Day 5-3. Haukeli to Røldal contd.
As per usual I reached the top first and pulled into a lay-by a little further along. In the two of three kilometres of the climb we had gained a noticeable amount of altitude and were presented with another landscape. The narrow valley was ringed with hills covered with snow fields a far cry from the valley we had left behind us. As I stood there a German man came over and started chatting. He cycled at home and was interested in whether you could get cycling maps for Norway. His English was not much better than my German, and as I tried to speak I was plagued by Norwegian and Dutch vocabulary. We'd spent much of the last few days speaking a mix of Dutch and English with the odd conversation in Norwegian. My German was at the bottom of my language skills pile.
Damae arrived as the conversation petered out, and I asked if one of the Germans could take a photo. The wife of the man duly did and we discovered that she (like Damae) was also a high school teacher. We paused to drink, catch our breath and admire the view and watched them leave. This was definitely a much more peaceful place to be than the main road. It was the wind that dominated the sound landscape now and also the wind that prompted us to carry on. It was getting a bit chilly to be standing around admiring the view.
Heading on we enjoyed the flat section, as the road wound its way along the valley wall. We passed the German family as they had stopped at a snow field and were doing winter holiday things in the snow. I remember doing the same near to the top of the Grossglockner pass as a child. I smiled and we waved cheerily and carried on. We were to join the main road a couple of kilometres later and although there was still lots of traffic the road was wide and visibility was good. We had no memorably scary moments on this section but I am not sure I'd want to cycle this section with a family in tow. Whilst cars and trucks gave us enough space it seemed that most of them were travelling above the eighty kilometre an hour speed limit. Sometimes we were surprised when a quiet car whizzed past at high speed.
However as we were losing some of the height we'd gained earlier in the day our pace increased and we started making better progress. Around forty minutes after our last pause we decided it was time for a cuppa. So it was fortunate that at that moment we saw a large car park with picnic tables and a toilet block with a lovely view over the Ståvatn. Crossing the road we came to rest next to the toilets and chose a table that had a little bit of shelter from the wind. We parked the bikes on the windward side of the table but it was still necessary to put on our rain coats to keep warm.
The Trangia came out and within minutes the tea was brewing. My old system of using a Trangia Mini would have struggled in the wind, the Trangia 27 had no problems. In fact the Trangia seemed to work better in the wind, which is what the manufacturers claim. Damae spent these few minutes trying to capture a view of the saddle ahead of us and the effect that the snow fields made. Despite the cold it was lovely to sit in this expansive landscape and munch the rest of our sandwiches and drink some tea and eat some biscuits. This was a short stop, fifteen minutes and a toilet stop later we were on the road again. I was map reading at the moment as we headed into the increasingly strong headwind. We missed a turning to a farm selling geitøst (goats cheese) and an off road loop that would have given us a more gentle climb. By the time we realised our mistake we were halfway to the climb proper and about to leave the main road for the old road (as opposed to the old old road). The idea of losing height and then cycling against the wind again to gain it was not an interesting one, so we decided to leave the geitøst for another day.
The climb, although not long was extremely steep, and with the cold wind coming over the saddle from the next valley really hard work. About half-way up I wasn't sure if the road went over the top so paused to wait for Damae, to see if anyone came the other way and to admire the view back down the hill. As Damae arrived a couple of cars and two cycle tourists appeared calming my worries. After a few words we carried on, I immediately left Damae behind and almost had to dismount and walk a little further up. Here the gradient steepend for maybe twenty metres or so at the same time that the wind siffened signifcantly. I only just made it past this bit dropping below four kilometres an hour. It was just a little to much for Damae who told me a few minutes later that she'd dismounted and walked those twenty metres.