across Oslo and here on the road; by children, grandchildren, greatgrandchildren and her surviving sister. Mormor was very special.
And Norway beat Hungary 4-1 in Budapest. Almost enough good news to make me forget the rain. Almost, but not quite.
Comments
By Mike | September 3, 2006 9:57 PM
*Brilliant*! Thanks Nick, Dr Rakesh and Diego for getting this sorted. Muchas gracias.
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By Nick | September 3, 2006 1:02 PM
Just uploaded the updated map file, refreshed, and eureka! Is that you I see waving when I zoom in close?
Behave – big brother is watching you!