"Do you have a ticket?", the conductor asks as we're boarding the train.
"No", I answered, "We were unable to buy a ticket and we didn't want to run the risk of not being able to bring our bicycles along".
We travel from Larvik to Kristiansand and need to change trains two times.
"Were do you need to go?"
"To Nordagutu and from there to Kristiansand".
"I don't have anything to sell tickets with me now, but you can buy tickets from the ticket machine in Nordagutu. You can put your bicycles there."
Meanwhile the train began to ride. Long live the Norwegian railways!
We're going slowly this summer. Very slowly. Our daily distances are about half of what we normally do. When we cycled the west coast route, it was mainly because of the many ferry crossings, but as we cycle the Kristians route, from Oslo to Kristiansand, we want to visit many place or see things so, we make very little headway. And so it came to the point where we made quite an impulsive decision. We cycled through Larvik and saw a train station. Hours later we were at the station in Kristiansand.
What preceded it: "Remy, with our slow pace, we'll not make it to Flekkefdjord in time."
Remy: "Then can we take for the train in Kristiansand?"
Me: "Or we take the train here to Kristiansand and then cycle onwards. I know the way to Kristiansand by heart. From Kristiansand to Flekkenfjord everything is new to me..." "But you choose!" I added quickly. "But we do have to decide now because we're at a station. After that, we can leave only from Arendal, but that may be too late".
No pressure…
After discussing the pro's and cons, and so, democratically decided to take the train, and so our train adventure started.
In Norway it is very easy to take bicycle in the train. I won't go into the process in detail here, but just take my word for it. If you want to book at the last minute, it becomes a bit more tense, because it is uncertain if the bicycle can come along. From Larvik to Kristiansand we had to change trains two times, in Skien and in Nordagutu. A ticket for the first train was no problem, but for the second train there was no bicycle ticket available. Because the price for one ticket for the whole trip is the same as the separate tickets summed up, we decided to see what's possible per train. If need be, we'll look for a place to sleep and take a train the next day. But you can always buy a ticket in a Norwegian train, so that's why we took our chances. Only the conductor of the second train had no ticket machine on him, so we bought tickets at the station in Nordagutu.
And so, on the 19th of June we arrived in Kristiansand. We had a week to get to Flekkefjord. We were told that the route would be very hard and with our pace we thought that 220 kilometres would be just right. Well... We should have checked that for ourselves: The hardest part is right around Flekkefjord, and on our first day, when we left Flekkenfjord, we already had cycled the most part. We should be able to do this route in three or four days instead of a week. What a wonderful, impulsive idea...
Luckily we're welcome to arrive a bit earlier at the home of Bøye en Vigdis, where we left our car. The last few days we'll visit some places before I drop Remy off at the ferry in Kristiansand. Today we have a cycle-free day in Mandal. For me a bit of a work day because I need to make preparations for the coming weeks. Namely, I will be staying until the end of August.
