Norway 3 - to cape north
Alta is sourrounded by mountains, i'm heading on, it is still the euro velo 1 which runs on the normal roads heading up north. You have to climb a bit and soon the landscape changes into deep forrests. You hear birds chirping as you pass along. In the whole area you find big birds such as the sea eagle.
I've started late in Alta so 15 km out of it I took a campsite. It is the first day of the last stretch - 240 km / three days to go.
The pine tree forrest changes into scarse beech trees quite fast and continues as long stretches of hills on wide barren fields - i'm in reindeer country.
The next 40km is a downhill section, it is raining hard all day, wind in the face and even tough I loose elevation the small hills up and down don’t feel like driving a long downhill section - more like climbing down the hill with short flowy interruptions.
There it is, my first reeindeer on the journey. What a beautiful and calm creature - could be from a Ghibli Movie.
Further down the road on a nice flat strip I met Knut on parkinglot, the 75 year old Sami reeindeer breeder. We talk a bit and five minutes later he ask me if I would like some coffee - It is pooring down all day, fairly cold day so im happy to say yes to the invitation. After his retirement from the states road maintenance department building roads and bridges as an engineer hes traveling in his caravan. During the winter time herding reindeer from his shed deep in the mountains. He told me about the Tour de north cap where hes attending as a helper. The fastest road cyclists in the world, lot of them also competing in tour de france flying up the hills.
After the first coffee he asked if I like to try sami coffee - their variation of bulletproof coffee. He cooked some water, took out his favorite knife and a big piece of dried reeindeer meat. Cut it up into little chunks, put it into the cup, grabed a loaf of fatty cheese cut it in small pieces again and there it goes into the cup. It is about 3/4 full by now. Over that he brewed strong coffee. The cheese melts, the meat soaks up the water and you get a harty mix of a soupish coffee - tasted not bad. Was more of a sluping that went on in the caravan from there on. We talked for about three hours and enjoyed it.
Had still 30km to go that day, with the special Sami fuel in the tank - easy piecy and it was quite flat from there on.
Saw more reindeer on the way to Skaldi, slept just outside of it in the bushes as it got a little market to replenish my provisions.
Had some coffee and a vegetarian burger - if something so rare comes across you have to take it. Went to the restaurants toilette, heard in the both next door the toilette constantly flushing with an out of order sign in font of it. Opened the door, pulled the broken in half trigger back and at least it stopped flushing all the time.
Drove till late in the evening that day, there was no traffic anymore - was enjoying it a lot. Just me, the road and the ocean - 72 km to cape north.
Staked my tent at the side if the road where an old path made a half moon turn and the mountains covered me from two sides. Finding a piece of grass was no challange, finding one without raindeer poop was. Time to play poop golf. Was a nice place and sleept very well, some stonger winds here and there but thats when I sleep the deepest.
Today the temperature is around 6-7 degrees with rain, wind, mist and fog from all sides. Reindeers saying hello and sticking their head up from the grass or from behind the crash barrier. Another turn around a fjord and the under sea tunnel appears. That hole looks so harmless and it's deep, long and steep. It's a 6,8km long tunnel under the sea, connecting two islands, with an decline and incline of around 9 - 10% - Few minutes and I am 212 meter below sea level. Now 3,5 km up again, slow and steady.
Glad the under the sea tunnel to north cap is on of the good tunnels. Road is not seperated for cars and bikes but it's much wider than the usual one with decent lighting and wind turbines cycling the air. There are carved out areas with room for parking or stopping and emergency phones every 100 meters. The noise level is quite high as usual when cars or motorycles pass you - again the music helps to dampen it a bit and you still hear enough.
Went on towards Honningsvåg with the idea to go up to cape north in one push. Weather said no and i'm glad I did not push on - storms beeing reported with loads of rain. Would not have been joy to go up there let alone safe and for the big destination I've been spending so long pedaling towards to. So wanted it to be a good experience.
Therefor went to Honningsvåg instead and checked in to the Arctic hotel, a little modern, not too fancy one with nice people running it and a bike shed – Ahh and a warm shower 💦🙃
The next day the weather was much more stable, not perfect but who cares at cape north.
The commons saying up here is if you don't like the weather - wait 5 minutes.
