Day 7: Isane to Skottneset (59 kms)

The lighter-loaded bike sprang along the three kilometres or so from last night's camping spot just in time to catch the 9.30 ferry for a kilometre hop across the Nordfjorden, before cycling up to the main road and heading west to rejoin the coastal route of the EuroVelo 1 which I have been anxious to regain ever since my ferry blunder three days ago landed me in the wrong location. I'd barely begun to head off down the main road, when on a long straight the Ven Claud and I had to take action to avoid a high-speed collision that would certainly have put an end to his days. As two cars approached us on a fast but narrow section, the second -- a black Merc or BMW (it had to be) -- suddenly pulled out, racing towards us at, I'd guess, 60 miles an hour. The driver clearly hadn't seen us (why do I bother with the gilet jaune, I wonder?), then suddenly realised and turned his headlights on full, when braking and pulling back in would have been the better move. My only option was to steer straight off the road, where Claud and I ended in a tangle in the grass. The old bike was fine, you'll all be pleased to know, but when I propped it up against a roadside to straighten this and that, it fell over and broke the phone holder on the handlebars. Fortunately I am carrying a spare, which even more fortunately I didn't sacrifice yesterday in my equipment cull. The maniac gone (can't have been a Norwegian, surely) we resumed our journey alongside the shore, transfixed once again by the extraordinary beauty:

Morning by the Nordfjorden

As the day wore on the mercury climbed to 26 degrees, quite something since I am already nearly 62 degrees north -- though I'm told it's not that unusual in Norwegian summers.

Turning north, I was greeted by a sign warning of a three kilometre 9 percent hill, and I decided that was the point to retreat to the shade of a bus shelter and have my bread-and-cheese lunch. Before I left, one of my friends, who was fed the stuff as a child, recommended I try Norwegian "brown cheese", a love-it-or-hate-it thing, apparently. I duly did, but must point out it is not actually cheese at all, but a kind of solid milk pudding. Imagine Dairylea slices crossed with Horlicks.

Lunch. Yum or yuck?

Just as I was contemplating the answer to this, another touring cyclist -- only the third I've seen in five days -- appeared at my bus shelter wearing a cycling jersey emblazoned with the words "NEVER UNDERESTIMATE AN OLD MAN ON A BICYCLE". I must say this was quite a surprise, and my sentiments exactly (though I was doubting myself yesterday on the climb out of Svelgen, I have to admit). I have made many friends and acquaintances at bus stops -- indeed sometimes people introduce themselves to my wife as "I'm one of Tim's bus friends -- but to meet Doug Whitehead, aged 70, former senior management consultant to the late and perhaps not totally lamented newspaper tycoon Robert Maxwell, was a surprise and delight. Doug had flown into Stockholm, and by dint of leaving his bike in its bike box managed to get Swedish state railways to do what all the information out there says they won't do, and carry him and his machine on the famous "Polar Express", or the Arctic train as it is properly called, from Stockholm to Narvik, Norway, up in the Arctic Circle. He was cycling back down when he found me, both of us having somehow ended up sightly off route. We, or rather Doug, a great raconteur, chatted for 40 minutes in the bus stop before deciding the best way up the darn hill was to push so we could continue our conversation. We parted near the summit, he to head for Maloy and the road to England, and me to head north...

Having not got quite as far as I would have without this excellent encounter, I pulled into a small paid-for campsite at a marina, where a shower, a chance to wash clothes, and to save gas by cooking in the camp kitchen, awaited me.