Flying back & app info

After arriving back in Alta and extricating Claud from the underbelly of the bus, I treated myself to one last salad bowl at Bunnpris & Gourmet near the Cathedral of the Northern Lights, before heading off on a 15 minute ride to the airport. More in hope than expectation I asked one of the baggage handlers there if he happened to have an empty bike box lying around, and he returned with an excellent one, saving the Ven. from the indignity of travelling in fridge wrapper. Different airlines have different policies on how to pack your bike. Some insist on a box, while others, like Norwegian, which I flew with, will allow you to simply remove the pedals, fix the handlebars sideways, and take off the front wheel, but a cardboard bike box is obviously much better. My plan had been that after packing the bike and consolidating my panniers, tent, etc. into a single foldaway holdall -- a task that took longer than packing the bike, oddly enough -- I would snooze on the comfortable benches in the airport foyer before rising at five am to check Claud in. Several other cyclists and backpackers had the same idea, but none of us had realised that the small airport closes completely between 11pm and 4.30 am, and we all had to leave. On the advice of the kind baggage handler, I headed to the airport taxi shelter (a bus shelter with doors) and slept soundly on its wooden bench with the bike beside me. If I'd known this was going to happen I wouldn't have packed away my camping mat, because that would have ensured an even more comfortable night. I offer this information for the benefit of anyone else planning a stay in the bijou shelter. It helped that, according to temperature gauge on the aerodrome façade, when I arose from my boudoir at 4.45 am, it was still 19 degrees outside -- at latitude 69.99 north!

We flew at 7.00 on the dot, our Boeing 737-800 landing again after just 20 minutes in the air at Tromso to refuel and board more passengers, then onto Oslo, arriving 10 minutes early. There I had a relaxing four-hour wait before our onward flight to Edinburgh. I was awoken by the start of our descent to see Dundee and the Tay Bridges below us. We then flew over Perth, my local city, with a great view of Moncreiffe Island, with its allotments and golf course, landing 20 minutes early in Edinburgh. After an anxious moment when it appeared the Ven Claud had not been re-loaded in Oslo, a very efficient chap from Swissport, the Edinburgh cargo handers, found the old machine "behind the wrong door". Soon afterwards it was reassembled and we were on an express bus prior to our final ride of the trip -- a swift eight miles from Bridge of Earn back home.

I'm told I came back looking "streamlined". Turns out I lost four kilogrammes. I put this down to the exercise -- it was undoubtedly the toughest ride I've done, in a physical sense. Others, who know me well, says it's just that the high cost of food in Norway put me off eating. (For others considering a trip, the only vaguely-reasonable supermarket chain I found is called REMA 1000 -- there are no real discounters like Aldi or Lidl. However I learned rather late what should have been obvious -- that salmon in Norway is not too expensive, and is easy to cook with noodles on a camp stove, although you do need to find a shop with a fishmonger to slice you off a single portion.)

Navigation & apps

As for my Istanbul trip, I used the British and mostly free "CycleTravel" website and app for route planning on my laptop and navigation on my phone. I also took Norway section of Bikeline's Panorama guide to Euro Velo 1 and, as always, carried a paper map (Marco Polo) as back up. The latter was sometimes a bit hard to follow, not least because various places in Norway have alternative names. I also consulted Matthew Tolley's website CycleNorway. To unlock some of the information one requires to pay, however.

No-one cycling in Norway should neglect to download the national public transport app Entur for checking ferry times and routes, and which will sometimes also allow you to buy tickets. It often says "no tickets available", however this doesn't seem to mean no seats -- it just means pay when you board. All car ferries are free for cyclists and pedestrians, but, if you use them, you'll obviously have to pay for buses, express boats, the coastal steamers, and trains. If you're over 67 you get the "honor" (senior) rate, which is half price. I gather there are also discounts for students. I tried the wild-camping app iOverlander, which twice flagged up spots I used; one of them was very nice indeed and I doubt I'd have found it otherwise. However I found most spots just but looking and/or asking around.  I found the official Norwegian weather app Yr useful and accurate.

I am glad I carried water purifying tablets on this trip -- I frequently had no access to tap water and had to fill my water bottles from streams and waterfalls. I would recommend no-one cycling and wild-camping in Norway should travel without a supply.

I think this will have been my last long cycle trip for a little while. Still, the Euro Velo 1 runs all the way to Portugal and picking off the rest in wee bits -- starting with the Scottish section -- could be interesting. After that, who knows? But as for now, the immediate future for the Venerable Claud Butler is back to the daily commute...