Norway

What a unique experience, actually writing a blog about a country while we're still in it! I'm writing this at the farm we're WWOOFing (Willing Workers On Organic Farms) at near Trondheim.

We've been here less than a week but it feels like we've been here much longer because we've done so much.

We started out flying into Trondheim (via Stavanger and Bergen) after a train ride to Aberdeen. It was nice to arrive at Em and Chris's place at the end of a long day that included a talkative but crazy Norwegian woman at the bus stop. Cris Lovell-Smith was staying there too and we were just in time to catch Em's parents, and their dreaded highly infectious Toronto death cold.

That dude's a Viking. Must be in Norway.

Colourful Trondheim waterfront

Em and Sylv on Em and Chris's ski bridge. There are lots of cross-country ski trails leaving right from their house.

This is one such trail.

Ooh, ducklings!

Now we're WWOOFing. This is where Sylvia and I sleep.

The collection of farm buildings. The one on the right is in need of a new slate roof, fortunately the government is coming to the party with some funding because it's a historic building.

Cutting down some trees for firewood

Weeding the vegies

Getting pecked

Oh yeah, it's your birthday...

Cycle touring - western Europe

We flew to Frankfurt Hahn and biked to Amsterdam through Germany, Luxembourg, Belgium and the Netherlands. Here's a simplifed map of where we went:


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As you may notice, we chose the countries that are a) flat and b) well known for great cycle paths. Neither of these facts turned out to be strictly true! Therefore, add at least 50% to the distance...

After re-assembling our bikes, the first few days were cruisy (~50km/day) up the hot Mosel River valley. It's a well known wine growing area and has a brilliant cycle path, which was well frequented by wine-tasters.

Near the Germany border, at Trier, we met Claudia (one of Mark's climbing friends from Edinburgh) and Julian. We had a day off cycling to look around at old Roman ruins, including an amphitheatre, plus get caught in a thunderstorm (the first of many along the way). I was touched that the people next to us at the camping ground took in our washing when it started to rain.

Julian cycled with us through Luxembourg. While we'd got by on our limited Germany before, now it was super confusing because every person seemed to speak a different language. We now know how to say 'cycle path' in nearly every one of them.

Julian was trying to travel very lightly, and amused the other residents of camping grounds with his bivvy bag. He also had to completely dismantle his bike into his Tardis to take it onto the train.

We then progressed over the border to Belgium and entered Bastogne. This was the setting for Band of Brothers, the war drama series Mark and I watched recently. I don't see why they found keeping the Germans at bay so hard, as here I seem to be stopping this tank quite easily.

From Bastogne we headed north to La Roche, at the heart of the Ardennes. We had a day off and kayaked a 10km section of river. Here we are prepared to jump in our boats, dressed in all our safety equipment. Luckily it was about a grade 0.

The Belgians also had some pretty funny looking cycle paths compared to the cycle highways we had everywhere else. Mostly they were quiet roads, but for one ~20km section we ended up mostly pushing along a small muddy footpath along the river bank which ended at one point so we had to push up a hill and through a paddock of cows. Further along we also managed to bike through the middle of a cement factory following our 'cycle route'.

Shortly after entering the Netherlands Mark's camera card died, so we have no more photos. However, the last few days in Belgium and all the way up to Lelystad were pretty straightforward although possibly the hardest in the trip as it was 30+ degrees and we were trying to get in some serious kms. At Lelystad we were extremely grateful to be staying with our friend Mattijn, who generously showed us around and got us eating the local delicacies.

From here it was but a short hop to Amsterdam (actually Ijmuiden - just an unplanned extra 40km cycle, opps!) to catch the overnight ferry to Newcastle.