HICKATHRIFT PRESS

A beautiful start to the morning, getting out of bed onto the carpet of ladies’ smocks, cranesbills, Achillea mollis and wild garlic. Sun shining on the seaweed, across the fjord and on my back, as we’re sheltered in our little rocky haven. A good day to be alive, and even the tent is dry, so I pack up quickly. The food pannier has dried out overnight on its little hogweed stand, a miracle, and is ready for restocking.

The route continues around the coast undulating up and down. It’s a day for just loving being on the bike.

We pass through deciduous woodland, leaves just popping out of their winter buds, and large open landscapes with backdrops of snowy mountains and the turquoise-coloured bay.

A lovely lady, Lesley, contacts me on Facebook saying, ‘You will pass through Flekke this morning. Stop in the Joker and restock food and have a coffee and a chat!’. That would have been amazing, but I’m following the coast road round and will miss Flekke. I’m very sad.

The white wood anemones are much bigger and brighter today, maybe something to do with the cold.

It’s just warm enough to take off my soft shell jacket. The village of Sabotage looms in a little inlet. I look at Google maps to see if there’s a shop. There is. I continue for a few metres. Garmin shouts at me. Shop! Again a way point put on the route through winter planning. I stop. Now let’s have a rethink. Every cloud has a silver lining, and throwing away most of the food could help. We now know how the shops work, what’s available and where the shops are. So maybe we don’t need to carry so much. The trouble is that macaroni that cooks in 3 minutes comes in kg boxes. I buy new plastic bags, bag it up into four portions, so it’ll fit easier in the pannier and that will be dinner for the next five days with some fresh veg and a protein. I buy one cuppa soup. Easy to get here. I was carrying six. I buy a pastry for my second breakfast with a cafe lait. I sit and repack the pannier. We’re sorted.

We’re cycling up and down through a mixture of big landscapes with views of the fjords and through woodland of Scots pine, Norway spruce, birch and Rowan, Bilberry and heather. The geology and soils here are obviously acidic, distinctive from the plant communities I was looking at earlier today. I pass a gaggle of men chatting, obviously loggers managing the woodland.

My ride manager tells me the ferry times, but in my head I just know the last one is three o’clock . I’ll be there ages before then. I don’t rush, but by luck I get there five minutes before the 1255 is due… according to the ride manager. But there’s no ferry visible on the horizon. I ask the engineer who’s maintaining the ferry docking mechanisms. It looks very high tech. He says it’s not until 1550- 3 hours time. The ride manager says there could be one at 1345. After a while the engineer comes to have a chat. I ask him about the 1345 ferry, he rings someone to see what they can do, but he’s two minutes too late to turn that ferry around. Neither the ride manager or I have obviously sussed the ferries yet.

The cloud comes in and it’s cold waiting for the ferry for three hours with just an open bus shelter to wait. No toilet, no power. It starts to rain. I bring Margaret into the bus shelter too. Im really cold.

A couple arrive to sit on the quay snugged up in their camper van. They look like they’ll be here a while. I ask if they will power the power bank and Garmin. They kindly do. But for the second time today, it looks like that powerbank discharged all it’s energy last night and now it’s not working. It is my least powerful powerbank, I’m carrying four, but it is the one convenient to carry in the handlebar bag and it’ll take charge from the solar panel.

The quayside looks over a large expanse of water with a backdrop of snowy mountains. A willow warbler and blackbird sing from the banks, whilst a grey heron watches the Canadian geese being their normal noisy and confrontational selves. Arctic terns sit on the water and a big red and yellow boat steams through dominating a little blue and white ferry.

The ferry arrives. I go inside for warmth. Arriving at Askvoll there are a few shops. I’m not going to search for meths yet, we’ll see how we do. But I buy the ingredients for dinner and waterproof up.

I cycle along a fjord in the valley of waterfalls. Waterfalls falling from the very tops of a series of mountains, as i dive under a series of tunnels. I camp in the top of the V of a fjord at Strongfjord and cook dinner in the rain before I fall asleep.