A nice trip, started with kanoes and went on with cycling

 

Area: Bergdalsfjord, Evje, KRS

Distance: 90km cycling

Task: kanoing, sleeping on an island, climbing and cycling

Equipment: Bivi-pack for island night, day pack for cycling, waterprooft clothers, dry bag, summer sleeping bag

 

What a perfect day, grey, windy, rainy…we deload the canoes and had some small safety instruction and a small paddling lesson and the two jobs in a canoe.

1: Engine

the guy (idiot) in the front. His job is doing hard work an bring the canoe forward. And he should watch out for some obstacles ore streams in the way. I would say this guy is like the “jib pig” in sailing. He needs to do lots of work for the steersman.

2: Steersman

the back guy. He can relax! no just a joke, he needs to steer the boat as good as he can, otherwise the boat will go in a zig zag course and it would cost more energie as it should need to dirve the boat.

 

In the middle of the lake the snowfall become heavyer. The sight was under 100 meters and so the group sticked together. All the time we tried to be close to the coastline in case of emergencys. The fjord is up to 300 meters deep on some points and so we decided that we should not lose something in there! It would be a long dive to catch it…

Like the trips before we choosed some Leader and navigate us through the fjord. We had some slow people in our group but the worst thing was that they were both in one boat. So maybe next time we should make that better.

It felt a bit weird to paddle on a fjord during heavy snowfall but after a while the sun came back and so the motivation of everyone came back suddenly. We made some breaks on smaler islands and had some snacks. After a few hours we found our sleeping place. The lonly island.

 

Sheltering:

We tried to build a big tipi for 7 person, but after maybe an hour of try and error we decided to made smaler one. Len helped us and showed us some nice technic to build a good shelter for 3 persons with a bit rope, some trees and tarps. After a while it was done and perfect for one night.

During the night it was snowing and snorring. Sadly one of us was snorring but that is always in these outdoor nights. A problem is that you didn’t have much space to move in the most sleeping bags. Specially when you have your shoes in the bivi and a few clothes for the next morning. So you have only 2-3 positions for sleeping. And one position is straight on the back and this is where many guys start to snorr.

In the next morning the whole are was covered by snow. It was a beautiful picture! The whole Island was like a totaly different place on that morning.

 

We went on with canoing and changed the leaders a few times. It was interesting to see what kind of different leader styles we had. A few where really relaxed, a few very boss like (very strict, and more authocratic then democratic) and a few confused and not very save in leading. But who cares, it’s all about learning!

The canoing on this day was nice, the sun was shining an the wind was blowing from behind, easy work for us.

 

Wind:

We allways had wind on the fjord but why? For that you need to look at the geographic.

YOu can see on the Image that the fjord is surounded by big steep hils. The wind is blowing from the north through the whole fjord cause nothing stops it on the water. It’s like a chanel for the wind. And the warm from the earth is going up. At the same time, cold air comes down from the mountains and so you have allways a cold wind blowing though the dale.

 

I was thinking about building a sail, but it was to unstable on the boat 😀

 

Biking:

We decided to swap climbing cause of the weatherforecast. It should rain the whole afternoon and evening and that would be very booring for us cause in that kind of conditions you can only sit down under your tarp and sleep ore….

It was a group decision and most of us where really happy about that. I was a bit sad cause i never did climbing outside before I went to norway and I like it.

 

So we drove back to Kristiansand on the next day. The bikes where quite good but in bad conditions. I really don’t know why, but it seems that noone takes care of the bikes. My saddle was going down all the time, the suspension of many bikes where rusty and dry, some chains whrer jumping off all the time, some spokes where missing and one of mikes pedal brokes close to kristiansand….Resume: 30€ per day for these bikes…NOT WORTH…Troll aktiv is a beautiful place for adventures but the bikes are in crapy cond.

 

The Tour itselfe was really nice, we drove along an old railway and a river. We saw many big dams and some nice gappahuks. The area was flat out of one nice hill around Venessla. Good for the mountainbikes! some offroad parts and nice fast downhill!.

I wish we had more ups and downs, but for some people the tour was hard enough. Its sad to see that a few of us (allways the same) are slower then the rest. And we allways need to wait for them. I know it sounds hard, but this is not good for the cohesion of the group. Maybe the uni should change one ore two of the requirements for this course. Then it would be easyer to motivate the group. Otherwise we always have to wait and we couldn’t enjoy the ride.

 

Ouh a little tip: When you don’t have bikepants, use a buff ore something simmilar to make it more comfortable for your ass!

 

Chears mates