Day 14-2. Sylte to Ålesund contd.
Not long afterwards we arrived at Koparnes and waited for the ferry watching the sky change. This was another slow ferry and Damae seemed a little bored by it. We stood around watching the sky as the ferry chugged its way across the Hallefjord (or was it the Rovdefjorden) towards Årvik. To our delight the sky started changing more rapidly turning from grey to grey with shafts of sunlight pouring through. By a quarter to one the ferry docked and we got off turned left and headed to Larsnes. The sky continued to lighten as we wondered where we would eat lunch.
We stopped about forty minutes later, it must have been Larsnes across the road from the shopping centre there. We found some benches and Damae headed off to do some groceries. She came back a few minutes later with some milk and cherry tomatoes and we sat and ate lunch. A lone wasp came and started bothering us as we were finishing eating but it wasn't one of the persistent ones. One disadvantage of stopping in Larnses was that we had to start climbing right after lunch. We followed the road an turned right at the first junction. I noticed a mark 1 Ford Fiesta in a car park, and not having seen one in ages I took a picture. I remember the advertising war between Ford and VW when the Fiesta was released on to the European markets.
This interesting diversion over, it was back to the stiff climb following the road as it meandered up the hill. It was now quite sunny and warm and once out of the wooded section we both got rather hot. I paused to take a couple of pictures of the islands in the background, a study in pastel shades of blue and grey and Damae caught me up and paused to catch her breath. Fifteen minutes later, a half hour after setting off we reached a car park with an information board. Sometimes these are useful as they show a campsite not marked on any of our maps. We stopped to have a quick look hoping it would give us some more contour information of the route, but it didn't. As normal we lost most of the height we'd just gained as the road crossed the interior of Gurskøya. I remember a long straight in the middle which took us downhill before climbing up again. Whilst not totally demoralising it made things a little harder being able to see most of the climb ahead of us. On the other hand it wasn't a Røldalfjellet and the sun was shining. We plugged our way up the hill and with Damae having dropped far behind me I stopped to take a photo looking back down the road.
About an hour after our pause at the car park I decided it was time for a cuppa. We had a fair way to go yet or so it seemed from the map and a car park with a nice view and tables appeared at the right moment, just after we'd started descending. With the kettle warming water I noticed Damae whizzing past me downhill. She noticed me and turned into the car part at the other entrance and cycled back uphill, rather slowly I thought. On arriving she said she'd noticed the car park and thought it would be a good place to stop. However she hadn't noticed that I had stopped until she came past me. She sounded a little grumpy having had to double back. I'd watched her plug her way up to the benches and it looked like hard work. We opened a packet of biscuits and munched them whilst enjoying the view and the tea.
We finished our break packed up and headed down the car park. Now I realised why Damae had made such tough going of cycling up it. The bikes were hard to keep under control on this surface and we edged our way down carefully. It was good to get back to tarmac. The going after the tea break was easy and we finished off the rest of the downhill until we reached sea level. For some reason it was not a picture taking day, I think we had a couple of showers along the way which kept my camera in its bag. An hour after the tea break I took a couple of photos, possibly near to the bridge between Gurskøya and Hareidlandet. For some reason neither of us remember the bridge at all so I guess it was not so spectacular.