Crasher goes North: I've made it!

Thursday 23rd July 2015

I woke from my whisky induced deep sleep to be greeted by a barrage of warm hearted abuse from my fellow housemates. Apparently, as soon as my head hit the pillow last night, I started snoring. Loudly. Yet again, I didn't hear a thing!

We have a lazy day today. After all on the kilometres we have all traveled, we deserve it. Mark checks the weather forecast on his phone. It is going to be a nice day. But, he also notices the sunrise and sunset times are blank. We are truly in the land where the sun never sets.

I have been busy since breakfast. I have done a load of laundry, and adorned the washing line outside our hytte with my smalls.

I have also uploaded the footage and photos I have taken of the trip so far to my hard-drive, and also to my cloud storage. I am making full use of the free Wi-Fi. I don't know when and if it will be available, so I make use of it when I have it.

I have also charged up all of my gadgets ready for todays filming. I am getting excited at the prospect of actually making it to the Nordkapp. I know there is nothing there other than a money grabbing tourist attraction. But, this trip has been 2 years in the planning. And, I have been researching the possibility of making the trip since my early twenties when I read about the Nordkapp in an old travel magazine in a doctor's waiting room.

When I was led in bed this morning, I noticed something I didn't see the night before. On the slats of the bed above, travellers from all over the world who had stayed in the hytte before have written messages. There were messages from Scandinavia, Italy, Holland, Latvia, Russia, everywhere. I wrote a message and also left a sticker.

So if you are ever staying in hytte number 4 at Nordkapp Camping see if the message is still there, and leave one of your own.

Finn, Mark and I went for a ride into Honningsvag to fuel up for todays ride, and also have a quick look around. We had all ditched our panniers back at the hytte. My bike felt weird. It was back to being a supersports bike rather than the supertanker I had ridden all week.

We found Stuart at the garage behind the service station. He had borrowed some tools so that he could adjust his chain.

Honningvag is an industrial city ( declared a city even though it has less than 5,000 inhabitants) and specializes in two main industries. There are not only visual clues to these, but the two aromas that hit you are the biggest clues of all. Oil refineries and storage tanks greet you as you enter the town. These provide a refueling stop for large cruise ships during the summer, and fishing boats and oil platform supply ships the rest of the time.

The other smell is slightly more pungent. Huge drying racks full of stockfish have been constructed, looking like a macabre scene from a fisherman's tall tale.

 After a look round the city, we rode back to the hytte to meet up with Stuart, who had gone back to collect Alison.

The E69 to the Nordkapp is reported as being less of an epic ride and more of a boring necessity. But, I loved it. The landscape is barren with huge scars of dark granite rock that are constantly weather beaten by the harsh conditions being this far north.

 

The flashing headlights of approaching traffic indicated Rudolf and friends must be nearby. And, sure enough just up the road there they were.

Approaching the Nordkapp we had a decision to make. We chose, or more precisely Mark chose not to pay the entrance fee to the carpark. There is no actual requirement to pay to enter the site as it is public land. Paying entitles you to a few extras such as viewing a film in the cinema. But, we were here just to cross off a place on our bucket lists.

We parked up at the bottom of the entrance road, I stuck a sticker on the signpost, and we walked across the cliff top towards the globe monument. Mark stood on the edge of the cliffs, and posed for a manly photo.

This was as close as he was prepare to get. A true adventurer!

As we got near the monument there were more of the stone cairns made by travelers.

Once at the monument we took it in turns to take photos. I stuck a sticker on it. The monument gets covered in stickers which are jet washed off at regular intervals. But, mine was there. I have photographic evidence! Finn asked me to take one of him using his super-dooper camera. I thought I had taken it. But, when he reviewed the photos later it turns out I hadn't. Sorry Finn. We then asked a German couple if they would be kind enough to take a group shot of all of us.

I did get one of Finn using my camera