Norway 2025 Day 2: Sletta – Leirvik

Distance:

43.6 miles

Time: 4:45

Elevation Gain: 2,900 feet

There had been, what could only be described as biblical, showers overnight, and although I’d been hiding away inside the campsite seating area for the most part, it was an excellent test for my new tent. I had bought a Big Agnes Copper Spur earlier in the year, and as it was almost a kilo lighter than my previous tent, I had brought it along – despite being skeptical about its poor weather performance.

Well, now it had had a significant test, rain couldn’t really get any heavier, and the gusting winds had been fairly fierce too, and it had held up well.

Although the severity of the showers had dropped a notch or two by morning, a few showers of what I categorise as Pacific Northwest, rolled on through, sudden heavy and brief.

Leaving the campsite in the dry, it was raining again by the time I cycled back up to the main road. I was dismayed to find that the petrol station in the tiny settlement was shut, as it was a Sunday it would have been one of my few opportunities to stock up on supplies for the day.

Drawn in by the cafe sign outside the village’s impressive church building, I ventured inside. The lady running the small cafe and gift shop, only had coffee and cake, so that would do for starters. She quizzed me on my trip and hoped for good weather on my behalf, before drawing a blank when trying to think of campsites I’d be passing on my route. I was beginning to think that they might not be as easy to come across as I’d hoped.

Settling back into my rhythm, I pedalled along the 565 as it meandered along bays and hopped over islets in the North Sea.

Taking my chance for some sustenance at the XY petrol station in Mastrevik, the burger and fries I had there was one of the few opportunities to fuel I found all day.

Another opportunity, after 17 miles, was on the first ferry of the route, between Leirvag and Slovag. Whilst the motorists stayed in their cars, I found a small self-service cafe and indoor seating area. Quite well appointed for a 20 minute crossing.

Exiting the ferry terminal on road 57, I was hatching a plan. This road led all the way to another ferry terminal at Rutledal, 20 miles away. The cycle route seemed to start off along the road for the first 10 miles or so, before taking a route three times as long for the last part. There were four reasons I could think of for them not using the 57 the whole way: there was a tunnel you weren’t allowed to cycle through, it was too busy, it was prohibitively hilly, or the alternative route was unmissably beautiful. So, I looked up the tunnel map, and there was no tunnel, it was a Sunday and the roads seemed reassuringly quiet, I’d take any hill over travelling 3 times the distance, and no level of beauty was that unmissable. Decision made.

As it happened, my new route suited me nicely. After a steep climb out of Nordgulen, the road rolled past a pair of stunning lakes surrounded by steep-sided mountains, and as the road reached the end of the valley, I could feel it trending upwards, the road rearing up steeply away from the lake, the car-and-a-half width surface barely wide enough to fit my bike alongside a passing car. But, soon I was up and out and the road traversed an open col before plummeting down towards the sparkling sea, and at 20:45 I made my second ferry of the day.

Norway 2025 Day 1: Bergen – Sletta

Distance: 38.08 miles

Time: 4:32

Elevation Gain: 2,696 feet

It might not be the most sensible way to start the first day of a 1200 mile cycle tour, but I had engineered my whole trip so that I could factor in a parkrun, so it seemed unlikely that I’d back out now. It was a kilometre to the start of Lovstien parkrun, and much of that was steeply uphill. Not that this was a surprise as the terrain to the south of the hotel towered over the city, the lower reaches covered in the colourful wooden houses for which Bergen is famous, and above that a thick forest rose into the sky.

The parkrun course ran through the forest and was a double out and back, twice, if there is such a thing. On the first lap of the course, I was happy that I’d kept my effort to a manageable level – despite the steep hills and super-high humidity – but inevitably on the second lap I saw that there were a few places to be taken and got a little carried away, finishing in a reasonably satisfying 10th place.

Happy with my morning’s efforts, I made it back in time to have breakfast in the hotel’s 5th floor restaurant, which gave lovely expansive views over the city.

Finally packed and ready to roll – just as check out finished at 12 o’clock – I made my way into town, keen to sample the ambience of Bryggen’s historic port before joining the Norwegian section of Eurovelo 1, The Atlantic Coast Route.

Almost instantly I was muttering in annoyance as the cycle path I was on suddenly disappeared in front of me – due to repair works being carried out on a tunnel – so I had to bump back down onto the road.

As I pedalled around the first headland, the terrain was relatively flat, and shortly afterwards I was sitting overlooking the cojoined fjords of Sognefjord and Hardangerfjord, eating a picnic of Flotemysost (a version of the traditional Brunost, brown cheese, made with sheep’ milk instead of goats’) and strawberry jam, on pancakes (traditionally waffles), a flavour combination I’d first tried at the cafe on the previous day’s train.

