The Eurovelo-1 took a few liberties, passing through neighborhoods and hopping across a big highway. At one point it borrowed an access road inside a golf course. All of it was better than busy roads though!
Is there some city ordinance declaring that all houses be white??
Aha, I knew I’d find horses around here eventually.
The road leapt uphill and zig-zagged, and I went even slower than usual. When I spotted an enormous building that looked like a repurposed factory I had to investigate.
What’s this curious building? It’s the Sjølingstad Uldvarefabrik!
About Sjølingstad Woollen Mill (English taken directly from sign)
Sjølingstad Woollen Mill was established in 1894 and produced yarn and fabrics until 1984. In 1986 the idea of reopening the mill as a “working textile museum” was launched. The spirit of days gone by still linger in these buildings where fabrics are produced on the old machinery, driven by our water power station with a turbine from 1913.
A visit to the museum during the summer season gives you the possibility to get a guided tour around the factory. You learn the history of the mill, and follow the production line from raw wool to finished fabrics.
I parked the bike right out front in the empty parking lot, and rang the bell. About a minute later a woman came walking around the side of the building. She explained that since it was a very slow day, she’d been doing chores on the opposite side of the complex. There were no tours scheduled, but she said she would give me an abbreviated version, and I was welcome to take pictures. Awesome!
A number of these old machines are still in regular use, even now!
The machines are still in regular use! The original factory was a building behind the current one, made of wood, and full of more of such machines. But in the early half of the last century, it got struck by lightning and burned down. I didn’t ask how many times it was struck over the years before the fire happened, but I suspect lightning was inevitable, keeping that many giant metal machines this far up near the top of a steep hill. I can almost visualize the giant haze of potential charge, pulling down on the thunderclouds… KACHOWW!!
They had a gift shop and a small cafeteria. I spent a long time staring at their home-spun yarn, trying to work out which colors made a good combination for a knitting project.
I do believe this is the river that powers the factory!
This should be connected to a tiny grinder that dispenses birdseed onto a plate!
The route became a bike path, running alongside a busy chunk of highway. A few big trucks glided past. Looking at them, I realized I have a lot in common with long-haul truckers. We both carry a lot of stuff, move defensively around cars, and are focused on long distance. Also, we both bring a tiny living space with us: The trucker pulls into a truck stop and sleeps in their cab, and I pull into a campsite and sleep in a tent unfolded from my luggage.
I like this comparison more than the one between me and RV drivers … probably because I don’t like RV drivers. They’re not very pleasant to meet on the road. They tend to have no idea how big they are or what speed is reasonable.
Yes! I’m a highway snob! Yes, yes, aren’t we all. Everyone thinks they’re an above-average driver. It’s a statistical conundrum.
For a while there were actually so many houses along the road that it was impossible to find an anonymous spot to pee. Definitely an “old person on a bike tour” problem!
Part of the reason these houses can be built so close to water is, the tide does not change much here.
Similar to the ground cover I saw all over Iceland.
The road turned away from the coast and sent me up another massive hill. Soon I was looking at a lake instead of the ocean. Midway up, someone had decided to harvest some lumber.
Hmm; why would they put the combination to my luggage on a log?
I took a long break at the top of the hill. I’d been grabbing onto the guardrail at the edge of the road and resting while still seated on the bike. It was nice to walk around for a few minutes.
Moments later I was at the bottom of the hill, and near the shore again.
After the bridge I ran into a series of mega-steep hills. For the next three hours I cranked away. Some locals taking a stroll gave me indecipherable words of encouragement. Folks driving cars looked at me with an expression of wary respect like you’d give to someone who was insane but had clearly committed fully to their insanity.
As I descended into the town of Lyndal I saw yet another burned out house. Another candle left burning? Another space heater too close to a curtain? Who knows.
Okay, this is really looking like a pattern. What’s happening with fire safety in Norway?
I don’t know what the inscription actually is, but it might as well be “An Ode To Badonkadonk”
Half an hour later I found the campground, and rolled over to my numbered spot. The reception building was closed. No one came poking around while I was setting up my tent, so I figured the online booking had settled the matter.
There was a cooking area with a power outlet, so I charged my phone and battery and laptop all at once and vacuumed up the soup from the Thai place. Another day of burning too much energy. Good!
One of the things I’ve always struggled with in anime is the pacing of the exposition. Shows tend to base their scripts on manga, and that form being closer to “reading with pictures”, you often get multi-page hunks of exposition where people – or the narrator – ramble on for entire paragraphs instead of actually exchanging dialogue with each other. Meanwhile, the action always stops cold. If you don’t rewrite it, you get the same thing on the screen and the pacing is awful.
