It was in fact my morning effort to make a Norwegian pancake (yes I've learnt from the British tabloids). With an early start to the breakfast table I took on what I thought was the simple task of making a couple of pancakes. Mix down and cooking and all was well until I attempted to turn them over then realising that I'd made the fatal mistake of not applying any cooking oil ! My attempts to pry the pancakes loose simply left a gooey disaster behind - thankfully the number of Norwegians around was small allowing me to escape with my pancake "abortion" back to our table.
Well this was it, back on the bike ! In morning drizzle we guided our loaded bikes down to the waterfront to meet D Mike who'd amazingly driven 6 hours from Copenhagen during the night after 3 hours sleep to meet us in Oslo !
With final adjustments made and with D Mike in control of navigation when he was awake, we finally got going before stopping shortly after for some passing showers.
In the gloomy conditions it didn't take long before D Mike joined the list of frustrated navigators as we circled one town 3 times trying to find a way out as we then did following lunch at Akser.
Enter our guardian angel one Christian Zarborowski. Christian is not your everyday bike riding hero in fact he is into the millionaires sport of world power boat racing - those huge speedboats that fly across the water at 250 kms an hour regularly getting airborne.
When asked if he'd ever crashed Christian wryly smiled and said many times ! Christian also holds a class speed record having recently racked up an impressive 520 km an hour on a Norwegian lake.
We got all that information and more as Christian took us up and over hill after hill out of Akser that had H looking for the spare oxygen bottles.
Having guided us to our turn off point we said goodbye to our Norwegian friend and made our way to Sylling on a huge Norwegian lake to gain our first views of why this country is so spectacularly scenic.
Winding our way along the beautiful foreshore with its vivid colours for 30 kms was as an enjoyable ride as you can get with even the sun now making a glorious appearance.
H had considered riding down one of the ski jumps we found but decided that he didn't want to show D Mike up
Norway is all that you read about with abounding pine forest smells and never ending lakes !
We made our way to Vickersund where we loaded up with more weight for our camping dinner and breakfast (its amazing what difference just a few kgs can make when you are tired).
We took on a few more hills and after 125+ kms at 8.00.p.m. arrived just shy of being totally knackered at our magic cabin perched right by the lake.
After an obligatory coke D Mike took control over dinner for the ravenous hordes with an improvised meal of pasta and sausages.
Contented we sat out on our our cabins taking in the beautiful panorama saying how good is this .. while mumbling that we hope we don't get a repeat for tomorrows effort !
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