Meeting interesting people

Day 23: Jektvik-Sandhornøya (111 km)

We left this morning at 8:30 – half an hour earlier than my normal time because we had two ferries on our way today, and the second one had very few departures.

It was raining in the morning on our way to the first ferry from Ågskardet to Forøy. When we arrived there, we stopped for a croissant and coffee at the local shop.

Shortly before we wanted to take a lunch break, another cyclist approached us from behind. This was Harald from Austria – a crazy and very nice guy. He had started in Austria, cycled through Germany, Sweden and Norway, and this was day 20 (!) for him. This means that he cycles 180 kilometres per day in average. We had lunch with him, took the next ferry from Vassdalsvik to Ørnes together and continued for another few kilometres which was really fun. Then we took a break and he continued – he was a bit faster than us. I have to check his blog now to see if he actually cycled to Bodø today – wouldn’t surprise me.

When we reached our planned destination for today, we found out that there wasn’t any village, let alone a shop. So we filled up our water bottles at a small creek and started looking out for a tent spot. Here we met Wolfgang from Cologne who was coming from the opposite direction. He was 74 years old and had been cycling since April. He told us that there was a motel 11 kilometres from where we met where he had had fish & chips. This was so tempting that we continued even if we had cycled 100 kilometres already and actually were ready for camp. We preferred to sleep in our tents, so we sat up our tents on the island Sandhornøya very close to this motel/restaurant. Here we just had fish & chips and a waffle so that we have enough energy for our way to Bodø tomorrow.