Escaflowne seems to be defying that pattern, but doing it badly: Instead of exposition dumps, you get no exposition at all. No one explains their history, or their reasoning, or their feelings. Characters have barely a chance to react or explain themselves before the plot skips forward to the next twist, which tends to end earlier than you expect, usually by interrupting a scene in progress. I’m on the third episode which means I’ve seen about an hour, and it already feels like way too much has happened and I barely know the characters, including Hitomi, whose purpose in life so far is to get dragged through time and space, freak out over visions she doesn’t understand, miss her mom, and continue to dream of getting kissed by a boy she likes. What else is going on in her head? No one knows…
And, while I’m complaining, what’s the deal with her gym bag? Hitomi teleports to a magical alternate world, okay, I’m suspending my disbelief for that. That’s why we’re watching Escaflowne. But every time Hitomi teleports, and no matter where she left it… her gym bag joins her? Mechs, cat-girls, floating fortresses, dragons, I’m rolling with all that because they’re unreal. But I know gym bags … and they’re not that helpful!
Before I visited or even did any research on Norway, I added it to my map of the gaps. This is what was in my head about the country, from pop culture or hearsay or dimly remembered school. (Of course, actually going there will change this a lot.)
Norway is up at the top of Europe. I think it’s that big banana-shaped one. The capitol is Oslo but I only know that from playing Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego, and according to that game it has three buildings: A market, a library, and an airport.
I know about Vikings, and I guess there were a bunch of them in Norway. It stands to reason because there’s so much coastline. On the other hand, most of what I know about Vikings is hopelessly tangled with maps and lore from the computer game Skyrim.
There’s lots of gorgeous fjords and spacious glaciers around, and everybody talks in a sing-songy voice and says “ya” randomly in conversations. It’s a nice place to live if you don’t mind the cold, ya.
If you don’t like hiking and skiing and you’re not a conservationist, what the hell are you doing in Norway? Get out before we throw you out, weirdo. Ya.
Watching Yoshi was a pleasure. I sorted photos and did some bookkeeping, then we just dozed together on the couch for a while. When the lads got back we ordered some amazing Indian food from a place right around the corner, and chatted about old iPod hardware and how our relationship with music has changed over the years. Excellent friend time! I promised to bring them some audio hardware the next time I flew over from the US.
It was a nice social end to my brief time in Amsterdam. I was mostly over the jet-lag, and ready for a more ambitious biking journey. Tomorrow I would board a train for Norway.
Before I visited or even did any research on The Netherlands, I added it to my map of the gaps. This is what was in my head about the country, from pop culture or hearsay or dimly remembered school. (Of course, actually going there will change this a lot.)
I think this is, like, a suburb of Denmark, with even more windmills and wooden shoes, and fewer hills. And lots of flowers. I think some famous painters and scientists are from here. The guy who discovered microbes I think? Oh crap is Amsterdam here? Did I screw that up? That’s hideous. I’ll just move on…
The Netherlands according to Where In Europe Is Carmen Sandiego
Exploring the cathedral took up the rest of our time in Rochester, and we boarded the train for the relatively short hop to London. It would have been great to stay on the official Eurovelo route into the city, but it would have cost another two days we didn’t have.
Emerging into London was exciting. Andrew and I had been here before, but Nick hadn’t. He was trying to look everywhere at once and we nearly lost him in crowds a few times. I asked him how it compared to emerging from the train station in Paris, and he said, “not as scary.”
While we lounged in Parliament Square Garden we saw a crowd of modern penny-farthing riders, standing around in a big group getting photos from other tourists. They were all embarked on a cross-Europe tour, and made much better time than we did. … Not because of the bike design, but because a fellow with a very large van was carrying all their luggage ahead of them.
Still, from one rider of weird bikes to another, me and Nick and the various French and English riders gave each other a lot of curious looks and stoic manly nods.
We shall fight them on the beaches… We shall wipe their craps off our heads…
Andrew only had a few more days in the country, and we needed to decide between exploring London or Edinburgh with his remaining time. We could potentially get a room here, then head to Edinburgh in a few days…
A consultation with the ticket office made the decision for us. They had three spots for bicycles on the train leaving today, but it would be almost impossible to get them when the weekend started, partly due to crowding, and partly due to the train strike that was still ongoing.
The Edinburgh train is what we want, but … which track??
The Edinburgh train is what we want, but … which track??
The departure time was vague. The office couldn’t tell us what platform to wait on, either. So we sat around reading phones in the station, which was a bit of a waste of international vacation time.
Don’t board any train without your emergency snacks.
The ride would take the rest of the day, so we organized luggage and sorted photos. Nick decided on a new favorite “road food”.
I chatted with a local about the Scotland route, and he insisted we try to reach the Isle of Skye. I chatted with Rachel and we looked at narrowing the schedule we’d booked for the Outer Hebrides so we could get a few days there. We found a very useful site that helped us rebuild our itinerary.
Unloading was a lot less stressful than loading, because the train was being decommissioned for the night. By the time we had everything roped back onto the bikes we were alone on the platform.
