Riksgraens Norge

Well, if you haven't checked it out on a map (or heard it from me), I was inevitably heading for the northwest and if you know a bit of geography, Sweden did not conquer the entire Scandinavian peninsula and there yet another country there - Norway. So it turns out, that is exactly where I was heading for.

There were still over 50 kilometers of Sweden left and Sweden is famous for its elk, correct? They wanted to take a good look at me and me at them and around 8:30 that morning it happened. I stopped, they stopped, only I had a camera, they had no objection, but were seemingly a bit bored. After letting the tourist snap his pictures, they slowly retreated where they came from, into the thick woods. Even without the elk, it was a beautiful stretch of the road, I think a road about half as broad would have been plenty. Peter called me on the phone, we chatted for some 5 minutes and two cars passed by. After curving around a lake forever, I reached the Riksgraens Norge, which denotes the beginning of the country. Still on the Swedish side, I had a burger for breakfast and bought some groceries, fully expecting Norway to be even more expensive than Sweden.

Then I took my first step (well, not really, as I was on the bike) into Norway. They listened to my pleas of smaller roads - the road suddenly became half so wide, not all well kept, bit of a surprise. Just as my first few miles into Sweden were somewhat disappointing, I took a while to like Norway. I saw a big sign "NO CAMPING" next to a small lake - wow, they are harsh. The scenery changed as well - the lush green vegetation gave way for barren mountains. The folks at the local information office were less friendly than in Sweden. The prices were sky-high, for some basic groceries I paid over Eur 15 or so, about 3 times more than in Austria.

In the town of Trysil I found a bike shop and bought a new tire for the rear wheel - it was so worn out, without any profile that I was afraid it was disintegrate any second. It wasn't expensive at all - paid about the same price as back home and left me with one thing less to worry about.

I was missing my Sweden pretty much the whole day, it was somewhat of a monotonous ride - no, not ugly, but it wasn't as wild, not as exciting as the previous days had been. In the evening, as it goes, I was getting tired. So let's see - no hotel, no camping, there were a lot more of these in Sweden. Finally, it says campground, this might be quite a wet night, as there were some dark clouds nearing, and sure enough, by the time I had reached the camp site, it was raining. The only issue was that the campground had been closed for the last 10 years. Oh well. The next town: there is a hotel sign, good! By that time, it was raining quite hard. I ask a few people where the hotel is, they say, about 30 kilometers away. I thought they were joking; oh no - no hotel is site. The town I was in had a market event, they had a number of stalls covered with tents. So I asked a lady if I could put up my tent under one of those covers; with brilliant English she denied it - not the slightest hint of compassion.

There was a gas station full of young kids, a lady behind the counter making some food for them and two guys talking. I approached the guys, who seemed a bit irritated by being interrupted, asking if they knew some B&B close by. The one said, well, about 20 kilometers away, it was 9 pm and raining, but then he looked at me and said 'but I can drive you there, not an issue'. First, I did not plan to accept his kind offer, but I was left with bleak alternatives (it's no fun riding at night in the rain); when he told me the first 10 kilometers are uphill, he had a winner. The kids were his and so was the gas station, so I bought some of his stuff (ice-cream, candy) of his kids...He went home with his nice Audi and came back with a VW pick-up and we started riding. I was a bit cursing at myself, as this stretch of the road was by far the nicest throughout the trip, plus eventually the rain had stopped and we saw a giant rain-bow. Anyhow, we reached a camping, with a hut to rent for a small fortune (around Eur 80 - for this price, I had stayed at a 5-star hotel in Prague...), where I dozed off even before I could brush my teeth.