Europe India trip: Day 6-7 - day off at Torring (Denmark) & then entering Norway [Apr 18-19, 2023]

The day of picking a fallen bike & hurting my back .. but still decided to ride to Norway the next day

Have decided to put the map image of entire trip to the point. Map link here

I remember feeling pretty cold in the night as it was jungle & I think I never realized that the owner of the hut had provided another heater, which I never switched on. I think compared to some of my future camping I did in Norway, this was still a decently warm experience so guess I should not be cribbing about it :).

I got up & then decided to explore the public restroom & shower (refer to my previous post). The walk was short & the location turned out to be a nature camp building which looked like maintained by the govt. The toilet & shower were pretty good & that is when I realized how I am eating into tax payer money of Danish people :).

The toilet was probably cleaned once a week but looks like there were no takers. The shower did not have warm water but the cold water bath was a pretty good experience as well.

I came out, sat on the bench & was wearing shoes. That is when I noticed the cows grazing far away, who were all looked at me .. puzzled .. looks like they are not used to seeing humans at this place :)

I remember spending the day writing the pending post & then heading out in the evening to grab something to eat. I remember the owner telling me about Bagerggarden being pretty good & the place did not disappoint. The lady at the counter recommended a dish which is considered traditional Danish food. I am not sure if I picked the name but it looked like different kind of toppings on bread & it tasted pretty good.

View of my bike next to Bagergarden. Shot from my GoPro

Roasted beed, roasted pork & egg are the topings on each bread respectively.

The coffee was passable but for 15 DKK (Danish Krona), it was expected I guess.

I also had setup GoPro on my motorbike & decided to test it during the ride. I wanted to put it at a place where I can start/stop it while riding the bike. After some thought, decided to place it on top of the brake oil indicator box mounted on the handlebar on the right.

This is how the picture came. I was ok with the windshield being visible as it gave the real feeling of shot from the motorbike thing :)

While riding back to the hut, I took a wrong turn & entered into a path where I quickly realized I need to take a U turn to come back. In a hurry, while trying to take the turn, I did not accelerate enough & soon the bike slowly fell on the side.

Unlike the previous day when I was on road & a car was passing by, this time, I was along in jungle with no help. I panicked & decided to pick the bike quickly enough, eventually spraining my back. I could ride the bike back to the hut but had realized that something has gone wrong. I had slip disc in 2015 & the horrible memories of me being bed-ridden for a month, came back.

Back in the hut, I decided to rest. But my mind was racing. I could feel that the pain is not sharp & it came with the muscle movement. So I was reasonably convinced this is a muscle thing & not disc thing. But I could not rule out the disc injury completely. I then messaged owner & requested for a hot water bag & she obliged. I decided to sleep over it anyway. The owner had mentioned that the hut is booked for the next day so extending stay wasnt an option. I decided to ride to Norway anyway & will take rest there.

The next day morning, I was up early. I readied a blog post, scheduled it to be sent the next day & then started to pack my stuff as I had decided to leave early. While I was slow because of back issue, I am also now a bit scared turning the bike as I was afraid if it falls again, I am in a bad position. I had spent time watching youtube videos & people had recommended to pick the bike by pushing from your back.

While I was turning the bike to take it out, as I had dreaded, the bike fell again. This time, I did not panik, took my time & pushed it from the back to pick it. It did not happen the first time, but eventually I was able to pick it. The bad news was, the day before, I had hurt the right side of my back more. This time, it was the left side. I thought to myself, this aint a good start to the day. But I anyway decided to continue my ride.

The previous day, I had booked ferry from Hritshals to Kristiansand & I had checked a cheap place for 20 Euros in Airbnb at Evje, 100 kms north of Kristiansand. But I have not booked the place. I decided to take the motorway to Hritshals as I dint want to be late (the ferry was at 12:15 PM) & as usual with Danish motorways, had to face side winds.

I did not have my morning coffee so I decided to stop by at a cafe in Viborg . I had to go into the city but that did not delay me significantly. I did have to find a parking spot & it took me some time. I dont remember the name of the coffee shop but coffee was decent. I started to have filter coffee with milk as it seem to be the cheapest & quickest coffee that you can get.

Riding to the ferry point was mostly uneventful except me paying close attention to cross winds. Boarding the ferry was quick. Not much happened at ferry checkin point except I need to show my visa.

I have booked Color Line ferry & the car ahead of me is at the checkin.

I slowly climbed stairs & sat at this place. You can see another ferry from the window

I figured that now I have boarded the ferry & I am for sure going to Norway, it is time to look for accommodation. The cheap place that I saw yesterday on Airbnb, wasnt showing for today. So I put the same hack that I did to book the jungle hut in Torring. I put the dates for coming date, found the listing & messaged the owner. The owner replied but by then, my internet had gone as ferry had come far from the mainland.

I decided to eat something & saw an Indian guy at the counter. I talked to him & he turned out to be Indian origin Portuguese guy. His name was Clovis Carvalho. He was at duty so he suggested I should not post his pic in my blog :). Clovis was very nice & suggested me to stay at their place if I happen to pass by Lisbon.

Ferry reached closer to the Norway border & internet came back. I started to communicate with the owner. His name was Tony & he said that he is coming to Kristiansand for work & he can hand over the keys to me. It was sheer luck else I would not have got the cheap place. I met Tony at the exit of the ferry in Kristiansand & he handed over me the key & the map of the place.

About to leave ferry. I was the first guy to exit as I was the only motorbike guy in the ferry :).

The place is actually a hostel for sports folks next to football field & Tony had recently published it as hostel in Airbnb. I was the first guy to book it :). So he explained to me how to get into my room.

Thats Tony.

I started to ride towards Evje & stopped by at a Shell petrol pump to fuel up. I also decided to have a coffee & met this guy from Afganistan at the counter. I think his name was Rashad. Rashad asked me if I make videos of my trip & he started telling stories around how his friends make money by posting videos on tiktok & youtube.

I switched on the 1 min picture mode in my GoPro & it kept clicking pictures. The landscape was different from Denmark but it wasnt anything magical.

The roads were winding & curvy and that is what I was hoping for as well. The good thing was - due to mountains, there were no cross winds. Plus, the speed limit at most roads even on highway was 80 kmph, which was a good thing for me as I like to ride slow.

Speed limit inside city is 60 as was in the rest of the Europe.

Noticed that the water body I was crossing was frozen. But I did not feel very cold passing it.

Some nice green scenary on the way.

I think I reached the hostel by like 6 PM & I was able to find my way in. I do remember that I had to come out to get my luggage & I forgot the keys inside & got locked out. But then there were other entrances to the building & I was able to get in.

The hostel was pretty good. The entire place was for me & I enjoyed it :).

I was hungry & looked up places to go & eat. Like my stay in Torring, I decided to pick some sandwich from supermarket & eat them, but a quick ride to Spar revealed the store has not housed any sandwiches. I was like - maybe Norwegian govt does not want their citizens to be eating junk food. So then I decided to head to a restaurant. I am glad that I did as I ended up meeting some nice folks.

I looked up in the map & decided to head to Milano pizza & kebab shop. I met Ingeborg at the counter & she quickly figured I am an Indian. We decided to have a chat & she caller her husband who is from Kerala. Matthew came over & we ended up having a fairly long conversation. Ingeborg told me that they named their youngest daughter Lalita.

Thats Ingeborg. She wanted to pose in front of her restaurant. So I did not the usual selfie mode as the name would not have come clearly.

Thats Matthews.

I was home at 10. I liked the hostel & my back was still sour from picking the fallen bike. So I decided to rest the next day & told Tony I would be staying one more day.