Norway Trollstigen Mountain Pass - Riding The Trolls Road 63

Good morning from the Graingerfjord. It's quite misty today as you can see behind us but the mist is just starting to lift and we can see the fjord there which is part of the greatfjord. It's an offshoot of it. Yeah and just down there is also the Grainger village and today we're going to be heading up this road behind us aren't we? Yeah we've got a quite a nice little twisty road just coming down the mountain there. There's a little village that we're going to head to and then after that we'll make our way to the Trollsteg pass which is about what 45 minutes an hour away? Yeah it's not far at all and then we're going to be heading up the coast towards Trondheim across some incredible roads that kind of skip over the islands. Yeah and apparently it's going to be a rain-free day so there's going to be some great riding ahead of us today. This is the hotel we stayed at last night which is directly on the pass which is perfect for motorcycles or for road trippers. Let's go and check it out inside. I'm gonna have to go quickly It's a really old one too isn't it? It's been here for many many years. It's pretty much like the oldest in the in the area I think. Yeah there's some really cool old photos inside as well. After you. Thank you. So this is the main reception area and then it's actually four floors and there's no elevator so we had to lug the panniers up last night which was fun for Sean. So as you can see all along this stairwell is old photos of the Grangerfjord when it first and this is one of the first ones of the road that they built and you can still see some remnants of the old road as you ride into the fjord. It's time to pack up the room and get the bike suits on but not the waterproof which is nice. It started raining again so we're putting on the waterproofs. And we are off. It's started to light rain again. It's not too cold today, 13 degrees. And we're heading down into the town of Granger. Yeah. Whoa that is a big cruise ship. That is a big cruise ship. That gives a good scale as to the size of this fjord. Yeah apparently it's 1.5 kilometres wide in parts so it's not as wide as the Elizabethan Fjord that we were on the other day. I think the Elizabethan Fjord was our favourite so far. It was less populated. It had a tiny little village at the bottom just for the ferry. Yeah and I don't think that the big cruise ships can get down there so you don't know. No they didn't did they? We're heading up the hairpins on the right side of the fjord now and then we'll drop back the other side and see the other like canal leg of the Granger Fjord Shaun and then we'll like snake upwards to all the Trollstein Road. Okay yeah these are some really tight switchbacks. These are like Stelvio Pass and it's not that nice in the wet with these coaches coming down. All right just check if it's clear. Looks good. I'm going to swing out to the left and then hit the corner. Lovely and smooth. No one coming. I could use the whole lane if I needed to. Getting high again. We certainly are aren't we? Feels like you're about to just ride into the cloud. I think we are yeah. Are you all right? Wow it's even more spectacular from here. We've just stopped at the top of the pass here and you can see how this fjord curves around and goes all the way in and it kind of splits off again into two which we'll see the other side of in a little bit. Wow. Have you seen that waterfall there in the distance Shaun? Oh yeah that's massive isn't it? It looks big from here. You can just about see here the actual top and then this layer of cloud in between. It's really beautiful isn't it? That is one big body of water and the cruise ship looks tiny down there again. Yeah I was reading this morning that it's very much uninhabited this fjord because it's so sheer. There's nowhere to put houses. There's a few farms. Yeah that's the perfect landing spot down there isn't it? Where it's just flat. Well that's what the roads look like at the moment. They're a little bit shiny today. They're still quite grippy but I'm taking it easy. I don't know how slippy they're going to be. We made it. Oh I think we have. It's another non-stop straight on the ferry transaction. Fantastic. Well jammy. That's awesome and we are on heading to the Trollstein road. They're dead easy these ferries. You just drive straight on them. There's no waiting or anything. This is only a 15 minute ferry. High five because that was freaking awesome. Another easy ferry. We've got a little window too. That's perfect. It's only a 15 minute one across and then it's just a straight road and then we're going to be at the Trolls Road. Awesome and it has stopped raining. Nice one. That's such an exhilarating thing isn't it? Yeah. Razzing to the boat to try and catch the boat so you don't have to wait 20 minutes. This one has a second floor. Has a rooftop yeah. Rooftop bar. These are a great little actually we haven't paid. We need to pay the person on the way out. We'll go down. Yeah. I'm sure they'll find us before we get off. Oh wow. This country. It's fantastic the fact that you have to take these ferries to get anywhere and they're so efficient. Here's the other one coming across now. They're really quite clever. The bow and the stern raises up depending on if it's docking or departing. So you can ride straight on and straight off. They're great. I like them. I am absolutely having the best time here. Yeah the weather could be better but who cares. This is awesome. That is where we're heading up straight away. I think we're going to be on that road. Can you just about see it there? Ah yeah. It's hard to see the roads aren't they? Quite well disguised. Yeah a beautiful waterfall there too. Fantastic. Well we should probably go get back on the bike because it's so neat. We should actually. They're quite quick these things. Time to say goodbye to the great fjord. Yeah. And hello to the trolls. That was actually a freebie ferry because we were the very last on. The guy that takes the payments wasn't there. I asked the other guy he said he didn't take payments so he said that one's that one's on them. Thank you very much. And it's not raining. There's the sign. Charles Stygan 37 kilometers away. Here we go. It's 30 minutes to the top of the pass Sean. Are you ready? That's great. I'm ready. We have a clear road ahead of us. It looks grumpy today with the clouds. I think once we've ridden this road, the trolls road, we've done some of the greatest roads in Europe. I think this is kind of one of the last ones. Yeah