Since I still had a bit of a jet lag, I went to bed a eight last night. My tent was pretty close to the highway, so I could hear the traffic passing by all the time. At 9:30 I woke up from some screaming, so I thought first there was a car full of drunk party girls driving by. Then I realised, it’s more a howling than a screaming, and it doesn’t sound human. So I had to get out of my sleeping bag, open the tent zipper and stick my head out, and there were two coyotes 20-30 metres away from my tent. I was too scared to get out my camera, so I just went back into my tent and hoped they never noticed me. They did that howling thing a couple of more times during the night, but seemed to never get closer to my tent.
I woke up at seven, which means I added eleven hours of sleep to the ten hours the night before. So I guess the jet lag is officially over now.
Fortunately, the sun was still shining and there was no wind today. So I had a wonderful ride to Banff. Roughly seventy kilometres through beautiful nature.
The campsites were fully booked when I arrived here. So I checked in at a hostel instead. They have a bar and a happy hour, so I’m fine for the moment. Gotta get some food soon.
Tomorrow it’s Canada Day. That’s why all the places are booked out. My plan is to climb higher in Banff National Park and stay on a camping ground 90 kilometres from here. It’s a first come first serve place, so I really hope it won’t be full when I get there. Because I don’t really have a plan B. Stay tuned!
Picture of a coyote – not mine, Wikipedia’s
I pimped my steering bad – have different motives for different moods
Car drivers have been very considerate so far – despite their obscenely big pickups
Nansen and I are on the road again. That means in this case another bike holiday. This time I’m planning to cycle from Calgary to Vancouver, through Banff and Jasper National Park, which should be around 1300 kilometres in total and take me around two weeks.
I arrived in Calgary on Friday and spent only one day there. My plan landed at 1:30. At the airport, I had planned to assemble my bike, pack everything in my bike bags and send the cardboard box with the things I didn’t need on my trip to Vancouver, so that I can use the same box on my return flight.
Coming out from the baggage hall, I was greeted by some very friendly older gentlemen with cowboy hats who are there volunteering to help the tourists. They told me where I could find the UPS store which I had found on Google. So I went there and just made sure that they could send the box at all (because it’s huge). And then I started unpacking the box and reassembling my bike. All in all, that took me a bit more than one hour, which means everything went very smoothly. Then I went back to the UPS guy and paid for the transport, which was finally much more than he had estimated before, but still OK given that I won’t have the stress to find a new box in Vancouver during the weekend I’m planning to stay there.
From the airport, I took a bus to the city centre – with my bike on a rack in front of the bus. I was very lucky with the place where I stayed, Hotel Arts, which was affordable, yet very fancy. A friend of a friend joined me for dinner. I was recommended to take Poutine, a Canadian specialty, but played safe with fish & chips in the end. The plan was originally to go out for some beers, but at ten o’clock (six in the morning Norwegian time), my lights went out and I returned to my hotel.
The next morning I had to return the Mountain Equipment Coop store to get my bear defence spray which I didn’t get the night before because I hadn’t known that I needed an ID. (Mr. Nansen was very upset that I got the spray.)
After packing all my stuff at the hotel, I finally left for my first bike day. In order to avoid the downtown traffic, I took a tram to the Northwest suburbs. I started cycling at eleven and had planned to go to Ghost Lake initially. However, I considered now to go all the way to Banff on my first day after all in order to have one more buffer day in case of bad weather or other unforeseen circumstances. The trip to Banff would have been 130 kilometres though which would have been very hard on the first day, especially given the fact that I have hardly cycled this spring and my longest trip so far this season was 50 kilometres. In addition, it turned out that I had very strong headwinds. The area west of Calgary is still a great plain where the west wind isn’t stopped by anything. So I was struggling hard today and often couldn’t go faster than 10 km/h in flat areas. So Banff wasn’t an option finally, and I went to Ghost Lake only (51 km), which was tough enough.
Arriving there, I passed by a camping site which I thought was not the one I wanted to stay at. So I continued, but unfortunately, there came never another one. So I was a bit uncertain what to do because I didn’t want to go back, and there wasn’t any other campsite or other accommodation anywhere near by. So I finally just set up my tent at a parking space near the highway around five kilometres beyond Ghost Lake.
The wind seems to get less now in the evening, so I hope for better conditions during my ride to Banff tomorrow, which will include some climbing. It’s 7:30 now and I’m very tired already. So I’ll probably sleep early and get up early in the morning.
Calgary (not my pic – didn’t have time to go on a photo safari)
Done with the bike assembling
Selfie in the morning
My first campsite (wait til you hear about the coyotes in the next blog post)
Today is our last day in Greenland. We spent the last three days in Ilulissat which is located at the Kangia Icefjord which is famous for its many icebergs.
On Wednesday, we went for a hike along this fjord. We were very lucky at the end of this hike to observe a group of humpback whales from a very short distance. This group has apparently been at this spot every day for a while because there seems to be a lot of krill for them to eat there. We sat there for about an hour, watched them and took pictures and videos.
In the evening, we went on a midnight boat trip to see the icebergs in the midnight sun. Unfortunately, it was a bit cloudy and rainy. So the icebergs were not as picturesque as they could have been. We did see the same group of whales again, however, and it was a nice tour anyway.
