Norway's BEST Fjord - Lysefjord Motorcycle Cruise

We're in Lisbon today and we're having breakfast because we need to be quite quick because the ferry leaves in about 25 minutes but you can get there 10 minutes before departure so it mustn't be such a big boat but we've got some oats, some fruit and veg and some bread as well and some coffee more importantly so quick breakfast and then we're going to head on a two-hour ferry which is quite a long one because this is one of the biggest fjords in Norway. Yeah it's a really scenic one so it's going to be nice and we totally recommend this hostel which is just next to the ferry. It's great, super clean and everything you need. Welcome to the shortest ride to a ferry connection on record. Here's a little hostel where we stayed last night, it was really good. Stayed in one of those rooms, one of the green buildings and just down there is the ferry. So I don't even think the bike's got warm and we have arrived. All right looks like they're putting the bikes on at the front. Wow no wonder you have to book a ticket for this one in advance, it's tiny. Can I get on? Well make it easier for me if you don't. Okay. Unless you need to get on to get on but you and your bike gear I think they'll know. That is quite slippy that floor. That is very slippy. It's tiny. It is tiny little boat. Oh it's rocky. You got this. At least this bit of the floor is quite grippy. Oh how incredible, what an awesome experience. It's all activity on this boat. I think we can go and stand up there though on the top which is going to be nice. How was that? It's all right, it's quite grippy the floor. I think they've got some sort of grip on there. They're putting it on the seat. I'm going to go in and find us a spot, do you want to stay here? No you can go and find a spot. I can go and find a spot. I think they're just going to strap up the motorcycle. I'm going to go in, see if we can find a spot inside. So we are on the boat. I found a little spot and we'll do a little ferry boat crossing tour. It's tiny, I thought it was going to be huge but it's going to be amazing to spend the next two hours just like sailing all the way down this incredible fjord. That was a very quick turnover from the boat arriving to departing. We were like drive on and I think we just about strapped the bike down and we're heading off. Yeah there was quite a few other bikes and cars that were not allowed on. Yeah I think there was about six or seven cars and bikes but it's a tiny boat so if you're going to take this fjord you have to book this one in advance. The lady at the hostel last night was quite worried that we hadn't if we hadn't booked it but we had so it's really important that but it's beautiful. It's totally worth it. It's a good price as well. This ferry is not too expensive and you get like a fjord cruise and downstairs you have like seats and tables just a very small room and you can come up and you've got two hours of this fjord to enjoy. And it cuts out a lot of driving riding as well the other side. Yeah and when we get off we're going to be straight on some of the best motorcycle roads in Norway. Yeah we've got two good passes today. And the nice thing from here on we're pretty much free so we've got nothing booked from here on. No. Yeah we had this ferry and the last ferry booked they were only our like definite things that we had to be here for but now we can either take our time or go as quick as we like and yeah we've got nothing to stress about now. We always said as soon as we got on this ferry now we're free we can do whatever we want and just enjoy Norway so oh what an amazing place. It's absolutely beautiful isn't it? So the fjord that we're on is actually 42 kilometers long and at points it's 1.75 kilometers wide. It's 422 meters deep. It is huge. It is a monster of a fjord and it's absolutely stunning. It actually means the name light fjord because of the light colored granite rocks that kind of spring up out of the water. So just behind me here is a waterfall that this fjord is famous for and we are just sailing along as you can see the water looks like glass, black glass. It's so smooth. We were worried about the bike not being strapped down enough but there's hardly a bump on it. It feels like you're just gliding across the water. Just to keep in mind this little ferry has many stops along the fjord so make sure you get off the right one. I think we're getting off at the second to last one which will save us quite a bit of time with riding and put us straight in where we need to be. But it stops at these lovely little stops in these remote houses dotted about. So I think this boat is actually used a lot for foot passengers to get around because there's only space for I think about four or five cars and maybe six or seven bikes which is why they were turning people away before. Okay so just here we have the very famous hiking point on this fjord which loads of people hike up to. I think Sean and I will do it when we come