{"id":5241,"date":"2023-07-22T14:04:48","date_gmt":"2023-07-22T13:04:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/obliquepanic.com\/blog\/?p=5241"},"modified":"2023-07-22T14:31:52","modified_gmt":"2023-07-22T13:31:52","slug":"just-south-of-trondeim","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/obliquepanic.com\/blog\/biking\/just-south-of-trondeim\/","title":{"rendered":"Just south of Trondheim"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Tuesday 20th<\/sup> June: That date makes tomorrow the Summer Solstice, the longest day. I heard somebody ask on the radio \u2018what are you going to do to celebrate?\u2019 What I\u2019m going to do is be in the Arctic Circle where the sun won\u2019t set at all but I am not going to stay up all night just to make sure that it doesn\u2019t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today started off in that campsite just south of Trondheim. I woke at 6.45 and got going, packed things up which was so easy because everything was dry. I made a coffee, had a couple of cereal bars and left at 8.45. It always takes two hours to break camp \u2013 surprising. Then I was on the road. I put Mo I Rana into the GPS and it said that I\u2019d be there by 4.30. This seems a reasonable time compared to when you first read that a trip will take 7 hours which seems very long, too long. There was though a bit too much traffic. I stopped for petrol and wasn\u2019t sure whether to stop again. In the end I did stop at a scenic layby. I talked to an older German man there travelling with his partner on a motorcycle (or was it two?). They were taking a much more leisurely approach. He showed me his map of Norway. He\u2019d drawn circles of every place he was going to stay, every few inches, whereas I\u2019m travelling at least twice as far as them every day. So I headed off. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Eventually I decided I needed some food and drink so stopped at a little town and went to a supermarket where I bought a kind of cappuccino milk carton and a roll and that helped and then I headed off again. It was a long, long way, endlessly on this road, though it was beautiful but I was a bit tired I think. But then the heavens opened. I could see it coming. Beautiful mountainous views on either side and lakes and snow up on the peaks. \u00a0But the rain just fell down. I was wearing my waterproof gear already. It was so heavy and made visibility so poor that some people pulled off the road. I did for a moment or two but it was pointless. I kept going and then it stopped which felt so good. All the time the petrol was going down but I just don\u2019t trust the petrol gauge. I had ridden 230 miles but the gauge was showing just under half a tank and telling me I could ride for another 120 miles. One day I will have to test it with some spare petrol.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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At this place where I am now \u2013 which I will explain later \u2013 its not as far as Mo I Rana, maybe 30 miles south of there. I was wet and tired so stopped. I rode past this big campsite in the town which had a few tents but lots of cabins and a lot of them had motorbikes parked outside them and I thought \u2018OK this is possibly a place to stay, in a cabin, like other people on bikes are doing\u2019. I searched for a petrol station, found it then thought that I would stay in a hotel. I promised myself I would if it was wet \u2013 and it was raining again and I was<\/em> wet. \u00a0I found the hotel that I am in now. Its called the Fru Haugens hotel in Mosj\u00f8en. Its \u00a3112 for a room but I had no hesitation. The bike was wet, I was wet. I came up into this economy single room. I took all these wet clothes off, had a shower, dried my clothes on the radiator, dried my helmet. Plugged everything in. Ah \u2013 it was such a relief, so welcome. The only downside is that they are remaking all the roads in this town and right outside my window was a man with a mechanical whacker and a digger, this incredible racket just outside my room. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I ventured off through this small town to a brand new supermarket in a shopping centre that\u2019s open till midnight and bought food for dinner in my room. I thought having spent \u00a3112 on a room I am not going to spend more money on an expensive dinner here. The guy on the digger stopped and I felt my spirits lift \u2013 but then he started again and my anxiety wound up again. Finally, he stopped and went home and I breathed a sigh of relief. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I put in the Arctic Circle Centre into the GPS. It will take just over two hours to get there so its not very far. That\u2019s fantastic and that will be Wednesday. The downside is that Thursday morning it will start raining – all day. But the app on my phone has a little symbol for rain which is perhaps psychologically misleading because it looks really dark. Now I have got, for the rest of my time here, to do these manoeuvres to avoid the rain. I even thought of going across the border to Sweden where there is not as much rain but when you look in more detail the amount of rain is much greater so I won\u2019t do that but I do want to figure out some strategy. Maybe its just riding in the rain and staying in hotels. It makes the trip more expensive but maybe it\u2019s the way to go. Anyway, it\u2019s the Arctic Circle tomorrow on the summer solstice which is fantastic and then head back down south. Tomorrow is the 21st<\/sup> and my boat sails on 28th<\/sup> so I have 7 days to wind my way, perhaps down the coast.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tuesday 20th June: That date makes tomorrow the Summer Solstice, the longest day. I heard somebody ask on the radio \u2018what are you going to do to celebrate?\u2019 What I\u2019m going to do is be in the Arctic Circle where the sun won\u2019t set at all but I am not going to stay up all…Read more Just south of Trondheim<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5245,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3,27],"tags":[227,221,141],"class_list":["post-5241","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-biking","category-travel","tag-hotel","tag-norway","tag-travel"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/obliquepanic.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/layby-scaled.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/obliquepanic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5241","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/obliquepanic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/obliquepanic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/obliquepanic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/obliquepanic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5241"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/obliquepanic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5241\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5248,"href":"http:\/\/obliquepanic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5241\/revisions\/5248"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/obliquepanic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/obliquepanic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/obliquepanic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/obliquepanic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}