B makes his mark!

Day 12


Before we start. Happy Birthday to the two readers of this Blog who celebrate their birthdays, albeit an ocean apart, this Thursday 20 September. Now C if you can puzzle that one out you deserve another prize!
OK, now I'm ready. Lets Go! In each journey comes a stage when you just have to get from A to B. Today was a day like that. We were back on the E6. Heading south but we had covered all this ground before, albeit travelling north and in wetter conditions. Our original intention had been to go to the Snasa Hotell but when we checked with the Tourist Office last night it was booked out. The two women at the office spent a ling time trying to get us an alternative and eventually booked us into Grong. We also discovered that Oslo was heavily booked and could not get an alternative. We decided to get an early start and went as far as Mosjoen Tourist Office to get Oslo sorted. Well actually I felt we should stop in Steinkjer but fortunately once on the road B realised I had underestimated the distance and pulled off the E6 and into Mosjoen.

This was an unusual town I thought. A bit like what American frontier towns might have been like. There seemed to be lots of space available and the buildings were all low and similar. Finding the Tourist Office proved to be a bit of a challenge. I walked the main street a couple of times without success. Although it was a little after nine the place was just coming to life. Traders were setting up for a market day and I was unlucky that those I spoke to could not speak English. This was unusual. Local teenagers waiting to get into class were like teenagers everywhere and gave me funny responses in Norwegian which were beyond my comprehension but had their mates in peals of laughter. Eventually one said ‘we don’t know’. Fair enough, the town is small enough so I walked on and just as I got to the edge of town there it was … but not open yet. The notices sugggested it would be open at 10. I walked back to the bikes and we brought them to the Office. The scene here was reminiscent of an older Ireland. The regional bus arrived and waited until a woman cycled up to it, chatted with the driver and collected her parcel: would Bus Eireann do that now? 10:00 came and went with no sign of the Office opening. We were just about to give up when a girl arrived and opened up. It was worth the wait as she put a lot of effort into getting us accommodation just outside Oslo in Lillestrom. This booking-ahead practice really does take the pressure off accommodation seeking upon arrival.

Back on the bikes and we retraced out route to the point where we had entered Nordland some days earlier. We met some guys from York who were heading north and had a pleasant conversation with them over a coffee. The weather in England was bad; had been raining continuously for over a week. They also suggested an alternative routes in an attempt to avoid the dreaded M62.

Our next stop was at the Laksforsen Falls where we had more coffee and sticky buns. Laksforsen is a very wide and scenic river waterfall on the Vefsna River, tumbling some 16 metres in height. The falls, mentioned in the Rough Guide, are very popular but we were glad of the large car park, excellent restaurant, and souvenir shop. The word "laks," by the way, is Norwegian for "salmon," and this place was once a popular salmon fishing spot. Fossen, I think is the usual word for waterfall and the use of "forsen" reflects a mixture of Swedish and Sami influences.








Today was 18 June 2007. That day the Boston Redsox were playing the Atlanta Braves at Turner Field in Georgia. Coco Crisp tripled his season home run total by hitting two solo shots, but the Red Sox couldn't overcome a poor start by Curt Schilling in the series opener. The multi-homer game was the first of Crisp's career. The Sox lost by 9-4. Despite the loss the Sox had won 44 and lost 25 games to that point in the season and were ahead of the Yankees who had won only 35 and lost 32. The exhortation of the Sox fan is to BELIEVE! They (we) needed to do that in the years to 2004 as they never managed to win the World Series in 86 years. Tough on loyal fans! But faith was rewarded in a memorable series in 2004 which ended in Boston winning the World Series championship at Busch Stadium against the St. Louis Cardinals. In the process, the Sox set a record with their eighth straight postseason victory. Critically four of those had been against their arch rivals the NYY (Yankees). I&R kept us posted with the results as we progressed along our route. At this point we continued to believe! Today (if you get my drift) is also exactly three months on and now, with 11 games to go the Magic Number is 9: I hope ye are all Sox fans now!

We made Grong at about 15:30 hrs and checked into the hotel - Vertshuset. We has a really good room compete with balcony. A popular hotel with the fishing community, the whole village seemed to be dedicated to fishing; every other car carrying a couple of rods.









B made good use of the spare time we had available and cleaned his bike. Mind you, as the picture on the left shows, it had lost the shine with which it set out from Dublin. That's a handprint in the collected dust of Norway that had gathered on the pannier. And the bike made an impression on Grong too. It sank slowly into the tarmac outside the hotel, leaving an imprint as a reminder of its presence!



We had difficulty getting web access at the hotel so we tried the local library. There ‘Beata’ looked after us really well and helped us in our search for our final hotel bookings. During the course of this she told us she came from Tromso, which is a long way north of here. Like others we met, she was looking forward to the day she could get out of Norway! Many of the young people we met had the same attitude.


The next photo is a reminder to respect the fact that tankers need to get access to the valves at a petrol station. The car, in a large and mostly unoccupied car park, had decided to park next to where the tanker driver needed to attach his hoses. After much bouncing and shoving the car was moved!!



We had done 288 kilometres that day in sunny dry and cold conditions. How better to end the day than by maintaining standards with a liberal application of polish to the boots while having a pint on the balcony.

Back in Dublin the papers reported that the outgoing Green Party leader, Trevor Sargent, was declared himself absolutely happy with the Taoiseach's word on his personal finances when it seemed Mr Ahern was to give evidence to the Mahon tribunal in two weeks' time.

P.S. Next week's Post may be late. Let there be NO PANIC!!