Some steeper inclines sapped my strength in Morvik and Mjolkeraen before the stiffest test yet took me up and over to the first of a pair of bridges that would see me hopscotching across the bay to Knarvik.

After stopping at the Kiwi supermarket in Ikenberget for a tasty pasta salad, I’d had enough of overcomplicated cycling infrastructure when I ended up steeply dropping down into an underpass, before struggling up the other side, all to cross the road to a cycle path that stopped at a bus stop, 50 yards later.

Luckily, soon afterwards, the cycle path alongside the 565 petered out, and when the route forked off to meander around in a tangential direction, I opted to carrry on along the pretty fjord, on the direct, quiet road I was on. And, with one last climb to overcome, the road dropped down to Sletta Kai og Fritid, the only campsite I could find for miles around.

Norway 2025: On The Move

On leaving the campsite in Oslo – for the last time – I passed a fellow camper from a neighbouring pitch who I’d seen looking at my bike when it was chained up against a post at the site.

‘Are you a climber she asked’? Taken aback by the comment, I could only muster a look of bewilderment in response. ‘Petzl’ she responded, pointing at the climbers’ chalk bag I’d mounted to my handlebars as an ad-hoc storage solution. ‘Ah, well yes I am, but I have other chalk bags for climbing’. It turned out she was in the area with her partner because of the excellent climbing terrain in the vicinity.

Today, I was making for the train, hoping to cover almost 500 km on the Bergen line, allegedly one of Europe’s most beautiful train journeys. At this time, I have no information as to whether the reviewer had compared it to the West Highland Line…

During the early stages of the journey, I was struck by the virtually full tree cover of the landscape, that and the number of tunnels.

As the hours passed we trundled by a number of stunning lakes, stopping at some implausibly tiny settlements, at one of which we were told we could leave the train as it was going to be 2 hours until they could find a driver to cover the rest of the route, fortunately it wasn’t quite that long.

The line wended its way higher to its max elevation, at 1200 metres, in the middle of a huge snow encircled plateau, before, another barrage of tunnels brought us out onto a pretty fjord on our last approach to Bergen.

The 8 hours had flown by, although it had been a tough shift for my power bank, which was now fully depleted, it was lucky I had a hotel booked for the evening.

Charging batteries was certainly a priority in choosing to stay in a hotel before my first day’s cycle, but was it of greater priority than the fact that tomorrow was Saturday, and Bergen had a Parkrun?

Norway 2025: The Skrik

If you are wondering why I am starting a journey from Bergen to Tromso, in Oslo, an option that is vastly more complicated and quite a lot more expensive too, it is because I have long been due a trip to the Norwegian capital and this seemed like too good an opportunity to miss.

When I was studying art in school, the work of Edvard Munch captured my imagination with his expressive brushwork and dramatic use of colour. If it hadn’t been for the fact that first the Nasjonal Museet and then the Munch Museum had been closed for lengthy periods to move into new buildings, I would have been long before now.

On the way back into town Google maps managed to pare the 6 mile route down to 7.5 miles, tough going in the bright sunshine. Luckily, if the 20°C temperature was too much for me, my itinerary for the day largely comprised of visiting art galleries, so I wouldn’t be complaining for too long.

Passing by the Opera House, it looked resplendent and I tried my best to drag myself away for my 1PM appointment at the Munch Museum next door.

In its current home since 2021, the building has 11 floors but surprisingly little exhibition space considering the quantity of works by the Munch they must have, much of which must be in storage.

At the heart of the exhibit is a rotation of 3 lesser versions of the Scream, each of which was being displayed for half an hour at a time before transitioning to a neighbouring work. The more famous version of the painting has lived at the Nasjonal Museet since it opened in 2022, and if my visit was anything to go by, is constantly guarded. Perhaps, due to the fact that versions of this painting do seem to go missing…

After completing the cultural element of the trip impressively early, I picked up a new bike pump at the supersize sports good warehouse XXL, before making my way along the dock to Vippa, an international food court and beer garden in an old warehouse building beside the fish market.

It was promisingly busy, which I decided must be testament to, either: the quality of the food, or the low price of the beer, which at £7 seemed reasonable considering Norway’s reputation for being eye-wateringly expensive.

As it happened, the food was worth staying for too, and I was furnished with Himalayan pork dumplings – called Momos – from one stall, and chicken gyros from another.