Saturday, July 12th. This was the most difficult and most epic day of all of my current journeys. Woke up early, and I had perfect sunny weather peaking at 25-28 °C. I left Flekkefjord around 10am and headed towards Egersund, which was 72 km away.
Shortly after Flekkefjord came my first ascent. It took me about an hour of pushing my bike. Unfortunately, I have no information about the names of the hills or heights, so please bear with me. The streets were in very good condition, and the car drivers were super careful with overtaking and very friendly. The downhill route was very fast and led to a village Åna-Sira, which was located in a valley.
I passed Åna-Sira quickly, and just outside of the village border, the next ascent awaited. This one was very difficult and challenging – it took me 1 hour of bike pushing uphill. The peak was at 275 meters above mean sea level. Again, after a quick descent, the third challenge awaited, just after Jøssingfjord. This difficult ascent impressed me very much. The hills were super steep, and the U-bend roads were leading through small tunnels, maybe 30 to 100 meters long.
One of the tunnels had an amazing view on the hills and the fjord some 100 meters below. Just a few hundred meters uphill was a viewpoint and a World War II monument, which remembered the “Altmark-drama” at Jøssingfjord in early 1940. I’ve met fellow cyclists from Switzerland, which were a traveling in the opposite direction. We had a very nice chat about the route and what to expect in the respective direction of travel. I think the descent from that hill was one of my fastest ever: 67 km/h downhill!
The following route wasn’t that steep anymore but still covered with lots of smaller hills as the landscape changed progressively into smaller sized hills.
I’ve finally reached Egersund at around 7pm and did some shopping before continuing to Ogna, some 17 km away. The hills were mostly gone but the road changed to gravel-type with annoying steep uphill roads. This slowed me down because I had to push a very heavy bike uphill on a slippery ground. The endless walkings uphill gave me blisters.
I camped at a local Ogna camping site, close to the beach. I watched the sunset and enjoyed the beautiful views of the sea after a very exhausting but epic traveling day.
97.05 km, 8h29m, 11.42 km/h, 67.76 km/h max.
