Resting at Svinesund

At 9:50 am it was finally time. Full of expectations and with our motorcycles packed and ready, Niklas, Claes and I (Stefan) were off to a week of adventures in the south of Norway. I was on my Yamaha XTZ 660 Ténéré, Niklas on his Honda NX 650 Dominator and Claes on his Suzuki GSX 550ES. Before we could start enjoying the beautiful scenery and winding mountain roads of Norway, we had to put some distance behind us. After three hours of driving (including a couple short breaks to stretch our legs) we drove over the Svinesund bridge and were on Norwegian territory. Here we stopped for a well needed rest as we enjoyed our packed lunch as we looked out over the Singlefjord.

The goal for the day was to at least get to Lillehammer before we needed to pitch a camp. So from Svinesund we continued north on E6 towards Oslo. We did not see much at all of the capital city of Norway as we took the through route to get as far as possible this first day of driving. On the freeway in Oslo we got caught in one of the numerous toll stations that are placed at strategic locations through out the country. But we were happily surprised when we as motorcyclists could just pass through without having to pay. And it is like this at most road toll stations, no fee for motorcycles. We only had to pay one road toll on the entire trip. More about that later.

Our journey continued from Oslo northeast on E6 and we did as few stops as possible since we still had quite a bit to go before we had reached our goal for the day. We were however on a bigger road so we could put distance behind us rather quickly, even if the speed limits were as low as 90 km/h or even 80 km/h (Norwegian speeding tickets are really expensive so you better keep calm!). The down side with a freeway type road is that it means pretty boring driving, but we all knew that we had the fun in front of us, so we patiently continued with aching butts.

Olympic sign at Lillehammer

At the eastern shore of the biggest lake of Norway - Lake Mjösa - we stopped for the first time to eat in the country. We were rather negatively surprised to find out how expensive food was. 224 NOK for three small portions of hot dogs and fries... and this was at a simple roadside restaurant, not a gourmet one! Anyway, we got our stomachs filled and were soon on our way again. As we rounded Lake Mjösa we now headed in a northwestern direction.

Around 7:30 pm we reached Lillehammer - Olympic city 1994. Lillehammer is a rather small town so it didn't take long to find Lillehammer Camping where we decided to put up our little tent. And it was indeed little. It was meant for three people, but for three relatively tall guys it was not even closely big enough. The remainder of the evening we spent with driving around the town and get something to eat.