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Day 11 part 3. Bergen to Voss by train Voss to Mjølfjell Youth Hostel.

Another hour further up we paused for a few minutes. This was after a particularly steep climb, and as usual I got to the top of it first. I had some time to take photos of the snow topped mountains. A quick pee and drink and a couple of minutes later we were on our way again.

The road carried on climbing, not that this was a surprise. In Mjølfjell we found the gem of the route. The road crosses a river on a sweeping right hand bend and the view (see video* of the falls) in all directions, is wonderful. We dithered for about ten minutes before deciding to go down onto rocks where there were sunbathers and swimmers and have a meal. This turned out to be an excellent idea, as the road was quite flat for a bit thereafter and we needed a rest.

Scooping water from the river, we boiled some to make tea and a pan full for one of the instant trail meals we had brought with us. Delicious. We sat enjoying the sun goofing around and just taking it easy. We wondered if you would eventually get bored of all of the beautiful nature if you stayed here long enough.

It took us another hour and a half or so to reach the Youth Hostal at Mjølfjell. We paused one more time before we got there as it was hard going. In the much more barren higher ground there seemed to be some development of mountain huts. This is a sort of development we saw further up in the higher reaches of the Numendal and whilst it certainly will benefit the local economy the question is at what cost to the environment.

Suddenly we were at the end of the metalled road. Damae wanted to push on but I thought we would be better staying at the hostel for the night. I was also not sure if we could find a place to camp on the way up. So we decided to stop then and there as it was quite late.

Whilst Damae satisfied herself that the hostel was an OK place to stay I stood by the bikes and waved the camera in an end of day sort of way. There was a sign warning travellers of the road ahead, and an example of the amazing engineering that has gone into the Bergen-Oslo train line that ran behind the hostel.

It was not until after we'd got to our room, unpacked and started eating dinner that we realised just how hard it had actually been. A long hot shower (by the light of our bike lamps as the lights were not working) was also very welcome.

We chatted a little to a couple of the other people staying in the same dormitory as us. There was a German man who had gone from car to bike to walking holidays and a Norwegian with some really detailed walkers maps. We tried fruitlessly to gauge how exposed the exposed bits of the Rallarvegen were.

We went to bed early and slept well.

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* There is a link to the video so you won't have to download it if you don't want to.