Cycling Tour

19.04.-21.04.2021 to lindesnes fyr

For a three-day cycle tour, we (Laura, Thomas and I) chose the southernmost point of Norway as our destination, which is about 85km away from Krisitansand. At the same time, the oldest lighthouse on the Norwegian mainland stands here and bears the name Lindesnes fyr. Since another group (Anna, Elena, Toni and Mira) had also chosen the lighthouse as their destination, we joined forces and went as one group.

the whole group

We mainly used Komoot to plan our route and found out that there is a marked cycle path from Kristiansand to Lindesnes fyr. We chose the island of Underøy for our first overnight stay. For the first day, we had about 70 km on the programme. We started our tour at 10 am and everyone in the group was really looking forward to the tour, as the weather was perfect. Pure sunshine and only a little wind. When we left the town of Krisitansand, we had to look at our map for the first time. The cycle path turned inland and followed the main road, but we didn’t want to cycle along the main road and decided to follow the road along the coast. So we first headed towards Flekkerøya and followed the cycle path along the coast. Suddenly, the cycle path turned to the right and we were going uphill. Without thinking too much, we followed the cycle path up the hill. We arrived at a residential area on the mountain and realised that it was a dead end. So we had to go back down the hill and when we reached the road at the bottom, we followed it and followed the path along the coast. It went up and down a bit, the landscape was really beautiful and luckily there was just little traffic on the road. However, because it was always slightly up and down, my knee started to hurt slightly again. I tried to block out the pain and not to think about it. When we arrived in Mandal, we decided to take a break and have an ice cream. We enjoyed the sun in Mandal and gave our muscles a longer breather. After Mandal, the cycle path first passes a golf course, crosses the main road and then turns left into a forest area. There it goes straight up a good ramp, everyone in the group was swearing and giving everything to get up the hill. With the panniers on the rack, you have more weight to carry up the hill and a different centre of gravity. So you had to lie with your entire upper body over the handlebars in order not to lose traction. The pain in my knee got much worse during the climb and it became pure torture for me. At the top, however, we had to realise that we definitely hadn’t reached the top yet and that there were still more climbs ahead of us. But we pushed ourselves as a group and everyone rode up the hills at a really good pace. At the top, the cycle path led back down towards Vigeland. Once there, we went shopping and had a sugary drink to refill our energy stores for the last 10-15km. With a positive mood again, we started the last kilometres, which were mostly on flat roads.

Underøy

When we arrived on Underøy, we first followed the only road, as we wanted to get to the end of the island to look for a place to sleep. However, the road ended at a farm gate and we wondered where we could spend the night. At that moment, a farmer approached us and spoke to us. It turned out that he is the landowner of most of the land on Underøy. We asked him where we could best spend the night and he recommended a beach on the east side of the island. In the end, we covered a distance of 93km. As we were all quite exhausted from the tour and wanted to tank up enough energy for the next day, we all went to sleep in our sleeping bags quite early.

Lindesnes Fyr

The next morning, however, I woke up relatively early and lay in my sleeping bag for what felt like an eternity. As there were not so many kilometres on the schedule for us today, we started the day very relaxed. We didn’t leave until shortly before 11 a.m. to make our way to Lindesnes Fyr. I had rubbed my knee with an ointment overnight, which unfortunately didn’t help much, as the pain was enormous again that day. It was also quite up and down again, but I was determined to reach the southernmost point by bike. The weather was really good again and we made good progress. We reached the lighthouse after about 2h and 24.5km. We spent our lunch break here and enjoyed the view. We had reached our destination and from now on only the way back was on the agenda.

sleeping spot until the rain started

For this we went back the same way. After Vigeland, however, we decided not to drive up the steep mountains and drove around a bit. This way we could save a little energy and didn’t have to struggle up any steep hills. We arrived in Mandal after about 4 hours and another 43 km. Here we decided to spend the second night. We chose the beach Kanelstranda. At the end of the day we had a campfire on the beach and for me it was a dream come true. I had always wanted to end a warm day on a beach with a campfire. As the weather was very good, we all decided to sleep under the open sky. To do this, we laid the tarp a little above the beach in a wind-protected area and spent our night there.
But completely unexpectedly it started to rain at 5 o’clock. I woke up directly from the raindrops falling on my face. But I thought to myself that it would only be a small shower and would soon be over, so I slid my face further and further into the sleeping bag. Thomas, on the other hand, sat up and shouted, “Guys, it’s raining!” Elena checked the rain radar on her phone, which predicted more rain. So within ten minutes we set up two tents and got everything out of the rain. But then, of course, when we were in the tent, it stopped raining again. What timing…

on the way back home

The next morning I woke up to a pedestrian shouting “camping forbudt”. We must have camped in an area where camping is not allowed. So we decided to quickly take down the tents, which were completely dry, and enjoyed our breakfast in the morning sun on the beach. As we only had the way back to Kristiansand today, we were all very relaxed. So we first drove to the centre of Mandal and had a coffee there. In the end, we sat in a café in the sun for almost two hours. As my knee pain didn’t get any better, I decided to take a painkiller. It worked immediately and I was able to cycle relatively pain-free. We also cycled the entire way back along the coast and were only a little unlucky with the wind. It was blowing slightly in our faces and we had a bit of a headwind, which cost us a bit more energy in the end. After 5.5h and about 60km we arrived back in Kristiansand and were surprised by Roman, who had cooked for us. In the evening I went to bed really dead tired and was really happy to have made it through the tour. We had only good weather for the three days and a really good and relaxed atmosphere in the group. In the end, we rode 113 km in the days and everyone was able to gain a lot of new experiences. For me it was also completely new and something unknown to go on a trip with just a bike, but in the end it was really cool.

back in Kristiansand