Summer (sort of) in Stavanger

In 4 days time, Emma and I leave for Frankfurt, Germany to commence our month long degustation, cycling, relaxing, and exploring tour of France (and surrounds).

We pick up our bobil in Frankfurt and cruise roughly around in an anticlockwise direction around France. Coincidentally, the 2008 Tour de France route also takes in an anticlockwise direction (I am not sure if Emma is aware of this). So it should be a very enjoyable month of travelling.

Our first stop will be Epernay in the Central North East of France which is the home of Champagne (well it is Champagne actually) and home to Moet and Chandon. It should be a good start to our tour. We probably won't get a chance to update along the way but we promise to provide a good blog when we are back.

In the meantime however, here is a glimpse of our last couple of weeks in Stavanger.

We (well Emma mostly bless her - I was out riding) finally got around to painting the wall between our place and next doors.









































We went to the volleyball the other night after work with some good freinds. Stavanger has a round of the world cup beach volleyball each year (we went last year also and we posted some pics back then). We went along which was enjoyable as always, and then went across the harbour to a lovely outdoor bar and had some fresh prawns in a bucket washed down with more than a few beers. We then caught up with some other friends later in the evening at the lønningspils (pay check beers) evening at a local bar. Lovely evening.


















Here is me - we had OK seats this year, but we also had a great view of the harbour where there were 2 big cruise liners in. I got to watch them both leave also. Tough life!
























After the prawns on Friday night, we went for a shop to this amazing gourmet food supermarket. Got fresh prawns, fresh baguettes, chorizo sausage, mozarella, salmon, dips, cheeses and quiceish paste and washed it down in the sun with a bottle of our favourite Cloudy Bay.


















It was just like training for what will come in France.
























The lovely spread.
























The lovely company.


















Cooby also got a taste for the good life and Stavangerske prawns

Warm up race for Le Tour de France

Joel competed on Saturday in the Nordsjørittet (North Sea Race). Having opted to drink beer in Belgium (refer previous post) rather than participate in a seeding race a few weeks earlier, he was in the general group 6, rather than the serious riders that left in the first groups. Our friend Justin (he and his wife Nat are the proud parents of Cooba’s sister Brandy) was visiting for the weekend, so we drove down to Egersund, about an hour’s drive south of Stavanger, to see him off. The race is about 90km along a coastal trail combining road and off-road tracks, and is very picturesque winding its way along the south west coast of Norway – a very nice part of the world.

Joel completed the course in 2hr:51min which was a fantastic time, and won his group after strong competition with 2 other riders to the finish. Joel managed to burn them off riding up the last hill – anyone that knows Joel on a bike knows how much he loves the hills – nuts if you ask me. The overall winner completed the race in about 2:25. Joel's time should see him seeded in the elite group for next year’s race. Of course having borrowed a bike from a mate (thanks Al!), because none of his 3 bikes were suitable, I am now being targeted with a very focussed campaign aimed at buying him a new bike. At AUD$5-6K I’m not exactly rushing out to the bike shop, but that does not seem to dampen Joel’s enthusiastic campaigning!



We are now getting ready for our holiday, lists galore of things to take. I hate to think how much our luggage will weigh! After a beautiful 6 weeks or so of sunshine and true summer weather during late April and May, unfortunately it did not last. We have been back to mid-teen temperatures and quite a bit of rain over the last few weeks. Joel and I refuse to believe that was The Summer, and now it is over, and are crossing our fingers for some warm days during August and maybe even September. The warm stretch broke records in Norway, but for us it was just a short taste of what we hoped was a ‘real’ summer. After last years dismal imitation of a summer we (perhaps undeservedly) felt like we were owed a good one! Time will tell.

Cheers to all,
Emma