Ferry To Kristiansand

My emergency twig supports did their job. As I struck camp I made plans to spend some of the next day taking the tent apart to find the leak and patch it. I was grateful I’d remembered to bring patches…

I made my way into town, intent on breakfast — several breakfasts, if possible. It was so far before the tourist season that most of the restaurants were closed.

I watched the traffic, and turned down whichever street had more cars on it. I found one open bakery and loaded up on rolls and sandwiches.

The next ferry to Kristiansand was in two hours. There wasn’t much to do in town so I decided to just roll down to the terminal and hang out; maybe sort photos or listen to an audiobook. The route took me past a large building that my map identified as the Nordsøen Oceanarium. I didn’t have enough time to look around inside, but the music they had playing near the entrance was so boisterous and charming that I just had to get a recording on my phone.

I have no idea what the lyrics are, but I imagine it’s some jolly story about swimming in the ocean with mermaids and fish!

I pedaled on, and found the ferry terminal. I parked the bike in the lee of the nearest gatehouse and assembled my portable camping chair, then opened the lappy to sort photos.  With the wind factored out, the sun warmed up my jacket and pants and I felt surprisingly comfortable.  So much so that an hour flew by, and the next time I looked up the line of cars was moving.  I repacked the chair and joined the line.

In the second line, after all the cyclists and motorcyclists were clustered together, one of the motorcyclists moseyed over to me for a conversation, starting with my weird bicycle and then ranging around.  A friendly fellow, probably about 60 years old, with blond hair and a squint. I asked where he was from.

“A little island near the middle of Denmark.”

I was intrigued. He looked a lot like my uncle Denny and I guessed we were probably related somewhere five or six generations back. He had a tough-looking motorbike kitted with sturdy metal boxes full of gear, and a bedroll lashed across them.

I asked, “Coming up to Norway for a vacation?”

“Oh yes,” he said.  “I’ve done this trip lots.  For me it’s only three hours or so on the bike, and I get to the ferry.  Very easy to go.  There’s lots to see in Norway, and the roads are good, and there is almost no traffic outside the main cities like Oslo and Bergen.”

“Sounds great!” I said.

“Yes, you’ll like it!  Except for the tunnels.  Some of them you can go through on a bicycle, but if you do, it’s dark and very cold, and they can be very long.  Many of them have bypass roads.  Everyone in a car uses the tunnel, so they don’t need the bypass roads.  So they’ve been making the bypass roads bicycle only.  It’s great.  You’ll like those.”

“Definitely.”

“What’s your route?” he asked.

We hunkered over my phone and I gave him a rough outline. I said, “I’ll stay on the coast for a while, but I want to go inland later.  Is it going to be cold?”

He shrugged. “If you go in May, not too cold.  The snow is already gone from the coast.  You’ll find some when the elevation goes up, but the roads will be good.  Sometimes you get five, seven meters of snow, and the roads are like tunnels.”

“Five or seven meters?” I was agog. I’d been along plowed roads where the snow was like a wall, as much as ten feet high, but he was talking about twice that.

“April is really still winter, outdoor-wise,” he said. “Ski-resorts like Hemsedal and Geilo have open lifts and trails in April, but at the same time, the spring flowers are blooming down in Oslo and Bergen. The mountain roads will be open, but the daytime temperature there might be 0 to 10 degrees, even if the weather is sunny.”

I assumed he meant 0 to 10 degrees in Celsius. Converting temperature in my head was going to be a challenge for the next few months.

Around us the cars were starting their engines, and the other bikers were putting their helmets on. I thanked him for the advice and we wished each other well.

I was the only cyclist on the entire ferry. I wasn’t surprised.

After we parked, all the passengers gathered at tables in a large room upstairs. A very suave-sounding captain spoke over the P.A. and said we should take advantage of the executive lounge, where we could get as many snacks as we wanted after paying an upgrade fee. He didn’t say what the fee was, so I assumed it was too much.

One of the youngest staff on the boat was a woman who looked in her early 20’s.  She spent part of the voyage walking around with a large basket of small snacks, offering things to patrons, and the rest of the time with a box slung over one shoulder, going table to table and selling ice cream bars.  I couldn’t help thinking this role was a holdover from before the boat had a coffee bar and full-on dining service, and it was kept around for nostalgia purposes.  A strangely menial job for someone that age, but on the other hand, perhaps I’m bad at judging age here, or perhaps the job pays better than I expect, or perhaps it’s not her full-time role and they swap around each day.  

The woman had golden hair cut boyishly short and a strong jawline, and reminded me a lot of a girl I’d had a crush on all the way back in the 5th grade.  Weird how these memories stick.  It made me want to flirt with her, which would have been deeply inappropriate for a lot of reasons, mostly because I’m more than old enough to be her father.

During the trip, the televisions that hung from arms in the ceiling all around the room displayed a repeating loop of perfume ads: Toned women and men in wacky clothing, posing in unearthly environments, splashing in water or fake lava, all with expressions on their faces between “I’m about to fall asleep” and “someone just cut in front of me in line for the bathroom.” It took me most of the journey to figure out why: The on-board market was crammed with different kinds of perfume for sale. Why that? Because perfume is very expensive for the weight, not an essential good (so it’s not likely to be stolen), and it never spoils. Perfect for a store in a location as awkward as a boat.

When it was time to leave, I rode casually to the front of the line inside the boat, and the crew waved me over to a position next to the lead car. I could tell the cars were full of impatient tourists because they were scooting pointlessly close together, as if their lives depended on keeping their neighbors from cutting in when the lines converged. The Norwegian drivers would be more considerate, no doubt.

The guard at the exit gate to the terminal asked me a bunch of questions about where I was going and how.  He seemed surprised that I’d brought the bike from America.  “Yeah, I took it apart and put it in a giant box, and brought it with me!” I said.

He made an incredulous expression, as if he was thinking “What will these lunatic cyclists do next?” But then he waved me through with a “Have a nice trip!”

I had arrived in Kristiansand. The downtown grid of streets was lively but mostly full of souvenir and clothing stores. I wanted a restaurant! I found my AirBnB on the other side of town and hauled the bags inside, then set out again.

As I rode away, I noticed three “rough gentlemen” in their 40’s or 50’s going in the other direction. Two were pushing beat-up bikes; one was coughing deeply.  Their clothing, posture, grooming, and general furtiveness implied to me that they were destitute and not welcome in the city.  I thought Norway didn’t have any so-called homeless people?  I realized I had to recalibrate my perceptions here. Maybe these men were just very tired dockworkers who’d been kicked out of a bar for partying too hard on a Monday? I’d been assuming that Norway was like Iceland, and had virtually zero crime.

Here’s a spoiler for you: For the next month, I would never feel the need to use my bike lock, with only four exceptions: Once in Stavanger, once in Haugesund, once in Bergen, and once in Oslo — not coincidentally the four largest cities I found myself in. Other than that, I just didn’t bother with the lock, and unless there was a hotel room I could walk the bike into, I would just leave it outside, leaning on the kickstand, bags and all.