Nordkapp Riding South

“Instructions for living a life:

Pay Attention

Be astonished

Tell about it.”

~ Mary Oliver

All good trips include a few surprises. Mine started off with a few twists and turns that I hadn’t imagined, plus a rookie move on my part thrown in for good measure. The kinks are worked out and everything is running smooth now until, of course, it isn’t.

Leaving Home

Figuring out how I’m going to transport everything, get my bike boxed and to the airport is always stressful. I have to find a piece of luggage that I can leave at the starting point because I never return on the same route to pick it up. This year I found a suitcase from Goodwill that I could easily part with and could describe if it got lost. Someone in Honningsvag is sporting “designer” luggage.

After a night near the airport in Oslo, I took a Norwegian airline to Tromso (side note: They didn’t charge extra for any of my baggage – bike or big suitcase. I still don’t know why and didn’t want to ask). From Tromos, I took a small plane to Honningsvag that stopped at the smaller towns along the way. Due to bad weather, they couldn’t land in Honningsvag. We had to go back to Alta and stay the night. From there we got on a bus and drove to Honningsvag.

Nordkapp

I rode up to Nordkapp with the sun at my back which quickly turned to fog, wind and cold weather. The ride is straight up about 25 miles from Honningsvag. I got there around 8pm and rode back down around 9:30pm still getting used to the eternal light. I put my tent up before I started the big climb knowing I’d be exhausted from jet lag and a big ride after a long winter and spring with very little riding. I got back to my tent, took a shower and slept for eleven hours!

By the time I got up and left the next day, it was 3pm in the afternoon. I started talking to the camp host and the hours ticked by. The second night to a formal campsite was just a bit too far due to my chat with Ieva. As I was pedaling along, lost in the stillness and solitude of the moment. I suddenly realized that I put the footprint of my tent in the warming hut and forgot to pack it up. Thankfully, I got Ieva information and was able to call her and have someone in a car going south to drop it off at the next town. Not having a footprint isn’t the end of the world, but when wild camping it can save the thin and fine bottom of your tent from rips and tears on rough terrain. Note to self, slow down, pay attention, and don’t put things out of sight unless you write a note to yourself and stick it in plain view.

The Tunnel

Every cyclist riding to or from Nordkapp talks about the dreaded tunnel as if it were some rite of passage. The Honningsvag tunnel connects the island of Mageroya where Nordkapp is located to mainland Norway. It is a 7 kilometer tunnel that goes down down beneath the sea and then rises up on the other side. It’s dark, cold and more than anything else loud. When a car passes you it sounds like a plane is landing or taking off from inside the tunnel. It’s terrifying. It took me 40 minutes to ride through it. I stopped and asked two other bikes who passed me going north their experience and saw that they survived and so would I.

So many more experiences…

As always, I have 10 minutes to write a blog post. I’m following a template that is not working so I’ll keep this short. I’m having a blast, meeting a few other women bikers here and there, but so far no one from the USA. I volunteered at a Sami culture festival that was fascinating. After nine days of straight riding and camping, I stayed three nights at the festival and got free camping and all the food I could eat and coffee I could drink plus met loads of interesting people.

The landscape has been breathtaking at every turn. It’s similar to the PNW but ramped up and vast – like the PNW on steroids. The midnight sun is real. It’s light ALL the time so I feel no real sense of urgency to get up and get going or to stop which feels liberating. It’s hilly here, like in hard, but not as hard as the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route (thank God!). It’s all paved so my bike isn’t getting as trashed as it usually does.

It has rained a bunch but so far not every every day. When the sun comes out it is magic. I am now in Tromso which is the third most northern city in the world (the other two are in Russia) north of the Arctic Circle. This is my first time to regroup. I did laundry, shopped, cooked, slept in a bed, watched Netflix’s, cleaned up all my camp gear and wrote this post. Now I’m preparing for the next two or three weeks. Where will I go next? What route will I take? Who will I meet? What obstacles will I face? How will I greet them? Stay tuned for the next episode of “Dispatches from a Long and Bumpy Road.” I’ll leave you will a few more photos.

Thanks for following along. I’ll be back in a couple of weeks. In the meantime, treat everyday as an adventure. Even though you may be home, anything can happen. Even a trip to the grocery store can offer an unexpected encounter like finding your favorite summer peaches or rhubarb pie. Be open to magic and it will find you!

Tusen Takk,

Denise