There were only handful of guests staying at the hotel. It was quiet. We headed off to breakfast and shown some food in the corner (cereals, yoghurt, bananas), so presumed, that was it.

Filled our bowls up. Then out came a massive platter with various cold meats, smoked salmon, cheeses, salad. It was huge.

Out came the bread basket followed by two fried eggs and bacon.

Ouch…so much food and two lovely ladies wanting us to devour it all…..well I don’t eat eggs and bacon, Tony had to deal with that.

We made up two nice rolls for our journey and it started to look like we’d eaten more than we had.

Back to our room, and this was our view out the window. Light rain and our lovely little ferry from yesterday arriving.

We left via the main road but after five km peeled off onto a lovely quiet road. This was a trip highlight, as it was dotted with lakes and fjord views. We rode around 35 km along this section.

Similar to yesterday, lots of ups and downs. With the rain and wet roads, all descents were taken slower.

You can’t afford to break heavily and slip out…oil, green grass, white lines, metal caps are all dangerous if you brake on them in the wet.

The rain eased during this section on and off. It would rain, the sun would try to come out, it would get darker, it would rain. Repeat.

Today we had no wind, not one breathe!

Some of the views.

The first town today at the end of this lovely section was Tvedestrand. From my strava map below, you can see it is at the top of a bay of water.

We then climbed up a hill on my least favourite surface, cobbles. Wet cobbles.

We continued to follow quieter roads, dotted with more lakes and fjords.

We crossed a high bridge just after Arnevik, connecting it to Strengereid as we had been on another island. Great views with a bit more height.

More water views as we approached Arendal

Arendal is a city with around 45,000 population. I was not aware that Germany had invaded any parts of Norway, but they did in 1940. The town was captured by a German torpedo boat.

The town has many car parks in the massive mountains of rock, as well as a few tunnels we rode through.

Actually one if the tunnels formed part of a climb, prefer my tunnel rides to be descents not ascents. The cars were tolerant.

In the city centre the Trinity Church.

Something we noted today with the rain. Many people do not wear rain coats in the rain. The umbrella below was the first.

The Norwegians seem to be very hardy, despite Helly Hansen being a wonderful Norwegian wet weather gear manufacturer.

Our route had us traversing around the harbour and then up to our accomodation another five km along.

It took us up a crappy gravel path, and off the bikes here.

This was navigable as we wheeled our bikes between the excavator and garage, Tony lifted them over pipe work and a rain eroded gap, onto that metal walkway. Shortly thereafter we were riding again.

We are staying at a camping ground in a cabin, listed as waterfront. That it is! View from our deck.

The bikes were filthy again from the rain, the earlier path in town and riding around the cabin park finding our unit.

A clean up was needed, and we used fresh water and rags to clean them up, and they stayed outside in the drizzle until dinner time.

With so much wet gear, we needed to be creative with drying. 🤣

At 6 pm, we were picked up by our friend Rudi. I met Rudi years ago on Zwift when he joined an event I regularly led. I adopted him, and I was ‘mum’.

It was truly delightful to have a meal with he and his lovely wife Carina in their home.

We spent a number of hours easily chatting away (they speak excellent English), about travels, Zwift and life.

We got to see his Zwift pain cave set up and very nice bikes that he has.

The Zwift circle of friends has been very good to me. Rudi is the third Zwift friend we’ve met this trip. Such meet ups I do value and treasure, being the sentimental sop that I am. ❣️

Despite recent shoulder surgery Rudi intends to ride with us for a portion of tomorrow.

We will ride to his house and share breakfast before heading off.

As I mentioned yesterday, sunset is much later here than home.

This is a photo Tony took after we packed some if our gear and hopped into bed.

The route today was excellent and I would highly recommend to any biking tourers.

We ride 75 km and climbed just under 900 metres.

That’s it for another day. Thanks for reading. 😊❣️💪🚴