Went on the road for the last bit: 34 km and 1km of elevation gain. You start driving trough a secluded little fjord, pass the Honningsvåg airport and soon the first serpentines greet you.
Must be an interresting expirience to start and land there - short strip, mountains around and just one side to enter from.
Elevation goes from 0 m to over 350 m. There’s not much sun and no rain yet. 1st serpentines turn, 2nd turn and there we go, strong headwinds and 9% steep roads. Glad the traffic is very low so I could drive in snake lines. Makes the way longer but your legs are not running at 100% performance all the time.
Soon the rain starts - it is face seeking rain that knows exactly where the small opening of my rain jacket is where my eyes and nose stick out. You slowly turtle up the hill in the lowest gear. Short bursts of even stronger winds coming from the side make the rain feel like little ice crystals - feels solid but I guess thats just cold wind at high speeds. The weather app said windspeeds on average of 30 - 60km/h. Often you get the burst from the front, it feels like pulling the breakes - you have to push hard, put down your head and every few 100 meter make a short stop.
It is not uncommon that they send people in caravans back down as the winds get so strong they risk tipping over. Even heard of caravan roofs ripped of. There are street signs ripped of laying around in the grass. Think about that piece of metall flying around.
Crank turn crank turn, snake left, snake right, help leveraging by pulling on your handlebars and leaning into the crank turn with your bodyweight - left right left right left. Some of the time your concentration is just on the while side line as your all ducked to escape the wind and rain a bit. Then the head moves up to get your bearing - astounding landscapes - barren, rough, harsh - then dive under again like a whale after taking air in – crank left, crank right. Splash in the face! Lean into the wind blow to not fall over. Head up - nature, reindeer – dive... 🐳.
Cannot describe you how much I love that - you feel so amazingly alive.
Head up, spit out the water thats running into your mouth. Your nose is clean you take so much saltwater in and you smell and taste the salty ocean air. Grab down to the water bottle, have a drink, have a bite of the granola bar, another sip – you smile, you chew, you breath. All quite a bit rougher, manners set aside for a while – the mind needs motivation you get bike crazy for a bit – there might be singing, making duck or animal noises or you have a conversation with reeindeer and seagulls close by. I listen to music, just random songs from my favorites playlist. You humm, sing along – well its a shower of some kind so singing is mendatoooooooooooooorrrrrrryyyy 🎤
Really looking forward on how the footage from the GoPro turns out and what you can hear - quuuaaak quuuuuak 🦆🦆🙈😁
Half way up, I reach the first platoo of two. It is foggy, misty most of the time so you cannot see far. On the way back I got a glimpse of the spectacular landscape in all its glory. The wind gets even stronger. When stopping I have to plant my self wide with a strong footing for not to getting blown over. Besides that it is headwind of course.
Ask cyclists for good backwind and the tales tend to get colorful as if we talk about that ethereal creature, so rare and scarse just seen and felt rarly and spoken about in fairytales.
The road continues up the hill same as steep to the second platoo. From there the road continues up and down between the mountain peaks for about 15 km. Then the first glimps at the ocean and the steep cliffs the ocean carved. A bit further you can see the north cap station. Down a bit and up again and then the final stretch. There's free entrance but they have little ticket booths – guess their purpose is to place a happy person in there for cheering on cyclists on their final stretch – and so I got cheered on 😁.
I'll drive around the tourist temple and there it is, the northcap statue, the iron planet of cape north – bikepackers asgard, where they travel together to meet, share stories and have warm beverages out of everything that roughly resembles a cup – and after a good nights sleep the journey around the world together to meet here again – bikepackers asgard.
Had some coffee, snacks and talks with other cyclists. Dried my clothes as good as I could, made some phone calls and received an amazing video call from friends at home, sweating with over 30 degrees - 😁 Thanks for the serenade.
Happy northcap - feat. Alma 🙃🥳
The sky cleared and the weather got nice towards the evening. Time to head back to Honningsvåg - took 4,5 h to get up there, 3,5 h to get back – let's get going.
Time for a rest day, checked in for another night at the Arctic hotel, had a great warm shower, plenty of sleep and nice food the next day – they have an amazing chef 👨🍳.
This ends chapter one, from here i'm heading south again. Next country Finnland with destination Helsinki cutting straight down through the country.