Another day, another road to explore

No sooner had I wished for cycling weather than the skies almost magically cleared up! It was actually really perfect too, terrible weather for the mornings and early afternoons spent in the office and then come 4pm, the clouds would part :).

It was time to go exploring again, and I did! Getting lost is par for the course when you head off the tarmac, but finding out for yourself quite how closely the real world resembles (or does not resemble) Google Earth is its own reward :). Alone or otherwise, I had a great time on a couple of the afternoons, exploring a mix of trails and roads, some known, some not.

On some of those stretches I had travelled before, I was surprised by the difference, in a few months some areas had become almost unrecognisable! And then it struck me, I've been here almost half a year, and while my cycling explorations had started just as summer was beginning, it is now on it's way out. Clearly, it's not just the grass on my lawn that has been growing wildly :).

Norway is famous for its spectacular fjords, but the weather here is no less spectacular. Despite regularly proving itself accurate, I was rather sceptical of this weekend's forecast. Friday and Sunday were predicted to be all doom and gloom, but in the middle, Saturday was going to be perfectly sunny and dry, we were told. And they were right!!

Asker is at the top of a little peninsula that sticks out into the fjord. It's a little out of the way for anyone going anywhere really, most of the time. But I'd been wanting to explore the coastline around this little spit of land for a while. So when it turned out Saturday was indeed all brilliant sunshine and freshly washed, bright and colourful, it seemed like the best time to go about the rather longish trip.

The views might not be quite as spectacular as those along Rallarveggen, but they really were quite something! It was a bit windy too, but the sun stayed out to keep things from getting too chilly. For a trip just over 90km, we passed very little by way of towns. Which is not to say there weren't people living all along the coast.

We ended up finding a nice quiet little restaurant on the water's edge complete with its little pebble beach with a water-break, a little south of Sætre, the last biggish town before things got properly quiet. It was a very relaxed sort of a ride, all things considered, what with one or more of the group feeling compelled to stop and enjoy the breathtaking view for a little bit longer.

Well, that was till we had to climb our way up and down a few hills to cross over from the Oslofjord side to the Drammensfjord side. Thereafter there was a little more of the grim single minded focus on just getting back home that one might expect of people beginning to feel a little tired. That is not to say the views were any less spectacular, we just chose to enjoy them from our seats while pedalling furiously :).

It was only after I'd made it home that I realized this was the longest distance I've ever cycled in a single day! Fittingly, that also meant I'd gone past the first thousand kilometres since I'd got this bike back in May :). I know I'm being a little cocky with that 'first thousand' bit, but with roads like these, there's that extra feeling that, weather permitting, I absolutely have to get out there!

Currently: optimistic
Listening to: Emilie Nicolas - Pstereo