Day 4

Kristiansand to Stavanger, via some lovely roads and through some great scenery.

Leaving Kristiansand, we had a 5 mile trip to the Kannonmuseum, a German bunker site with a huge gun still in place. There were 4 back in the war, protecting the Skaggerak strait from allied shipping. It's unusual to see such things still intact and it is a substantial and impressive piece of kit. The view from on top of the hill is striking, with the morning sun glinting off the sea.

We take to the roads again and soon encounter some of Norways many tunnels. They must be the tunnel kings of Europe. There's not just straight tunnels but junctions inside the mountains too! One exited directly onto a bridge over a fjord, where they were building (maybe) a huge oil platform. Amazing.

The roads were nice and twisty but not too busy. The hoards of camper vans on the ferry last night seem to have disippated today. We were warned by road signs, of the possibility of Moose but never saw any. All we saw were cows and horses, with the odd sheep thrown in. The landscape is peppered with small fjords/lakes and it can be quite strange to climb uphill, come round a corner and find another one by the road.

Round one such corner, we came across the Jossingfjord and a memorial to four Kiwi airmen, who tragically lost their lives, when their aircraft collided mid air, after an attack on German warships, hiding from the allied fleet, in 1945.

The last stretch, heading North up the coast to Stavanger was a tad windy and nowhere near as nice as the early part of the trip. Not helped by a Tomtom malfunction and then some roadworks on the edge of Stavanger itself. We found the hotel OK though and were lucky enough to find they had one parking space left. It's NOK120 for a night but it is a big bay, easily accomodating both bikes, is secure and under the building. The alternative was to find somewhere on the street, somewhere. There's no parking outside the hotel though, so no telling where that would have been.

First thing in the morning we're getting a ferry to Tau, 10 miles away. The ferry terminal is just over the road from the hotel, practically, so that should be easy enough to find.