Or: “Why did I cycle from France to Norway???”
Quick answer
I’m passionate about reducing my carbon emissions, so there’s no way I would take a plane.
A bit of a longer answer…
I had accepted an exciting one-year circus program in Nordfjordeid, a remote town on a Norwegian fjord. And the residential college had very kindly agreed I could bring my puppy- an active, loving 5 month old border collie. Called Arfy. Who I would never consider leaving behind.
So how would we two get to Norway?
I love to cycle (just getting around locally adds up to around 4,000 km a year).
For a while I had wanted to cycle far away, and for an extended time. I checked out a lot of bike roads in Europe and dreamed of riding on them. But I never had the time, nor the occasion, to commit to it.
And now with the Norway opportunity I had the occasion and the commitment. I decided to cycle to the top of Denmark, almost within sight of Norway, then get the ferry and bus from there.
I had to be in Nordfjordeid on the 21st of August, and I planned to leave France on the 1st of August. As the timing was short, I had to ride 80 km per day.
The idea of travelling this way was also to enjoy the journey, not only the final destination. I would get to see and experience countries north of France that I have never been to before. So I planned the route, but not a strict schedule for stops and the places to sleep. I tried to follow beautiful paths, and to stop to eat in pretty spots.
I cycled the first five days alone, with Arfy running along side me, or enjoying the view from a carriage I pulled.
On my solo ride, I very much enjoyed:
- meeting local people (talks often starting with questions about my dog on the carriage)
- sleeping and eating at hosts’ houses (often found via the Warmshowers.org community)
- asking and listening for tips or beautiful routes
- accepting useful hand-me-down gifts (for instance a portable battery – my only map being on my phone; and cycling shorts which saved me a LOT of pain)
- meeting very different people but all of them very welcoming (I ate one day with a Dutch guy who had pity on me eating bread alone in the rain, so he took me in and we ate side by side. He was a complete stranger and didn’t speak a word of English/French/German… I speak not a word of Dutch).
Then a friend of mine met up with me. We cycled 12 days together. Now I enjoyed:
- her wonderful company
- switching bikes to keep the rhythm (my bike with the carriage and the dog was quite heavy)
- knocking on unknown people’s doors to ask to sleep in their garden
- sleeping in beautiful woods or on a shore of a lake
- sharing language skills
- celebrating victories together.
This trip taught me several things:
- That the distance means something real- different langages, people, cultures, landscapes, but also that you can go through the distance by yourself.
- That only a small number of my belongings are necessary, and having less things gives me the opportunity to be creative. I used to measure the amount of my stuff by car volume- I was proud I could fit everything in one small car. Now I realised I only needed one full bike carriage!
- That if you ask for something, people who want to help you will do so. (In Oslo, I slept two nights hosted on a stranger’s property. The first night in my tent, the second in their spare flat. And they gave me many tips of what to see and do in Oslo. So kind.)
This trip is also linked to my way of consuming and eating. I’m vegan, and I feed my dog with vegan dog food. I think that we should take care of animals, we shouldn’t kill animals (including humans). I want my veganism to be a truly social way of thinking. I don’t want living things to die because of my actions. I feel in my body that flying is contributing to destruction – even if I don’t see it directly.
Now that I’m in Norway, I miss my friends, and a lot of them would love to visit. I would of course love them to, but I’ve told them that I don’t want them to fly to visit me. Two of them are going to come. Taking trains and buses – I can’t wait!
Here in Norway, I still enjoy what I find around me, sometimes it’s a bit sad to see how much people and stores waste stuff (food, throwing away good things from bikes to carpets to toys), but it forces me to be creative. In that way, I’ve build a dog house from scratch: planks, nails, carpets I found in dumpsters or somewhere else. I insulated it from the rain and the cold with Arfy’s empty dog food bags, the plastic being very strong and sturdy.
I think dumpster diving is a good way to change our attitude to “things”. What I find in commercial bins is almost always good enough to be used (or eaten when good food is thrown out by supermarkets). Then you realise what one uses at home can be fixed before being thrown away. You begin to imagine new ways of decorating or creating things with what one finds. If everyone did this rather than buying new and disposing of perfectly good things, we would be more conscious about how society and the big companies work. Be able to think in an alternative way. Be able to question our diets, our travels, our links to living things.
Stats:
Cycle trip length: 17 days
Total km: 1,359
Daily average: 79-82 km (depending on whether I was alone or not)
Wheels I peddled: 6
Usual frequency of flat tire: 1 every other week (200km)
Actual flat tires on this trip: only 1. Yay!
