map of biking part

Took long but now the map is almost ready.... in some places I have took different ways to cross mountains (for example some serpentines instead of tunnels etc.... Google maps just doesn't give any bicycle roads after Dalen).
Here it is: Map :D

Way back home

Enough! Nordic culture and weather is not for me. Beauty of landscape is not the only thing that I need to be happy and enjoy travelling. Also some human relations and days off are needed. I am like a vampire of energy, charging my batteries by talking and joking with people.... without it I get tired much faster and that's what happened this time.
First I caught one Dutch camper car and got near to continent again, then I had long waiting under the rain just somewhere until one german guy with a small and full car picked me up. Huuh back to continent.... again waiting in petrol station and searching for somebody going to right direction. Hmmm, how about truckdriver with Lithuanian registration plate? Going to Kiruna in Sweden? Yes! :D. Night in Kiruna and next day towards Töre (place quite close to Finnish border) with the same driver, Oleg from Ukraine. Some biking and hitching again. Ole! Finish trucker going to Oulu. Oulu was a good experience with lot of interesting people walking around, enjoying long daylight. This night was long and much less sober than it used to be in Norway.

Back to the road next morning. Now it started to be harder because motorway began, which means that I needed to find secondary road to get to nearest petrol station on motorway. Ok, it wasn't that hard and the first driver I asked (Latvian) gave me a lift to Jyväskylä. There I got a strong shower again, just to remind me to not return in northern countries :D. Another 150 kms with one finnish trucker, the last part of the way with a sport car and I was in Helsinki. I felt almost home. Just needed to get to friends' place and enjoy the evening in Helsinki.... and next morning as well.

Tired of beauty I looked for another kind of beauty in Helsinki

Koht lillelastele. Un posto per figli dei fiori.

Now I only needed to take a ferry to Tallinn, well, after some bouldering in Helsinki of course ;). Cave boulderkeskus in Pasila district was a nice discovery.

Home, sweet home!

So it was 3 days of hitching to get to Kiel,  3 days having fun with friends in the town, 30 days of biking, 4 days in lofoten and 3 days hitching to Helsinki and 1 day Helsinki-Tallinn. All together 44 days, a bit more than 3000 km biking. 💪😪😫🙉🙌 Probably the hardest trip I've done, at least psychologically.....which actually means also physically as mental an physical health tend to be strongly connected..... or was it another way around? 😁😜

Finish: Lofoten islands

Already during first days in Norway I had changed my final destination. At first it was Nordkapp but then I understood that actually there will be nothing to do in this well-known place. Often people just go there, take some photos and escape the wind as fast as possible.... It was far from my dreams, so I set Lofoten islands as my final destination. It's one of the best areas for traditional climbing in Norway. Exactly what I needed because I really would like to get some experience in trad.

Lucky me! I found a climbing budy from the Bodö-Moskenes ferry :D. He was going to climb with two of his friends who had a camping car and they just picked me up as well. Big thanks to Stian, Magnus and Eirik! Even though I spent in Lofoten much less time than I planned, I'm still happy for those 3 days in Paradiset with them.  I got the chance to try multi-pitch trad climbing :D and also a lot of scrambling on rocks, good dinner that we made of fish caught by Magnus near our camp, meeting with a bad-ass fox at night (well, it was midnight sun, so I can't really call it night but....sleeping time, lets say). It was first time to camp more than 1 night in same place during the trip. The nature (read: weather) of Norway just doesn't give you the possibility to stay and enjoy. Run, or suffer cold and being wet!!

Warning: There is strong wind or a lot of sand-flies and some mosquitos in most of places.... I even don't know which of them I prefer: Mosquitos or wind, that is the question.

Thats Lofoten - just a lot of naked rocks. Who was the first to think that it's possible to live there? Some climber?

Just look at the color of the sea!

 When my climbing companions left, I needed to hit the road again... to find somebody else from Hennigsvär climbing cafe for example. There were actually more ordinary tourists and not that many climbers this day. I virtually just lost this day because it was still quite good weather but nobody to climb with.... in the evening it started to rain and thats it.... I went to Svolvär (the biggest town nearby), where I met two hitchhikers to talk to and cook dinner with....some shitty fast cookable rice :D..... outdoors everything tastes good
It was so wet everywhere that I tried to find some kind of roof.... luckily there was something called Fast Hotel which was basically a hotel without reception... you just need to go in, book and pay a room using the computer there.... the good thing was that the computer was usable also for other things, for example getting some info about climbing rocks nearby (27 crags is really useful website).
After spending many hours with this slow computer I continued to search for some dry place for sleeping. How about gym of refugee house? Yep, why not! Done! 4,5 hours of sleep there and I was ready for next day.... weather was also ready to give me some water and forecast for 2 next days didn't give anything better, so I just understood that It was better to finish my trip and start hitchhiking back to Estonia.

Back to reality -rain and fog. Anyway 2,5 days of sunny weather was more than I expected :D

last days on mainland

From Flatanger to Bodö it was really hard.

