Day 13. 12km short of Haugestøl to Geilo.
Distance around 36.6km. Average 16.3km/h.
We awoke to daylight and the sound of sheep bells and bleating. It was still raining and it was distinctly chilly. The pans we had put out last night were overflowing with water. After carefully packing our sleeping gear into the bags we folded up the inner tent. In the space provided by the outer tent, we dodged the puddles to make something called breakfast. After cleaning the pans and packing everything into our bags, we waited for a break in the rain.
Finally at around ten we decided that the drizzle was the best we were going to get and quickly got out of the tent. In a scramble we hung the bags off our bikes and took down the rest of the tent. Then off down the hill we went in the direction of Haugastøl as fast as we could.
After a few kilometres we were pleased to find some much needed facilities in an unusual place. The keeper of this particular throne was obviously a patriotic Norwegian monarchist as the walls were decorated with uplifting articles about the Royal Family. We were just thankful that someone put the effort into maintaining this piece of real estate and could not care less as to their political affiliations.
We were now down low enough to have hit the tree-line and the track was definitely a road. We saw a lot of day trippers looking fresh on lightly laden mountain bikes. However they were going up and we were going mostly downhill. Fast and furious it was and fun.
Haugestøl appeared in view and we were glad to see the trappings of civilization again. It felt very warm there in comparison to where we had started from. The big public thermometer display said that was a positively tropical 9.75°C. Lovely. We wandered a bit shell-shocked towards the building after taking some photos (including ones of the train entering the tunnel and disappearing) and decided as it was approaching eleven it would make a good moment for some elevensies. We decided to warm up over a coffee and some cake, which we successfully did in the cafe. We sat by a window looking over the lake and were happy to see that the sun had come out.
The rest of the journey was uneventful enough. The main road out of Haugestøl passed the station (the official starting point of the Rallarvegen), and then climbed. It was quite hilly and despite the coffee and cake we found it hard going. The wind was slightly against us as well and the road a bit busy for our liking. After a while we stopped to strip off some layers as the sun was doing its best to remind us that this was actually summer. It was however nice to be in the sun and we did enjoy the views across the lakes Sløddfjorden and Ustevatnet.