back to Norway with a car or a 4x4 because on the bike it's a bit hard to do hiking. So I just wanted to show you can see tiny dots of people along the top. It's kind of like a square rock that juts out. Our two hours on the ferry boat are up and we need to head on get onto the bike get the bike unstrapped and get our helmets on and get ready to go. I would really recommend if you can do this ferry do it. It's awesome and it's a good price and you're gonna have an incredible time. But now it's time to hit some epic roads. Time to disembark we're finally here. Next part of our adventure continues. That was a lovely trip on that boat. What a nice scenic trip that was. Hopefully there's going to be another few today. I think we've got a couple of more little ferry crossings today that you don't need to reserve because they go every 20 minutes and they're quite big ships I think. That's great. Thank you. Ciao. Here we are in Ounz I think it's pronounced. I'm not sure. I must say this is a very exciting country to tour. Yeah. You have no idea what's coming next. Speaking to a biker there. He's just done one of the Harley meetups. Really nice guy. Really interesting. He's telling me if it's misty one day the next day tends to be good. It's an unwritten rule but he says it's accurate some of the time. That's interesting. I don't know what we're going to do with that information but it is interesting. It's not like we have a choice to wait things out for the weather because we have to keep moving each day. Well we have freedom now a little bit. We do have freedom. And we know that we can get home in two days in 1400 kilometers. That we can. I've forgotten the name of it but that plateau hike looked really cool. Yeah I took some video of it. It looked awesome however it did look really tough as well. It was so high up from where the ferry drops you off. It was wasn't it. I don't know how they get up the cliff face so easily but that's something we'd like to come back to. Maybe if we, I don't know, took the car next time we could take all the hiking gear and climbing gear. But yeah let's head on. I think we're heading over that bridge. Really? No. No I'm wrong. We're not. We'll find you another bridge. It's all right. Okay. So we have just arrived at the ferry port where we'll take our next ferry. On the map we are. So we set off from there this morning. We took the boat through the fjord. Picked up this road here and we're currently in, I don't know if it's pronounced, Jelmiland. Is it Jelmiland? And then we're gonna take the little ferry here over to Nesvik and carry on further north from there. I don't think you need to reserve these ones. They run every lot. 20 minutes is it I think? Yeah it said 12 minutes so it shouldn't be too long. Yeah I think we might even stay sitting on the bike for this one. It's just over there. It's quite short but that was a nice little 50 minute ride through the forest, water and fjords everywhere. Pretty spoilt for them really. It was amazing. And temperature is 17 degrees so it's getting a little bit chilly but it's dry so that's a great, yeah, that's a big bonus here. All right we're just getting on the ferry and they have a designated bike lane by the looks of it. So to drive on, drive off. This is quite downhill isn't it? It is. There's a nice little crossing. So for that ferry you can just pay on board which makes things easy. There is a little pass you can get which charges it automatic but it's pretty simple just to pay by card on the boat. It was 36 as well for that crossing but I don't think it's too bad. I think some of the roads that we're going to be doing now are quite off the tourist trail and off the Behan Pass. Oh okay they're quite small aren't they? Yeah and often overlooked I think too so. That's good. I guess if they're quite narrow then all of the hordes of camper vans might stay away from them. Yeah exactly. This is the 517. That's what this road is called. I think my new favourite colour is Norway green. Norway green yeah. Oh we might see some deers today. This looks like where they would hang out. It would make me so happy. I'm not sure. They more like come out in the evening don't they? Yeah we saw the bears in the evening and we've seen a lot of animals around our home time. It's always in the evening isn't it? Yeah. I will say all this rain has made it smell really good. It has hasn't it? Oh there's some bad rain. What is this awesome waterfall? Plenty of water today with the rain. Wow it's beautiful. Absolutely stunning that. And into the tunnel. Next to the road that we were riding past was the Svandal Falls here. There's a little pull-in space where you can park and there's quite a few steps that take you all the way to the top. It's quite worth the little walk because you're rewarded with this beautiful waterfall. And as it's been raining it's coming down quite hard today. It goes all the way down underneath the road and back out into the fjord. Another waterfall. Really nice. What's the