Day22 - from Lörrach to home

Unfortunately for us, the train driver has had a fight with his wife the day before, and had diarrhea, and a headache, and probably also other problems that we don't know about because we had a haaard time trying to sleep in that train.
We are glad to finally arrive in Lörrach. But wait, it’s raining heaps! It is 14 degrees cold! Where are we??? We accept reality and start dressing up. Isabel's arm has swollen and she can hardly fit it into her sleeve. Miji gets the bike out of the train - head stuck to the tank and we drive on to Isabel’s parents where the promise of a rewarding meal awaits... 

In all our nostalgia for the adventure, sea and sun, we have to admit, Switzerland is also a very beautiful country.

At Isa's parents, we are spoiled with good homemade food and a comfortable bed for a quick nap. Night drops, rain, that had stopped meanwhile, has started again and we slowly feel the need to find our own home again. We attack our last 65km to Uitikon.

And here we are 7800 km later, tired, but happy and healthy, and with soo many new memories of landscapes and wildlife, and people that we have met, and meals that we have tasted, and nights that we spent in beautiful cabins, and lakes and fjords where we dipped in, and songs that we have sang, and days hoping to see the legendary, but imaginary, Scandinavian moose! 

Thank you to all our lovely hosts on the way!

Day21 - from Hirtshals to Altona

The room is so hot, we have to sleep with the window and the room-door open to get a bit of air-current. We sleep both profoundly deep to wake up for the last adventure. Miji counts his new mosquito-bites: 19 on the right leg, 14 on the left. This almost beats the Finland-record! Let’s get out of this suffocating room!

Today’s goal is to reach the Autozug in Altona, already! We had planned to just drive through Denmark on its one Autobahn… this is because we haven’t thought that after Norway, our vacation-sightseeing could still go on; but Denmark has also a nice coast-line. So we evaluate or choices: boring Autobahn/ 513km versus nice coastal road/ 700km in 9 hours. We also consider postponing the Autozug for 1 day to appreciate Denmark’s coast over two days. Impossible: there’s no Autozug the next day. We also consider just quitting our jobs… Ok… this is daydreaming Isabel, let's stick to the original plan and take the Autobahn...

With that strong resolution, we drive 5km, but just before taking the highway, we are distracted by enormous quantities of white sand and just have to stop. 

We are melting away under this heat, there is no time to consider where to hide our belongings. The bike just has to take care of it.

The water is surprisingly colder than the fjords in Norway, but soooooooo refreshing! We linger on the beach, observe crabs in the water, look for sea-shells… we just don’t want to drive on….

Oh wait! We still have to get something fixed on the bike! Miji thinks something must be wrong with the suspension and wants to have it checked. Time pushes us, so we force ourselves to head on. We find a BMW garage 100km further down the road, but they don't sell motorcycles anymore (who buys them in flat Demark anyways...). There is another garage some 250km further south. It’s 60km deviation from our way, but still south and we are almost happy to have a break of this boring Autobahn. After several stops to rehydrate, we reach the garage: oh what a surprise! It looks very well equipped and even has the new BMW GS Adventure in his exhibition. But where is everyone??? On summer vacation! The garage is closed, Miji gives up.

Back on the boring Autobahn, we repeat our song-hitlist and try to think of new songs and all of a sudden Isabel yells: stop! stop! Something is in my jacket and bit me! 
We stop on the side, Isabel throws off her jacket and a bee flies away. Her arm was stung twice. Half as bad, at least more interesting than the Autobahn. We drive on... 

We cross the border, we are in Germany, but we cannot stand this Autobahn anymore, so we deviate a bit to visit Flensburg. It is still very hot and we can’t wait to have a good German beer. We find a nice beergarden ("The most northern German brewery"). Miji orders a 1kg Schweinshax and 1L of beer. After all the Norwegian cod, we loudly think: Germans do know how to cook! Miam!

Time management is again perfect and we arrive just on time for the Autozug (even if some Co-pilot has confused check-in and boarding times!). While Miji waits in line with the other bikers, Isabel jumps of the bike to throw away the overheating, heavy biking-cloths to get into a fresh summer dress and flip flops… it is just too hot here!

Miji’s last challenge is waiting: driving the bike into the Autozug, without ripping his head off. Luckily the 1L beer makes 3D-conceptions easier.

Here we are… back in the tiniest compartment, enjoying the offered wine and trying to get some more blogging done. The electricity-plug doesn’t work – oh what a bummer! So for the first time, we actually go to bed early – well the compartment is two beds, so nowhere else to go :-).

Day20 - from Preikestolen to Hirtshals

Today is a busy day. We first have to hike up to the Preikestolen and then leave the camping at around noon to be able to ride the ~350 km foreseen and still arrive on time for checking into our ferry at 19h15 which will take us away from beautiful Norway towards Denmark, where we will stay tonight. Ufff, I got tired just by writing that...
It’s 7 a.m. and we start our hike in the comfortable morning breeze. Miji is caring the breakfast, Isa is carrying camera and bathing suits. 

We cross some other early birds going up and also others already coming down. The hike is split up in 4 uphills, nice morning exercise – especially while still carrying the breakfast!

Is he still carrying the breakfast? Ok, good...

During the last uphill, the view of the Lysefjord hits us with its beauty.

We go on and reach the Preikestolen. Miji can finally get rid of the breakfast-bag.

We both sit on the edge of the rock to enjoy our best breakfast-view ever! This place is really magical...

