PADDLE WITH A DRUNKEN NORWEGIAN

The Norwegian mountain-landscape is beautiful but not that easy to conquer.  For days we climb and climb and than all of a sudden we descend to encounter a fjord. A ferry we refuse to take because we want to stick to our plan : we only use the force of nature.  So our next question : how do we get across the sea ? We met a Dutchman and he immediately started making phonecalls.  He finally got a Norwegian friend on the phone.  This friend, called Björn was dead drunk.  His house was a mess, but he had this leak rowing-boat with two paddles, not to say ladles !  We had to be fast, it was getting dark and bad weather forecast was coming our way.

Heavy drift and waves were a nuissance but not as dangerous as a dead drunk Björn !  He was encouraging us from his old fishing boat.  That boat was about to collapse.  He drivelled constantly  : be aware of the Viking ships !! Under the surface (800 m) here lay 20 mouldered Viking ships. Very encouraging, if you ask us ….

After two hours of paddling steep rocks were waiting there for us.  In the pitch-darkness we shuffled our boat between mussels and sea-weed and started climbing, looking for the road.  Björn helped unloading the boat (we had our bikes with us).  He had a hard time getting himself up the rocks because he was so drunk.  He was such a sweet man!!!  The next day we called to make sure that he had found his boat back.  It seemed that he had not returned home until very late that night.

And we keep on cycling. Goats cross our path.   You find their heads in the supermarket,  in the freezing department.  We’re pretty sure that the Norwegian will eat them.  Norwegian are kind, warm people.  They admire us for what we do.  Nearly every week we’re on the frontpage of a local newspaper”.