Day 39: Honningsvåg-Nordkapp (35 km)

On our last day today we only had a short distance to cover. Since we stayed out late on the music festival yesterday as well, we had a very relaxed morning and didn’t start cycling before eleven o’clock. 

The first few kilometres from Honningsvåg were flat until we came to a big camping site. From there a winding road took us up to 300 metres. We thought that there would be a plateau and that the road to Nordkapp would be rather flat, but that was not the case. We rode downhill almost back to sea level again and had a constant up and down until we reached the final ascent to the North Cape. 

We reached Nordkapp at two o’clock. Here we took some photos, opened a bottle of sparkling wine and had reindeer stew for lunch. We wanted to take a bus back to Honningsvåg. They only go a few times per day, so we had enough time to relax and took a bus back at five. 

Today we stay at a hostel which looks like it was a hospital before. We enjoyed dinner at the same restaurant as yesterday, and I am back now at the Oggasjakka festival while Wolf went back to the hostel. Our ship leaves at 5:45 tomorrow, so it will be a short night. 

Leaving Honningsvåg behind and below us

And all the roads we have to walk are winding

Beautiful landscape on the last kilometres

Good mood on the last day

Close to the finish line

View from Nordkapp

Exhausted and happy – from left to right: Wolf, Stephan and Mr. Nansen

Day 39: Olderfjord-Honningsvåg (103 km)

Today was the day of the long tunnels, the zoological highlights, and the local music festival. 

We left at quarter to nine. We met many reindeer on our way today. In some cases we stopped to take some pictures, in some cases we just continued. 

At some point, I saw something appearing and disappearing into the water quite close to the coast, and at second sight, I realised it was either whales or dolphins. My first guess was harbour porpoise, but I’m not sure. They were two and fun to watch though. I filmed them for quite a while. 

Since there weren’t any cafés or other natural resting places along the way, we took a lunch break just along the road. Sitting there, I suddenly discovered a seal just outside the coast. 

After another hour or so, I stopped again because I had spotted a sea eagle. It landed on a rock and we waited for ages for it to lift again. I got some nice seconds of film of it flying in the end. 

Then we had the tunnels. The Nordkapp tunnel is seven kilometres long and 211 metres below sea level. It connects the mainland with the island Nordkapp is located on. It was very noisy, very steep, but OK from a traffic perspective.

There were a few more tunnels, but we finally got to Honningsvåg where we found a nice restaurant and I had some good fish & chips. Through the window, I spotted a poster on the other side of the street. And it appeared that there is a music festival in Honningsvåg this week. Since it was raining outside, we skipped our initial plan to camp outside town, checked in at a hotel and went to the festival instead. It’s called Oggasjakka – verdens naiseste festival (nicest festival in the world). Let’s see!

Different shades of reindeer

Nice coast

Quite cloudy today, but scenic

Bird is the word

Day 37: Alta-Olderfjord (111 km)

We left Alta at quarter to nine this morning. Our route today was first uphill, then over a plateau for a long time, and finally back to the coast at Porsanger Fjord.

After a few flat kilometres out of Alta, we soon reached the first uphill part. After 25 kilometres, we had climbed about 250 metres when we reached a Sami camp with a souvenir shop. Here we asked if they had any coffee. They didn’t have coffee at the shop.  Instead, we were invited home to an older couple who served us coffee, syrup, cookies and dried reindeer meat, which was very kind. 

With new energy, we had ten more kilometres uphill until we reached an altitude of 400 metres. From now it was a plateau with very little vegetation. The roads were straight for many kilometres, but the landscape and the views were very nice. 

We took a lunch break after 60 kilometres at a resting place with our own supplies. After 85 kilometres, we reached the next settlement, Skaidi, which had a petrol station/shop/restaurant where we enjoyed a second lunch. 

We made good progress today, so instead of cycling around 100 kilometres as planned, we continued down to the coast at the Porsanger Fjord and set up camp after 111 kilometres, which will make the coming final two days even easier. 

Tomorrow, if everything works well, we may cycle another 90 kilometres and get to or close to Honningsvåg. This would mean that we would cross the final tunnels, especially the Nordkapp tunnel, which is a 7 kilometres long undersea tunnel, so that we can enjoy a tunnel-free ride on our last day on Friday. 

I had a nice encounter with a reindeer today which I captured in a video. 

This guy’s got style

Endless plains

Not so winding road

Camp at Porsanger Fjord

Day 36: Baddereidet-Alta (110 km)

This morning I set a new time record taking down my tent and packing my bike. The reason was that we were attacked my mosquitoes the second we left the tent. I was hoping they would be less active in the morning, but they were very much awake and very mean.

When we started, we first had a long downhill ride and then reached a petrol station soon where we stopped for a coffee. Then we continued and reached the Alta fjord after a while which we had at our left hand side for the rest of the day – it’s very long. 

We had quite strong headwind all day. From 11:30, we started to became tired and hungry and looked out for a shop, café, petrol station or any place where we could sit down and have a lunch break. There wasn’t anything though, so we just stopped along the way and had some of our supplies. In my case this meant chocolate and nuts for lunch. 

When we continued, the E6 which we followed all day, went through a number of tunnels. Most of them we could avoid by following the old E6 which runs almost parallel (no idea why they built the new one really), but one of them implied a rather long and hilly detour. So the distance today to Alta became a bit longer in the end than Google Maps had made me believe. 

My most important mission today was to reach the Vinmonopolet (state-owned monopoly store for all wine and other drinks containing more than 4.7 percent alcohol) before 17:00. At 16:58, I left the store with a bottle of cava which will be opened at Nordkapp. 

We had dinner at Peppes Pizza (no reindeer after all) and found a tent spot on a mowed field outside the centre. Right before we came to the centre, we stopped at a traffic sign showing that Nordkapp is only 240 kilometres away. 

The weather was, apart from the wind, good today. And the forecast is decent to good for the coming days. 

Leaving our camp in the morning

Snow-covered mountains in the background all day

Approaching Alta – beautifully located

Wake up three more times