Yesterday, we went on a boat trip to a settlement called Ilimanaq. Ilimanaq is located just south of the icefjord. It takes normally around thirty minutes by boat from Ilulissat, but yesterday due to the wind and streaming conditions, there was so much and dense ice in the fjord that it took us two and a half hours to get there. Only forty-eight people live in Ilimanaq. Most of them live of fishing. They have a school there in which pupils from six to fourteen years are taught by one teacher all in the same classroom.
Today, we had to check out of our hotel at ten o’clock. Our flight first leaves in the evening, so we have plenty of time today. Unfortunately, it is rainy outside, so I’m spending time in a café today updating my blog. It was a beautiful trip here in Greenland once again. Now I’m looking forward to coming back to the Norwegian summer.
We have spent the last three days in Qeqertarsuaq which is a village with 850 inhabitants on the island with the same name in Greenlandic, in English Disko Island.
We were exceptionally lucky with the weather here and had two very sunny days. Today, it’s a bit cloudy, but still fine.
Qeqertarsuaq has a beautiful beach with icebergs floating in the bay right in front. This was our first stop when we arrived on Sunday. Later we went to a viewpoint called Udkiggen to spot some whales, but we weren’t lucky this time.
Yesterday, we hiked up the the glacier Lyngmarkbreen which lies 900 metres above the village. They arrange dogsled tours for tourists up there in the summer, and the dogs stay on the snow. So we had a chance to say hello to them. They were unexpectedly shy though, not like the sled dogs I know from Svalbard. The view from up there was stunning. So it was definitely worth walking up all the way.
Today, we went for a hike on the east side of the village, first to a little waterfall and then to some basalt rock formations.
Now I’m sitting in the Blue Café – the only café here. There is only one place to have dinner here as well which is at the hotel. The dinner was quite good though – I had reindeer twice. I’m still looking forward to some more variety in terms of cafés and restaurants on our next and final stop on this trip, Ilulissat. Our boat there will leave at six o’clock, which is in two and a half hours. We will arrive there at eight and spend another three days there before we return to Norway.
Hello from Sisimiut in West Greenland! We arrived here yesterday after hiking the Arctic Circle Trail from Kangerlussuaq for eight days. This was my second time hiking this 150 kilometres long trail, this time guiding for Bergans Adventures.
We were a small group of three. Marit and Arild had booked the trip through Bergans. There are very few hikers who walk the trail, so we hardly met any other people on the way. There are huts in a day walk’s distance on the trail – most of them very small, some a bit bigger. I stayed in huts four of the nights and in my tent for four nights.
The first night, we met Fabian, another German hiker who walked the same direction. And the third night, we met Valerie and David. All of them were on the same schedule then as us. We didn’t walk together during the day, but we met again in the afternoons so that we could spend the evenings and have dinner together and play a game of dice.
We were fairly lucky with the weather this year. It was overcast with a bit of rain the first day, then five very nice days – sunny and pretty warm, up to twenty degrees – and finally two rainy and cold days in the end. On our last day yesterday, we even had snow above 300 metres. The disadvantage with the nice weather was the millions of hungry mosquitoes. Luckily, a mosquito net over the head and long clothes provide good enough protection against them.
We were also lucky with the wildlife. Already on the first day, we spotted a family of musk oxen pretty close. They are massive and impressive animals – fascinating to watch from a distance and a bit scary when they move or run into your direction. We saw a lot of reindeer – one of them not scared at all and coming very close at the second hut, the canoe centre. Snow-white mountain hares crossed our way on several days, a pair of eagles circled above our heads one day. We saw an arctic fox with a ptarmigan in its mouth from our hut the fourth day, and two living ptarmigans the next day.
Today, we are enjoying a relaxing rest day in Sisimiut, the second biggest “town” in Greenland with 4000 inhabitants. It was terrible weather when we arrived yesterday, but today the sun is shining and Sisimiut is presenting itself from its best side with small colourful houses and beautiful surroundings with snow-covered mountains and the sea.
Tonight, we will take a boat which will bring us further north – first to Qeqertarsuaq on Disko Island where we will spend two nights. On Tuesday, we will continue to Ilulissat where we are going to spend another three nights. We hope to spot some whales and are looking forward to seeing icebergs when we get there.
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
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!
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 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.
The meteorologists were right today again. According to the weather forecast, it should stop raining around ten o’clock today. So when I woke up and it was still raining, I suggested that we should start a bit later today. And around 9:30 it did stop after it had rained nonstop for twenty-four hours. So we took down our tents and left at ten.
We had three mountain passes to cross today – which we didn’t know in advance. After the first one and twenty-five kilometres of cycling, we took a lunch break. This was quite early (quarter to twelve), but there was a nice café and we were exhausted from the first mountain.
The second pass was the highest – Kvænangsfjellet. Here we were rewarded with a great view at the top and a nice downhill ride on the other side.
The last pass started after almost ninety kilometres. We had planned to cycle at least one hundred today, but when we reached the top of the last pass after ninety-five kilometres and there was a nice spot to camp up here, we decided that we can roll down the last five kilometres tomorrow morning as well.
Alta is 101 kilometres away. My plan is to eat reindeer stew there. I guess they should have that somewhere?!