Tourists are starting to crowd on the rock, so we decide to slowly go on, each one trying to find the best way...

Isabel had already spotted the perfect lake to dip in on our way up… so we do…. Oh what a pleasure! Miji is so enchanted to be in the water after all that walk, that for once, he is the one that doesn't want to leave! He stays so long that some tourists are already thinking about throwing him food while he swims.

Time is running and we have to get going. We reach the motorcycle, change involuntarily into our biking-cloths under the heat of noon (31°C) and hit the road. Next stop: Lysebotn! And on the way there, let's chase sheep!

Miji was advised to absolutely drive the marvelous road down to Lysebotn. So we do… 

 
We go all the way down to Lysebotn and the same way up again (just another small detour of 100km)! The rider’s spirit is now satisfied. 

Thanks to a professional time management, we reach our ferry in Kristiansand perfectly on time. Bravo! We are about to leave beautiful, amazing, Norway, eww... that gives us a sad feeling...  we've spent a great time here... Well, there are other sad things... like not have been able to see the imaginary moose... sniff... 
Anyways, we board on the last ferry of this trip, we barely hear a lady over the speakers just before we fall asleep and wake up in Danemak...

Day19 - from Bergen to Preikestolen

We leave from Bergen as early as possible for us, meaning 12 o’clock. The sun is up telling us to have our bathing suits quickly ready at our next stop. We find our way out of the city to face more fjord-views that are never the same and we just can’t get enough of. 
Everywhere we look, there's proof of Norwegian racing talents on the road.... or tourists braking... maybe both. Miji is warned by the Co-pilote to not leave any trace!

Today’s goal is the camping close to the famous Preikestolen (pulpit rock) looking over the Lysefjord. On our way, Miji decides to skip a tunnel to enjoy more curvy roads around the mountain. We are not disappointed, the views are definitely better than the tunnel. 

We are trying to get to Bruraviki, from where our next ferry leaves. Curiously, we repeatedly see a sign with Bruraviki crossed... and then not crossed anymore, and then crossed again... We wonder what it could mean… impossible that the town just doesn’t exist anymore... mmm... weird, there are almost no cars on this road, we haven't seen any for the last 15 mins... weird... 
We just go on as planned until we reach the place of departure. Ok, ok. We get it. There is no ferry anymore!

But what should we do now? How do we get on the other side? There is nothing on the water, no boats at all, not even far away...

We decide to continue the road along the fjord… there is another ferry ~30km away... probably we can take that one... but then 3 minutes later, there is our solution! A huge bridge!!

Our road drives towards a tunnel, but this tunnel is the one we avoided earlier, mmm... we must be wrong... how do we go from the tunnel into the bridge?  mmm... and ?!!?? Why would they put a disco in the middle of the tunnel!?...

Ahh, its not a disco… but a roundabout in the tunnel! Amazing! Civil engineers in Norway must have a blast!!

We cross the bridge and, at the other side, there is another disco.... nice discooo, oups!! Wrong disco exit!  No problem, we need a break anyways! We stop at the Bu Kafè, which is just at the end of the tunnel if you take the wrong disco exit.

The owner wearing a ‘mi-casa-es-su-casa’ T-shirt explains us the story of the ferry and the bridge and the discos: It is the longest bridge in Norway and has cost 3.2 billion NOKs, well, a lot of money. The whole town was against this project, especially since the locals would have to pay a toll 3x higher for each crossing than the price of one ferry-crossing. Then there was this gigantic windstorm a few years back, and the place where the tunnel was anchored became lose. The bridge had to be closed to make new anchoring. It's a huge thing, and now, with the discos inside, tourists get disoriented and lost (blinded?) and end up in her café… she gets about 10 tourists per day, just like us. So she tells us to have a coffee, relax and get oriented again. We do as told.

Once back on the road, we go through the tunnel and disco again, take the right disco exit and… where are we??? oh! It’s Lavaux in Lausanne! This just looks alike! Except the wines are growing cherry trees. 

We stop again, to buy and taste the local Moreller.

The heat is not only getting to us. Everywhere we look, people are enjoying the cool water. We have lost some time with our disco-tunnel-experience, so we still resist doing the same.

Miji – feeling a bit lonely on these bike-perfect-roads - practices his learned echolocation… and success!  He detects a baby squid to chase and play with.

Waterfalls into the fjords are present everywhere. We pass another tourist attraction – the twin falls. Very refreshing! We go on, and oh!!!

In the middle of beautiful transparent lakes Isa yells: the lens hood is gone again! What! Nooo! How? Why!? Amazing, this last one lasted for only one day... Here is the last pic with it falling off…

Mood is tense again… how could the photographer loose it again???!!! Why is she soooo... distracted??? Hmm… beautiful scenery, 40°Celsius in bike-cloths, water all over? Might these be reasonable excuses? mm.... A few minutes later, a beautiful swimming spot presents itself, the driver silently stops… Isa jumps in… Miji follows (not daring to admit that it’s too cold for him)…. Oh what a great feeling!! The mood lightens again!! After all, it’s superb here!

The sun is about to set and we are still riding.... but it is so beautiful...

We arrive at the camping, we have lake view. We try to eat our diner outside but instead we start fighting with thousands of tiny tiny mosquitoes… they are soo small that they are almost impossible to see! What are these beasts!? They bite too! We loose the fight and escape inside. We then do a bit of blogging and get our  things ready for tomorrow’s hike.