Mother always said there would be days like this:

• Tailwinds
• Flat terrain
• Smooth pavement
• Clear skies
• No traffic
• Lifer birds

Yup, it does not get much better. Our ride of 30 miles was easy with beautiful scenery always present … water on the right, mountains on the left. Even the Norwegian row boats were worthy of being photographed … not everyone gets to own a Viking Longboat.

My lifer was finding Whooper Swans in one stretch of beach. There was also a second huge shortbird eating cloud berries, but they spooked so easily I could never get a photograph.

If you want to follow my bicycle trip diary, I post that daily assuming a web connection on a bike touring portal named Crazy Guy on a Bike. Our trip diary (135 miles completed at this point)

Finally … today’s picnic spot. Molly is climbing up the lighthouse.

Molly and I cycled over 5 kilometers underground today. The tunnels saved us from even more climbing. In total we rode 28 miles and climbed 8,000 feet in elevation (about the equivalent of walking up the stairs of an 800 floor skyscraper). Most of the tunnels were flat, but one dark cavern was 2 kilometers long and uphill. After the tunnel we were treated to a 8% downhill grade which lasted for 4 kilometers. While the climbing was tiring, the views we achieved out over various fjords were amazing. Here is a photo of the two of us partway up one climb.

Here is Molly in one of the tunnels. It was actually much darker than indicated in the image. I pushed the shadows up in post processing such that one could understand the environment … dark, cold, damp but one sweats a ton.

For the night we are enscounced at a great Norwegian resort (Hamn, Norway) that is the final landfall before the ocean takes over and reaches across to the middle of Greenland. Here is a screenshot of our location. Look for the blue dot.

I did find some more of the Norwegian Tuxedo Birds as the sun grew lower in the sky yesterday evening. This Eurasian Oystercatcher posed nicely for me.

A few years ago when I bicycle toured through Scotland I loved the local birds, but had difficulty with my ID’s. It was fun to create my own names, and invite my readers, you folks, to make an ID in the comment section. Let the game begin!

Apparently signs of winter are appearing up here in the Arctic … from huge blooming fields of fireweed, to flocks of Norwegian Tuxedo Birds getting ready for the trip south. There were well over 30 birds in this one flock.

Here is the fireweed and a “typical view” while cycling today. What wasn’t typical was in riding 25 miles we had to take one ferry (hour long), ride three tunnels ranging up to a kilometer, and climb through a smaller mountain pass. Heck … a 25 mile ride only takes me two hours on the North Shore of Lake Superior (touring, not road bike). Covering this distance including the ferry took six hours which included time waiting for tge ferry and necessary preperation before each tunnel to rig up flashers, take off sun glasses, etc.

Finally into every life some rain must fall. I took a mild tumble off the bike when I could not kick out of my peddles in time and fell into a ditch (had strayed a bit to far onto the shoulder). Normally no problem, but the ditch fell away such that my foot could not reach ground. The end result is a mildly annoying bruised rib (or slight fracture). It only hurts when I get up after a rest.

One more bird tried to wear a tuxedo, but did not pull it off … hint … this gull is the largest in the world!

I did manage to ID both birds. Have to love Merlin Bird ID from Cornell.