Motorcycle Explorer October 2014 Issue 2 | Page 46

Paul Holroyd It was still only mid-afternoon and so I decided to visit the stave church which is just outside the modern centre of town. Although not the most famous or indeed ornate stave church in Norway the Ringebu church dates back to the 13th century, built entirely from the slow grown Norwegian timber it really is a fantastic feat of primitive engineering. The church is still used for daily services by the faithful of Ringebu as it has been for a mindboggling 760 years. The next day I am looking at the map and will be heading for Dovrefjell a high altitude plateau, home of wild Reindeer and the last stronghold of Norway’s magnificent Musk Ox. Leaving the E6 for the day I decided to take the lesser route 27 joining it just north of Ringebu. The road twists and turns as it climbs and you can literaly feel the drop in temperature around every climbing bend. Something that I learned very quickly about Norway is that of altitude, it is plain to see the change in vegetation as you climb. I know this is not a necessary skill to have on a bike because my running nose tells me that it is cold as do my frozen feet, the only two problems that I have thanks again to Halvarssons. Anyway if you are in a nice warm car with the heater on before you open the door to be shocked by the cold, altitude can be judged like this, lush green conifers interspersed with green leaved Birch trees equals Lowland relatively warm. Sparse straggly conifers and yellow leaved Birch, it’s getting colder, stunted bare Birch trees, now it is cold. Nothing but a few berry bushes and rock equals freezing and that is where I am now, my ebay bought temperature gauge states that it is -8 degrees, I really don’t know but it is very cold. There is a stark beauty about these vast upland places with nothing for as far as the eye can see, but as I think about how dangerous these exposed places can be, it starts to snow, only lightly but it is snowing. The road seems to go on indefin conscious that I am still climbin didn’t I stick with the E6, that’s t to ride. I realise that my jaw is a through cold, more that I am ten descend, I want to see houses o anything. An hour later the road turn downward as I follow a rag For mile after mile the foaming progress and as my confidence bends once again become a joy I have survived something that p except in my own mind. Still bitterly cold I re-join the ma descending into the bustling no Trondheim, Norway’s third large used to be Norway’s capital, St O boasts a picturesque location on of the massive expanse of wate