Day 23-2. A day in Oslo. Shopping.
They had some other interesting gear in stock including a tent that was held up by your bike, I think from Topeak. You had to remove the front wheel (26 of 28 inch only) and of course once the tent was set up you couldn't use your bike (unless you had a spare wheel). The main advantage was that it was quite light and had a very small pack volume. Still a bit too much fiddling around at the end of a long day (especially if your front wheel has a hub dynamo in it and/or no quick release) for my liking but a nice idea. They also had a small selection of Ortlieb bags including a back pack with a sealed zipper, with discounts for members on most items.
When the shop emptied we chatted a bit with the gentleman manning the shop. It was quite interesting to hear the role the LSF had in Norwegian society. Although it had members rather like the CTC they got most of their money from central government and spent much of it advising councils and other organisations as to the best way to make things more bike friendly. They were also responsible for co-ordinating the planning of main cycle routes that now criss-cross southern Norway and run all the way up the far North. Thus they had to deal with not only different town and provincial councils but also with central government and other interested parties.
We got hit with some end of trip 'souvenier' fever and picked up three of the new series of plastic route maps produced by Knut Bora and published by Castor Forlag. These have both advantages and disadvantages over the older series we used when doing the NSCR in 2005. The main advantage is durability and that they have much more contour detail that the older series. The disadvantages, information about the map you are following is on the back of the same page, and sites of interest are marked as green triangles which look like the universal campsite logos whilst campsites are marked with blue circles. Still we hoped to make good use of them in the future and considered their price at Eur 30 a pop to be an investment. Anyways we hadn't bought any Dale sweaters or much else besides the Viking dung fork and spade salad utensils.......no really they are a lot cuter than they sound.
Also there were a range of free guides and we took the one for the route from Steinker to Bodo having enjoyed Jerry Webb's account of their trip on this route. We were not quite sure when we were going to get round to doing it but it was useful to see what information there was available about the route. Damae also became a member of the club, which includes five Norwegian language magazines per year. We figured we would have something else to motivate us to learn Norwegian, and the magazines have proven to be quite handy with a good mix of short and longer articles.
We then said goodbye and wandered up through the arcade into the Youngstorget in search of something to eat. The sun was brilliant again and at the other side of the square we found a terrace where we could park our bikes and sit in the sun. I thought I had taken some pictures of the day, but then again I was still trying to get my solar panel to charge up some batteries as I figured the trip on the boat would be lovely and wanted to be able to take some pictures. No luck there then. Still the food was excellent and not too pricey and it was warm.
The main aims for the rest of the day were to visit the health food shop, buy some Norwegian DVD's and then head to the ferry terminal in good time. In the square were we had lunched there was a small market so we checked that out for cheap DVD's but none took our fancy. Then the food shopping where we found some tofu and tasty looking bread before we headed back down the hill to the shopping area near the cathedral.