name of this pass then? It's called the Rascal Pass. It's really nice isn't it? It's very quiet. It is. Again i think these ones are not very well known. This must be the top of the pass then. Ah yeah. Got a great view of the Grand Canyon. Believe it or not about three minutes ago it was absolutely teeming down with rain. So we darted off to some shelter over there. Took about 10 minutes putting our waterproofs on and now we've got blue skies again. So put your waterproofs on and the weather will go better. But we're going to leave them on for the rest of the day now because the weather keeps changing. Dry, dry, wet, dry, wet. So i think we're just going to leave them on for the rest of the day. Look at these rocks then. I don't know when they fell off but doesn't look like there's any more. They're right next to the road. Sometimes it looks like you know those games at the arcade where you put all the coins in and it constantly moves them to the edge till they fall. Some of them are just teetering over the edge and they look like they should fall but they haven't yet. Just waiting for the next big storm. Oh we've got another lovely pool here, a little road snaking around the outside of it. And a waterfall. Norway gives you everything in one moment. It sure does. I'm impressed with some of these caravans. They get around here yeah. Now we're talking more, Sylvio. It is, isn't it? It's like an abandoned pass with like rusty mossy bits everywhere. I think we found the worst tarmac in Norway. We have. I just couldn't be bothered with this bit. Everything else is perfect. We haven't crossed into Italy, have we? Check this out now. No, we're still in Norway. It's kind of cool though. It's rugged. It's more what we're used to. So this is the E134 if you're route planning for Norway. It's been a great road and I think we're about to hit an even better pass in about seven minutes. It's even lesser known than this one and we've hardly seen anybody, have we? No, we haven't. It's been really clear. Look at these views. I think as the sun starts to come out the lakes are getting bluer. I think you're right. I started to like the black lakes. They matched all my outfits. They did, didn't they? It was your theme. I don't know what Em's got us into here but she's picked another obscure road but it looks really good. It's the Foyno Pass. It's basically a single lane road. You could probably squeeze a bike and a car through but it looks really good. It's super twisty. I think it's the old road before they built that tunnel down there and it doesn't look like anyone is using it because I nearly missed the turn off as I was following everybody else. But there's lots of hairpins. Speaking of which... It's so narrow. It is. It's a little bit damp as well with sheep poo everywhere. I can't even see if there's a road somewhere at Em's with the grass growing over it. Speed limit 80 which is more than enough for him. This is fun. He's so tiny. I feel like we're on a bicycle track. This is Em. We're pit biking again. I haven't seen another car yet. Just some sheep and the occasional ramp. I think this must be one of their few ski resorts. Maybe, yeah. There's lots of chairlifts everywhere. We're getting in altitude. There's snow over there and it's dropped to 11 degrees. Em's got about six layers on and a heated vest. Are you cold yet, Em? No, I'm rather toasty in all my layers. In fact, I might say that my heated seat's a bit too hot. I think I might have to call you the onion. This road is awesome. Why is no one else on it? About to get a grand reveal around this corner, I think. Look at that road. There's no margin for error on the side of these roads. Is that going to fall? It's a little disconcerting, isn't it? The giant rocks. Just teetering. These have all fallen recently. That one's taken the post out. And this one. I mean, a country as vast as this, it must be difficult to control the rocks. But then you can't really control nature. Look at this. Snow. And to think, if we hadn't done that little bit of research beforehand, you'd have just driven on that main road and you'd have missed this. Yeah, good job, Em. Well done. No, I just think, you know, these things are often missed. And look at it, it's incredible. And there's the new road just down there. Oh yeah, for the tunnel. I guess it's like the Gotthard, isn't it? Yeah, exactly the same. Oh, Sean, you're going to have to get the drone out. Yeah, I am already. Look at that. I'll pull in the next place we can. Well, this is an incredible little pass. This bit's got new tarmac on it. That's good, they're keeping an eye on conditions then. I think the sheep use it more than the cars. Not much of a summer this year if there's still snow. No, I was thinking that. Mid-August, 12 degrees. We are about to pass another beautiful waterfall. We saw it from the top, we were at the top of the pass, and now we're at the bottom of it. Oh yeah. Oh, that's a beauty. So if it was warmer, I think we'd be in there, but... I