Day 3

Friday 10th June - Day 3. Aalborg, Denmark to ???? Norway.

After a good night's sleep in our down sleeping bags and an excellent 'family' shower (10 mins allocated on each of our shower cards!) packed up and had breakfast in the fantastic communal kitchen area. Cooked porridge in the microwave. Cathy's still not accustomed to porridge with water, salt and sugar! Started to head off at 9ish for our 10.45am ferry crossing from Hirtshalls (only an hour away) to Kristiansand, but ..... The bike wouldn't start! Panic!!! A fellow camper (a Swiss Electrical engineer) said without cables we'd have to try and push it, but several attempts of that failed. Luckily, the campsite owner had a set and a quick resuscitation brought life back into the battery. Phew! The crossing took 2.15hrs and being a Cat, was extremely choppy and a lot of people - adults and children - were being sick. Had a panini each on board and did well keeping that down. Met some other bikers - 2 from Bergen and another from Italy, who works in the fish Market in Bergen. Everyone raises their eyebrows when we explain our itinerary - maybe we're being too ambitious in the time we have....

Arrived into Kristiansand around 2.30pm and rode north for a few hours. The landscape is far more rugged with mountains upon us. All the houses are of the wooden weatherboard type, mainly painted white, but there were a number of red houses too. At a stop, met a group of 4 bikers all riding BMWs who were on the ferry from Harwich. They were heading to Nordkapp for one of the chap's 68th birthday and were allowing 6 weeks (lucky them). They were heavily laden with gear and most of their food were Wayfarer meals! (and told us to give fried Spam a go!) The weather had peaked at 21 degrees and we wanted to wild camp for our first night in Norway and Nick found an amazing spot, just before ??? Roldal ??? It was absolutely stunning with snowy mountains and frozen lakes around us. You couldn't wish for a more scenic, secluded pitch! Put our Tuborg beer, milk and water in "nature's fridge", set up camp and cooked a Thai curry. Finished our beers watching the sun set. Bliss. Had a wander across the snow to the other island like mounds to get an even better view. Where some areas of the lake had melted, the mirrored reflections were like glass and the views were incredible! It was still light at about 11.30pm. Tried the eye patches once snuggled in our sleeping bags but they soon came off