Walking out of Flatanger, trying to hitchhike back to my bike

After Namsos it started to be always up and down. I really prefer real mountains.... those hills make me much more tired. Sitting on saddle 3 hours and moving only 20 kms.... with pauses it will be almost ok, but as I was going continuously, I got quite pissed off. At least the nature was so clean, that it was not a problem to take drinking water from lakes. Following the coastal road I met a lot of other cyclers, all going to Nordkapp (or coming from there). More north I got, more beautiful it was. Naked rocks growing out of the sea.... What did people think when they settled down there? No vegetation, unfriendly climate etc.... I was told that in north people is more opened and talkative.... I was unlucky then, because I didn't find too many of them. Only once, taking water from one lake, I met three real nordic person with good sense of humor ;), yeah, some nice irony and jokes that will be hard to understand for people from south 😆😆.

I needed to take many ferries to cross all those bloody fjords...  some times I was lucky enough to sneak in without ticket, otherwise it would have been too expensive ;)
Anyway i needed to sneak in many places, for example a laundry room of an hotel when it was raining again and I had no idea how far was my destination for that day.... it was already midnight and there was nobody in reception... so laundry room was mine! I got the possibility to dry my things... some hours (needed to wake up early to avoid problems)

100 km before bodö

Ekne-Flatanger

Too many sandflies.
Now im minna white without eliminating autocorrection mistakes. Will be funny.
Just before kraaving from ekne climbing spotlight i ent two other climbers. I jooned them.... Rwalls happy to not make back all tühise extra jms that i had made to get there. Sünnini in the freezing fjordid was also memorable.

Ok, now no autocorrection... already at home, writing with computer:
First destination after Ekne was Flatanger (another sport climbing paradise). At night I stayed in small town called Steinkjer. Finally a place with some movement, bars and possibility to meet some people also after 10 pm. Guess what, most of my conversation partners in local bar were still foreigners (brazilians, panaman, eritreans)... where are all norvegians? At home? Why aren't they enjoying the polar day (almost midnight sun :D)? The most common and boring beer costs ca 9 eur and better stuff some 12-15 eur. Ridiccolous ;D.
In the morning I continued to Flatanger. It was 40 kms from my road, so I stopped in Sjöasen, left my bike next to a shop and hitchhiked to Ström where the climbers camping place was. First thing now was to find some climbing partners. I scrambled up to the famous cave, but there were not too many people - just 2 czechs, finishing their climbing day.... ok, no climbing this evening, maybe next day. They told me about one polish guy who volunteered in the camp and was also looking for climbing companions. Yuhuuu, I found this guy, named Krzysiek. He was really helpful and welcoming traveller. It was so nice to have some longer conversation and nice time with somebody after so long time of cycling in the middle of nowhere. To stay in the camping site with my tent I needed to pay 9 euros (cheap for Norway, but still 2x my daily budget :D) and it was the only night that I needed to spend directly under the heavy rain. Usually I found some roof (garage or supermarket roof or bus stop or somebodys abandoned veranda for camping when it was raining), but there I didn't have this possibility, because I payed only for tent, not for roof ;D). Only time i payed for sleeping and only time that I finished completely wet, swimming in my tent with my sleeping bag).
Krzysiek was too good climber compared to me, but still we managed to climb some routes together. Hahaa, I'm sorry for my panic moments up there on the rock, I hope he dont mind :D.

In the down right corner, behind bushes there is the cave. Its possible to climb also when its raining (just all the routes are too hard for me... starting from grade 7a, 7b)

View from climbing spot. If you really try, you'll see also the face of Krzysiek.

Rock with some easier routes.... I didnt get there, because I was already going :/

Road to Hell (and e

It has been a long pause in updating. No time. After climbing in Stryn i escaped in hurry, because weather forecast gave a terrible weather for next day. I started cycling at midnight. Up-up-up and at 4am when i got out of a long tunnel i found myself in tundra between mountains. It was 2 degrees... Prrrr.
This bloody tundra was endless
second part of the day was nice but sleepy... Hard to .sit on saddle. I got hosted in a big van again. Yep, it was a nice motokross family.
27.06 Vågåmo-Oppdal...

Vagamo

Somewhere there you will find the home of Kristin Lavrandsdatter :D

another wooden church

Nice weather.... can you believe it? Better don´t, its not gonna last too long

....but as long as it was nice, I enjoyed it

quite mild uphill and hard downhill (i had head wind, so i went downhill slower than usually on flat land. Next day the same- riding to Trondheim should have been easy (600 m dislevel... Downhill) but because of the wind it was super hard and also boring as it was the main road. In trondheim i sent directly to hipster/hippie/anarchist district to avoid weird turistic and and fancy bars. Good decision :D. I found some conversation partners and host
29.06 trondheim-hell-enne. Destination: climbing. Up and down, near the fjord. First part was easy. I got to hell and hoped to find a lot of climbers on the rock but i forgot that some people are also working,  so they come after 16. Actuall it was also hard to find the rock. Lot of suffering for climbing...

Well, thats the price of hobbies'. There were only 2 swedes. Ok, i climbed 1 route with them before they left. I continued my way to Ekne...there should be about higher wall.  Until midnight i tried to find this famous climbing area... I didn't have success.so i ended up camping on a flat rock next to the fjord.

Wanted to make a bonfire but the amount of sandflies was too much for me, so i just lighted my gas stove in my tent. Good night!!