Bergen to Ulvik
We popped into Bergen for a final internet session in the library. Still as hilly as before, but also still dry, despite some rain in the night.
We set the sat nav, principally so we could find our way out of the city, but the amazing Moaning Minnie sent us on a tour of discovery of all the highest hills in Bergen. Well, at least they were nice views.
Outside the city at last, the map showed a stretch of about 70km which had 20 tunnels, so we decided to count them: we actually got to 34. They ranged from 67 metres to over 4km. During this epic tunnel Oddysey, we picked up two hitchhikers, students in France who were going to Voss. Talking to them, we found out these two lads had only met at Bergen, and decided to travel together. Camping on a mountain in the pouring rain didn´t appear to bother them at all.
At Voss, we found a car park and dropped the lads off, wishing them "bon voyage". We carefully parked in a marked bay, and bought a car park ticket for an hour. We were amused to see that the Norwegian car next to us, which had carelessly parked across two spaces, received a parking ticket.
Voss church is the only stone church we have seen. It also has dry stone walling at the front, which despite the abundance of rocks round here, is quite rare.
The lady in the TIC told us how to find the local Motorhome service point as marked on the road map; and we used all its facilities for free.
We noticed a waterfall was marked on the next section of road on our map. so thought we would take the opportunity to have a look, because only the bigger waterfalls are marked. However, as we entered a tunnel, we realised too late that it was bypassing the road with the waterfall. At the other end of the 3,5km tunnel, a sharp left hand junction led us round to the old road. This actually turned out favourably, because from that direction we had better views of the waterfall than we would have had by approaching from the other end.
Our overnight stop would be best described as an oxbow road.; a short section of bend remaining after the road had been straightened. A few trees and bushes nicely screened us from the traffic. We had intended to walk back down the road to view the lake we had just passed, but by the time we had settled to motorhome, it had started to rain. English solution: have a cup of tea. That stopped the rain almost at once, so off we went with camera and raincoat. We doubted the sanity of one man we encountered ski-ing up the road towards us (on roller skis). We have seen several of these mad fools. It is obviously very popular here; summer training for a winter sport.
Having left Bergen far behind, we seemed to have caught the Bergen blight - it rained heavily all evening and most of the night. For our tea, we had bought a local version of a burger, called Karbonader. These were really yummy. We still don´t really know what meat it was.
As the evening progressed, we noticed the cloud cover was virtually at treetop height, making us wonder what the morning would bring.