you're right. I think that's a fair point. And then from here on we don't really know what to expect. We've got a lot more kilometers to cover of Norway so it should be a complete surprise from here on. I think there's a big waterfall there or something. I'm not sure. Or is that where they have to get off? Oh it's a toilet. Oh there's a fake. All right so rapids. A little walk. Yeah wow. Just a little rapids and a tree walk. I think we'll get ahead of these coaches personally. Not a bad idea. It seems very popular where I'm from. We're just making the approach now to, well I don't know if it's the base or the top of the Trollsdagen. I think it's the base of it because we must have to get higher altitude. It's a bit misty but it's a spectacular area at the moment. There's lakes, waterfalls everywhere. I think we should be at the cafe in a couple of minutes is where we'll start our ascent or descent. I think we're at the top of the Trollsdagen pass or the Trollsroad pass. However it is pure cloud and fog up here. No one is hanging around. I think we're at the top. Yeah the sign was just there wasn't it with all the stickers on. I'm guessing we're at the top. It is very cloudy, very wet and it doesn't look like it's going to get any better so we're going to ride it in these conditions. The coffee shop at the top actually recently had an avalanche so it's completely closed but I did manage to get a sticker for our top box and a patch for my collection so I'm happy about that. Now we just need to ride the famous hairpins and enjoy the whitewash view. We're here. We did it. Doesn't matter the conditions. Exactly yeah. Heading into the abyss. Actually I can barely see the car that's about 50 to 100 meters in front of me. I wonder if we'll drop beneath the mist in a bit like when we came up. I didn't expect us to be descending the pass because we didn't feel like we'd gained that much altitude on the other side. No I didn't either. When the cloud actually does break you get like these little glimpses of mountains and road and waterfalls. I just saw the old camper vans then. They looked like they looked like little toys. They were that small. They were far away. Oh wow look at this. Oh it's even impressive today isn't it? That's awesome. Look at that. Super. That's awesome. Should we carry on going down? Yeah let's keep going. Starting to see some of the hairpins as we come down. I think that's the famous bridge that goes over the waterfall. There's a bit of a traffic jam on this next corner. Oh it's mayhem. Oh no. What this road must be like when it's busy. I dread to think. Yeah. Just approaching the famous bridge that goes across the waterfall. Look at that. Wow. Wow. I think if you listen really really carefully you can hear the trolls underneath it. Can you? It's funny I can hear a little troll throughout the most of this duration of this trip and I don't need to listen carefully. Hey. To fall just going through the rock under the bridge trickling all the way down and they're so full today with all this wet weather. Look at it though it's so busy. Oh it is busy. Bikers heading up. We made it down to the bottom of the trolls road and it was a great ride. It was very busy on the past and it is a bit wet today but it is a really cool road to come and do and it is iconic here in Norway. However we're going to continue on now and head towards the sea which is going to be nice a bit of a change and hopefully the weather improves. However I have loved riding this road. Is it my favorite road we've done in Norway so far? Absolutely not but it is really really a must-do thing. Shaun's just flying the drone and then we're going to get on our way but those type of roads where it's so busy on the hairpins they can be really stressful. However the ride to the actual hairpins was really lovely. Nice windy and just generally enjoyable. However those hairpins when there's big buses big coaches and we had such thick fog it wasn't the most enjoyable but it was really cool to finally be able to say that we rode the trolls road here in Norway. After you ride down the Trollsteg the whole valley is spectacular. There's so much water just flooding into this valley. It's really green. I have to say that road it was pretty short but I can imagine when you have full visibility it's super spectacular. We need to get a photo there don't we Em? Oh yeah there's the Trollsteg Trolls. It's time to say goodbye to the trolls as we head further north and towards the coast. Not entirely sure which direction we're going but I'm going to ask Em because she is the designated navigator on this trip. Well we are currently here at the Trolls Road. Those little zigs signify it. We're going to head up here now to Iserforden and jump on the 64 and head all the way north to Bud which is where we'll start taking that coastal road all the way to Christiansund and then once we get to Christiansund we'll take the e39 all the way to Trondheim. That is the route plan for this afternoon. It's around 12 o'clock so we might stop for coffee along the way on that route. Fuel prices in Norway it's only a little bit more expensive than the rest of Europe so marginally. For 98 super you're paying 23 kroner a litre which is pretty much bang on two euros a litre. Up to this point we've only been able to find the new e10 fuel so this is the first petrol station that has still the the e5 which I don't know what you think but I think the e5 might be better for the bike. It's probably all the same. What do you think? Do you prefer the e5 or are you happy to put e10 in your bike? Here comes the boat again. Not too long to wait for this one as well. Should be straight on. Awesome. So apparently some of the boats you can actually buy food on. Who's got time to buy food on one of these boats? It's only like 10 minutes isn't it? This one's 20 minutes. It's a bit longer more along the crossing but still. Pretty sure you can go without a sandwich for 20 minutes. Eresfjord. Eresfjord. It's so cool. It is. It hasn't lost the novelty. It hasn't worn off yet. It's still like awesome every time. We've ridden west from the Trollstigen pass. We're about 45 minutes west and now we're on the next ferry which is going to take us to a place called Solsnes and from there we're going to ride further on onto the coast. So join us in the next episode as we head to the Rastorpass and also to this bridge here which is called the Storrysundet bridge. It's basically that famous big bridge in Norway that everyone photographs. So we'll catch you in the next episode as we head to there.