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Midsummer Night Ride

Midsummer Night Ride

Last weekend I did something crazy: I took the train to Grua and cycled all the way back to Oslo through the forest, nearly 60 km – in the middle of the night! It was beautiful: sunset at nearly 23:00, an orange moon rising, a sunset melting into sunrise, with beautiful twilight colours. I hardly saw anyone (except for a few people camping in the forest), but I did meet two big moose and heard the eerie call of the loon echoing over mirror-calm lakes. Oh and a billion annoying little flies, but let’s forget about that 😉

From Grua I cycled a long uphill to Mylla, where I took a short break to enjoy the views…

Evening views at Mylla

Perfect reflections

Mylla panorama

I cycled along the south side of the lake (Mylla), never far from the shore and pretty views…

A rowing boat in the forest

After leaving the lake and climbing up through the forest, this view suddenly opened up – magical!

Suddenly this view opened up - magical!

Moody skies around midnight. There was a lot of rain on the way, and I kept thinking it would start to cloud over, but it actually cleared up after this 🙂

Moody skies around midnight

I stopped very often, as I couldn’t resist taking photos of views like this…

The skies kept changing, but the colours were beautiful all night

The whole route was along forest (dirt) roads, but one small part went on a narrow track with boardwalks through the forest – fun 🙂

I mostly cycled on dirt roads, but there was a short part that went through the forest on a narrow path with boardwalks

At the end of that path I reached Gjerdingen Dam…

Gjerdingen

There were a couple of cabins here, and the light was on in the house. There were also two tents used by cyclists at the shore of the lake.

A couple of cabins at Gjerdingen Dam, and if you look closely there are two tents in use by cyclists

More pretty views…

Such fantastic views...

And some really magical views at Hakkloa. If the little flies weren’t driving me crazy, I would have stayed here much longer!

Magical moments at Hakkloa

After that there were some gruelling climbs up from Bjørnsjøen (I skipped Kikutstua as I was getting tired by now and wanted to get home), but after that it was mainly downhill all the way home. I finally got home at 4 in the morning. I met a lot of people on their way home from a night out, which is always surreal when you’ve been in the quiet forest for hours.

If anyone is interested in this route, it’s described here: Til byen fra Grua. Recommended! You need to book and pay to take your bike on the train from Oslo to Grua, but this is easily done online, even last minute.

Cycling around Maridalsvannet

Cycling around Maridalsvannet

Today I went for a long bike ride (nearly 35 km) through the forest and around Maridalsvannet, a large lake north of Oslo (and the source the city’s drinking water).

This is before I got to Maridalsvannet though, a much smaller lake in the forest…

A small lake in the middle of the forest

Spectacular view over Maridalsvannet – so pretty!

Great view over Maridalsvannet!

I wasn’t the only one out for a bike ride on this sunny Sunday 🙂

Lots of cyclists around on a sunny Sunday

Parts of the ride went through farmlands, I loved it! There were lots of flowers around as well, and I particularly enjoyed cycling downhill with the wind in my hair and the sweet smell of flowers in my nose – life is good 😀

Cycling through farmlands

A sunny day off

A sunny day off

Today (ascension day) is a day off in Norway. After a period with cold and grey and rainy weather, it seemed spring arrived overnight yesterday – nice warm sunshine :). So we decided to go for a hike in the forest today.

We took the tbane to Frognerseteren with lots of other people with the same idea. We chose a small path away from the main dirt road, and we soon had the forest to ourselves. It was a beautiful hike, with lots of spring flowers. There were still some patches of snow left, and at times the path was muddy and wet, but it was never a problem.

After 8 km and just over 2 hours of walking we reached our destination: Kobberhaughytta. We were sure the cafe would be open, but it wasn’t. So we just had our sandwiches on the jetty near the cabin :).

The lake Kobberhaugtjernet

Lunch break at Kobberhaughytta

We were really craving waffles though, so we had a look at the map and decided to head to Finnerud. We checked their website to make sure they were open and that they served waffles – and with renewed energy we started the short walk to this cabin.

Signs at Kobberhaughytta

This path was covered with the last remaining snow, but never mind – we covered the 2 km to Finnerud in record time: waffles calling!

Still some snow left in the forest

Some strange dangers in the middle of the forest…

Surprising sign in the middle of the forest, but there was indeed a road nearby

We made it to the cabin, it was still open and full of expectation we entered. Only to find they had “sold out” of waffles, as so many people had visited that day. This is so typical Norwegian to me, they have a golden opportunity to make money (a bank holiday which is the first sunny and warm day in a while, is it so hard to guess you will have a lot of visitors?!) but they aren’t prepared. Oh well 😀 they had some other tasty snacks so we still had a nice break in the sunshine.

Finnerud - but where are the waffles?

Afterwards we hiked the gravel road down to Sørkedalen, where there was a shop selling ice cream (yay!) which we ate enjoying the view over the countryside, while waiting for the bus back to the city.

Sørkedalen, funny to find countryside while still in Oslo

We hiked nearly 14 km – a great day! And I hiked in a tshirt and needed sunscreen – it almost felt like summer 😀