Colonialen Storhaug: Crowded, and for good reason.
In addition to the sausage rolls, and a slice of quiche, I got a croissant that was so buttery it actually made a large C-shaped butter stain on the inside of the box they gave me. I think I’ve found the Norway version of my “Best Café”…
These are tremendously delicious! During my time in Stavanger I are FOUR of them.
I checked the ferry schedule again and realized I had a couple hours to kill, so I meandered though the tourist section again and sorted more photos in a coffee shop.
The terminal was surprisingly compact. It had eight separate stations where a boat could dock, and each was only about the length of a boat. The pilots actually moved them in sideways, which was pretty impressive to watch.
The ferry boats are very agile, and can dock in parallel.
When my boat arrived, one of the deckhands showed me a spot under the stairs and handed me a bungee cord, trusting me to secure the bike. Boarding and departing took only a couple of minutes.
Tucked away under the stairs, it only needs one wee stabilizing strap.
After about an hour I arrived in Hjelmeland and shoved my bike back over the ramp. The boat scooted away. My water shortcut saved about a day of riding on the Eurovelo 1, and I was fine with it. Too many boat rides too close together made for a messy schedule.
Nearby I noticed another, larger dock with a car ferry getting ready to take on passengers. It looked like an entirely different system. According to my map it ran a triangular route between just two nearby terminals: Hjelmeland, Nesvik, and Ombo. The Eurovelo used it, but I planned to skip it.
I knew I should find the hostel where I would be camping, but my first order of business was snacks. There was just one restaurant in all of Hjelmeland that was still open: A “thai” place right next to the terminals. I ordered a family-size meal of fish and rice and tucked it away in a bag.
The thai restautant gets asked about ferry tickets. A LOT.
This old flyer is adorable. Hanging on the wall of the thai restaurant in the center of town.
With that done, I rode to the hostel. A harried man in a t-shirt and cargo pants gave me a brief tour, using English with a heavy eastern-European accent. I asked him if there were any rooms, in case I could trade up from a campsite, and he said “No. At capacity.” Later on I realized it wasn’t because they had a ton of customers, it was because they were making major repairs to the plumbing before the busy season.
And they were very necessary: I tried to take a shower and the drain didn’t work at all, but I didn’t notice because the shower was actually a partially-tiled closet with a wooden door. Water ran beneath the door and into the common bathroom area, where there was another drain in the floor … which was also clogged. When I stepped out of the shower the entire bathroom was flooded, with drifts of soap and dirt slowly creeping towards the drain. I had to dry off in the kitchen.
Hostels! You get what you pay for.
Anyway, I decided on a patch of ground in the back yard, right next to a fence. It only took a few minutes to make camp.
As I was falling asleep, I realized just how strange the ambient sound was. I could hear the usual birdsong and wind, and the small waves of the ocean inside the fjord as they flicked at the coastline, but in the distance I could also hear the motors of several ferry boats moving in different directions offshore.
At regular intervals one of them would approach the dock. That made a surge of larger waves, then some reverberating clunks of metal, and finally a deep booming sound as the vehicle ramp contacted the pavement. Then sometimes a few cars would drive out.
It wasn’t loud enough to keep me awake, but it was fascinating. I set the phone to record and perched it near the top of the tent, in a little storage area, and over the next eight hours as I slept it recorded a really unique soundscape. A couple days later I made some minor edits to it, and cut it into big half-hour chunks. Now it’s ready for regular listening on my “falling asleep” playlists.
