Day three, 113km, 1518m - Started with rain, ended in sunshine
Publisert 30. mai, 2025Hentet fra kyrremann.no/bikepacking
The view from the cabin, I wasn’t stoked to get out.
It had been raining most of the night, and the sky was gray when we woke up. Eating breakfast and looking out on the lake with the rain pouring down wasn’t the most motivating view, but it was still pretty serene.
I saw it as a good excuse to try out my rain gear, and my new rain skin for my boots. Had some trouble getting them on, but they worked like a charm the whole day! If I hadn’t been sweating inside my shoes, my feet would have been completely dry.
It’s always a bit sad when you end up at a huge clear cutting areas in the forest.
The area I was cycling in is called Finnskogen, from the Finnish immigrants in the 17th Century. So I knew that I was in an area with a lot of history about Forest Finns, but sadly there weren’t many landmarks where I could learn more about them. Yesterday I had the opportunity to visit an old settlement, with old houses. Today, other than some Forest Finns flags (which I today learned was made in 2022) there wasn’t anything to see.
What I did learn a lot about, was how the forest was used to help Jews flee under World War 2 over to Sweden!
Kongsvinger, Norge: Always scary seeing signs your are following crossed out.
On my way to my lunch stop, feeling pretty tired and ready for a break, I was supposed to cross a dam. As you can see from the image above, it was closed for maintenance. A sign not in the pictures told cars it was 8 km to the main road, so I was afraid I had a long detour in front of me. I first tried to see if there were any people there that could help me, but they where busy working out of my view. Then I tried to see if I could cross further up, where the river narrowed down, but it looked way too hard and risky. It turned out that I should have just followed the signs from the beginning, as it was just a 4km detour, through a single track in the woods. I’m glad I got the detour, it was nice to be off the gravel road for a bit.
Kongsvinger, Norge: Took a second before I understood what this sculpture outside of Austmarka was.
Even though there were few cars, and I was always in the woods, I didn’t see that many animals. There were two squirrels, two hares, one doe, and a moose (pictured below)! Even though there are a lot of moose in Norway, it’s not often I see them. I would probably see more of them if I didn’t live in the middle of the capital.
Eidskog, Norge: It’s not often you see a moose, and it didn’t run away either.