Cycles, buses, taxis, trains, a ferry and more buses

When the mind was made up, the logistics came into play. How to get the cycle, 20 kilos of stuff and me home. From Tranum, I had to get to the nearest town to get a bus. I have to give it to the Danes - everything can be arranged for a man with a cycle. Even the price of tickets are such that you don't feel the pinch in the pocket - something like 12 Danish kroners for 2 hours. I would say the systems are good but you still have to rely on the honesty of the people. I didn't have enough kroners so asked to pay in Euros. The bus driver wanted kroners and said I could pay later and let me on anyway. Later he just picked a figure from the air and charged my cycle 15 Euros and me nothing. Aalborg train station, as it happens all across Scandinavia in the summer months (the Hi season for tourists) they have to repair the trains and tracks. They put you on a bus, drive you a little, Put you on a train, take you off the train and then back on the bus. Luckily for me, they made some mistake and I had already purchased the ticket so they had to take me to my destination. By whatever means. So they put my cycle and stuff in a truck and they called me a taxi. Now that's what I call taking responsibility. That's you DSB (Danish State Railways). Hirtshals was where I would take the ferry from to Kristiansand, Norway. I had some time to kill so I went to have lunch. Here I met 3 Italians who were doing the same route as me In Denmark and were having similar problems with the headwind and the maps. They couldn't do more than 50km a day because of the wind. We were talking about it and came to the conclusion that one of the reasons that the route starts in the south and finishes in the north is because of the wind. You get more tailwind on the south to north route and therefore easier to cycle. Once on the ferry, I did what all Norwegians do and bought duty free even if it meant I had to carry it on my back. My phone showed 0000hrs as I landed in Norway? The station was just across the street but I had a 2 hour wait for my train to Oslo. I bought the ticket at the machine but it would not register my cycle - the ticket prices were not from planet earth. And then as the train came in I was told that it would stop 50km short of Oslo because they were fixing the track and the bus would not take my cycle. The conductor told me that he would come to me to take the money for the ticket for my cycle so I went and sat down and waited. He came and saw my ticket and said nothing about the cycle. I too said nothing about the cycle. When it came to the time to take the bus I just told myself to go for it and take it and see if the driver takes it. And HE DID! No questions asked. Every railway employee I spoke to said he would not take it but I guess they never asked the drivers before. I am sorry to say that Norwegian railways are trying to improve their service in Oslo by putting pretty girls in their red uniform to deal with customer’s queries. The only thing they forgot to provide them with is information. The ticket terminals were down so I went to one of these girls... Question – where can I by ticket. Answers – hmmmmmm maybe on the trains, our systems are down. Q. Where does the train go from? A. Ahhh there is only a bus service today for the trains. Q. Can I take my cycle on the train? A. Don't know. Q. Who knows? A. The ticket sellers. Q. Where are the ticket sellers? A. We don’t have them today, buy on the train, but we have busses to take you to train, you wont know whether you can take the cycle on the train until you reach the train. This is the NSB service. They want me to travel on the bus to the train with the cycle and then once I'm there I have to ask if I can take the cycle and if not I have to come back on the bus, but the bus does not allow cycle onboard. So I opted for the long distance bus service. They have the same service problem, there is an office which says ticket sales. I went there to buy my ticket and got, oh we don’t sell tickets. Got my ticket on the bus. The prices just piss me off. It's like they don’t want people cycling. The ticket for the cycle is half the price of the adult ticket. They say the cycle takes space. You can put your whole house in it without any charge but if you have 2 wheels you have to pay. I can understand if there is no space or little space, but half of the freaking baggage compartments were empty. It’s a 12 hour journey with one change over. After going through all this, when I changed bus I was dreading how much I would have to pay for my cycle on the last bus change. At last my luck turned. This driver said he didn't like the rule of the cycle charge, there is space in the bus and he didn't expect more people so he would not charge me for the cycle. At last I'm home. I started at Tranum at 0800 Monday morning and arrived home Tuesday 2300. Glass of whiskey. That’s all I needed to say for today.