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Hairpins I have met

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And today I met enough to keep a hair salon going forever. Big hairpin bends ,small ones,tight ones 360 degree one, hairpins inside tunnels and so the list goes on 

The day started well with three varieties of pickled herring for breakfast. Heaven!  However I did notice that one of the varieties of herring had a funny colour. Then the penny( Kroner!) dropped. It was of course a red herring! 

But let's start properly  at the beginning. Thru a slight navigational miscalculation it was a 500 km day which, given the twisty roads made it a big day and a long 10 hour day. We start off and head up a delightful drive to a town called Oddda. Yes, it does get  Odda and Odda !  The rain came down for the last half hour so it was a case if stopping and putting on the rain jackets which is normally guaranteed to make it stop raining. And they worked a treat. The rain promptly stopped. 

 

Even the sheep on the side of the road get colour blindness as we go past. However we will scare off the elk/ moose  ! 

 


Delightful views up valleys 


And tunnels. And tunnels . And tunnels! Big ones, small ones, fat ones, skinny ones, long one ,short ones, black ones, light ones. Curly ones. In fact I think some were knotted! We estimate we did up towards 60 km in tunnels today. 

This is a dark one ( in case you did not guess !)


 

And narrow ones

 


Then there were some with roundabouts in the middle of them


 

I half expected to see a McDonald's at one of the tunnel intersections! Nothing in a Norwegian tunnel would surprise me anymore. 

And here are the Norwegian cross country skiing team practicing with their summer practice. There was a squad of them and they looked deadly serious 

 

Ther were nice country vistas and one had to remind oneself that one was in Norway and not Switzerland 



 


And is this Milford Sound, Doubtful Sound, Switzerland or somewhere in Norway?

 


But the answer is obvious I cried. Look at the next photo and see if you can work out - as I did with considerable thought - why this is not Switzerland 


 

Yes, it is the tiny town of Flam and a hot destination for cruise boats doing the Norwegian coast. 

And finally we get to the turn off to the hotel. 2km to go the GPS said. Well let me tell you about that 2km little sting in the tail. It was a very narrow one way only type of road.  It was the steepest bit of hill I have ever ridden on. The bends were the toughest I had ever done. It was narrow. The bike even struggled a little in bottom gear. We get to the hotel. Knees are shaking. We check in. "Oh" says the receptionist , her eyes wide open "You came up the downhill only road! And you mean to say you did it on a motorbike? ."  We all I can see is that Diana gulped down a gin and tonic very quickly after we arrived at the hotel. Laundry night has also been bought forward!  

The hotel we are staying in was apparently a Nazi baby factory in the Second World War. Nordic genes were considered desirable.  With the stunning views from the hotel I would have been more interested in looking out the window than making babies! Or is that just my age talking? 

On that note  we are in for some more eye candy fjord hopping tomorrow as we twist and turn up to Geiranger fjord. 

Before I close off a special note. Some of you might have worked out that photos taken over my shoulder whilst driving were not taken by myself. So this is to acknowledge that quite a lot ( but not all ) of the photos  in this blog are  taken by Diana. Mine are usually taken off the bike ( for obvious reasons! ) 

Comments

Stuart of Blyth said…
Have you considered a helmet cam?

http://www.mc-ams.co.uk/blog/helmet-cams-need-one/
27 June 2016 at 18:47
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