In order to make a small contribution to nature conservation, Oliver Giesecke does almost everything on his bike - even travelling to his semester abroad.
"I was simply fascinated by Norway and its fantastic landscape," says Oliver Giesecke. "I really wanted to spend more time there. That's why I decided to come back for a semester abroad during a holiday," says the student from Oldenburg. From his decision to the start of the semester at the "Høgskulen i Sogn og Fjordane" in Sogndal, everything happened pretty quickly: the idea was born in April 2015 and he set off at the end of July. "The semester didn't start until mid-August," reports Giesecke, "but it took me a little longer to get there." The reason: Giesecke travelled from Germany to Norway by bike - past waterfalls, fjords and national parks. With 30 kilos of luggage, he covered a total distance of 900 kilometres, 700 of them on his trekking bike. "You get a completely different feeling for the distance this way," he says. "For others, it might have made them homesick, but for me it made me look forward to it more and more."
The student of landscape ecology and native Hanoverian loves nature. That's why it was no problem for him to spend 12 days and nights right there. At the end of each day's stage, he pitched his tent where he liked it best. "At first I didn't know how to find good places to spend the night, but then I got a tip: just plan the day's route a little shorter and leave the actual route for a few kilometres. That's how I discovered beautiful places," he recalls. "And at the beginning, I had no idea how far I was travelling in a day." He covered up to 100 kilometres a day. "I was overzealous and was afraid of taking too long. Later, I cycled between 30 and 60 kilometres a day," says Giesecke. "But that was also due to the mountains in Norway. I sometimes reached my physical limits there".
He reached his destination Sogndal, a Norwegian municipality around 300 kilometres north-west of Oslo, two days earlier than planned. The first thing Giesecke did was move into his room in the hall of residence. He lived in a flat with three Norwegians and another exchange student. "It's always organised like this," explains Giesecke. This type of accommodation is a great advantage: "Because it makes it very easy to make initial contacts locally." What did he like best about studying in Norway? "That it was very practice-orientated," says Giesecke. "We had 21 excursion days, we were able to spend a lot of time in nature." He studied the subjects of geology and mineralogy intensively, and in his free time he went into the moorland fields with his identification book to prepare for his Master's thesis.
The semester in Norway ended at the beginning of December. Oliver Giesecke stayed for a few more days to say goodbye in peace and go snowboarding in the mountains. He was unable to realise his plan to cycle home. It was too cold for that. "What's more, my air mattress broke shortly beforehand. And sleeping directly on the icy ground would have been too much for me," he says with a smile. So instead of cycling, he travelled back by train. Now it's time for his master's thesis. "I won't be able to go on a longer tour again until then," says Giesecke. "But I'll definitely cycle to the North Sea in the summer."