think so. At this temperature, not a chance. No, I'd have to at least take off my seven layers. Wow. Is there anywhere in the world that you can just ride or drive past a waterfall like that? With no barrier, no unnatural barrier, they've put, you know, a few rocks. There's a few rocks just to let you know before you actually go over the top. Oh, another waterfall, that's a nice one. And a few more twists and I think this pass is over and we, my love, need to put in a new destination because that's the end of our little route. Oh yeah, we need to decide where we're going to go. Wow, this is amazing. Let's look. They seem to have as many waterfalls as Iceland as well. We've just ridden past two, three, four fantastic ones. Yeah, and they seem to get bigger and bigger. They do, yeah. The last one we saw was beautiful. It was, wasn't it? I think that's also another glacier. Do you think at 12 o'clock or just a snow-capped mountain? I'm just about to see it around this corner. Hard to say, really. It doesn't look blue like a glacier, but it could be. It looks like we're also riding into the light. Yes, it does actually, into the dry. This is village Oda, beautiful village. This is actually the first proper town we've ridden through. It's called Oda, O-D-D-A, and it looks like it's having a lot of work done to it. Yes, it's got everything, and it's got a bit of character to it as well. And it's got a giant lake, giant river, and a giant fjord at the end, as standard. Fjord comes as standard. It's feeling a little bit more remote here. Yeah, it really is. It feels like we're really out in the nature and in the heart of Norway, not so much on the tourist trail, let's say. Yeah, we're not even that far north yet, so it'll be interesting to see how things change as we get further north. Absolutely. But that's not something I was expecting to see. I don't know what is that, a factory or a power plant perched on the fjord there? There we go. Yeah, they don't show you that in the brochures. I guess the fjords all have connections to the sea, so they make quite good ports. Yeah, I didn't think of that. Could be like building materials or something. Good point. It's 6.30 now, and we're thinking about staying somewhere for the night, but we're not really sure what we're going to do. We've stopped at a couple of little huts, camping places. The huts are all booked out for tonight, and the camping seems rather expensive for what it is. So we're just going to try a couple of other places down the road, and then, yeah, we'll see what happens there. And we might even end up while camping somewhere tonight, as we're not going to be staying out very long. Yeah, the plan is, we have no plan, but we have contingencies on contingencies, which means we can do whatever we want, as in, we can wild camp if we want. Ideally, you don't want to be setting the tent up in the dark though. No, so we've got until 9.30. Is that 9.30? Okay, that's not so bad then, is it? A few hours. How are you feeling? I'm hungry. Hungry, and I could go a cup of tea, so. I'm hungry too. Hopefully we find something. We've got plenty of food with us, haven't we, to cook, so that's good. Yeah, and water. We're all set, ready to camp, just need a spot. Just need to find a place. There's a roundabout in the middle of the tunnel, and it looks like the Death Star. This is incredible. That's awesome. Don't even know which exit to take. Plans have evolved. We checked out another five, six campsites. Sean, five, six? Yeah, we did set out a couple anyway, didn't we? Yeah, they just weren't for us. I think the field we were on was very popular, so there was a lot, a lot of caravans, and there wasn't really a nice place to pitch a tent, and we would have been surrounded by everyone, which isn't really our vibe for this evening, so we found a hostel not too far away. It was another 20 kilometre ride, so we decided to ride there, and that's where we're on our way to now, and that's your update. We are four minutes away, and we've already booked it, so we definitely know we'll get a room there, and then we're going to cook dinner. Simple as that. Debrief of the day. We started in the Elizabethan Fjord, where we took the ferry across. Then we have rode all the way up here. Keep going. All the way through three major passes, and that was that little blue dot, which means in three and a half days, we've done 2,000 kilometres, which is a little bit crazy, considering most of that was in the rain. Where we are right now is a place called Vos Evangen. Vos Evangen. You can see it here, and we're basically staying in the only hostel that's here. It's a great price. A room was 80 euro to stay in a private room, or dorms were even cheaper. It's got a great kitchen and a fjord view behind me, so I'll just show you these. Look how cool that is. We have just made dinner. We made some chickpeas and a couple of wraps, so we're going to eat these and then get an early night, because we have an even more incredible day tomorrow.