Heading North...

Man with a van

We all had a great night’s sleep last night and as a consequence didn’t get going until quite late.  We had a bowl of muesli each, packed up the van, did the washing up and had lovely hot showers and bundled in the van into Alta to Bunnpris supermarket to spend a mortgage on some more food. We did a better job this time and were able to search out some bargains.  Curious thing = can’t find much meat in the supermarkets - is that because it is so expensive or is it because people use butchers / local farms?  Who knows.  Anyway, I managed to find a fridge which had meat in it which was 30K a packet if you bought it before midday so we took advantage.  We also found a 3 for 2 offer, so bought some stuff with that and of course now we are ‘panting’, so we had money off.  In the end we bought 2 days food for £50 whilst last time we bought 3 days food for £100.  One bad thing though on our way back to the motor home one of our bags broke and as a result we lost a can of beer (£4) and a tub of yogurt.

we then headed out of Alta to go north.  we had lunch at the first opportunity and then I took over the driving across some very barren hills.  We came across lots of reindeer - one herd just walking up and down the road, not doing much.  Silly reindeer.  At one point they were galloping up and down the road.  It wasn’t until a truck came by and hooted his horn that they headed into the wilderness.  It seems that they are roaming wild, but apparently there are no wild reindeer in Norway - they all belong to someone.  We saw loads of them today.

Reindeer stampede

I drove the best part of 100 kms and then we swapped over when we hit the sea.  The road changed significantly when we hit the sea, it got narrower and the wind picked up and when I said picked up I mean it got mega windy.  Put it this way, I was glad Matt was driving.  There were loads of tunnels, including one where some workmen were working on the entrance, meaning half of it was cordoned off.  This meant that Matt had to squeeze through it - scary stuff.  As I said I’m glad I wasn’t driving.  He did a great job. 

The plan today was to get as far as Honningsvåg which is on the island of Magerøya - the main town before you get to Nordkapp.  The wind was completely manic on Magerøya, but we figured that Honningsvåg must be in a sheltered bay and we were right.  The wind died down and we stopped at the first parking space.  I let my hair down and it didn’t move.  We parked up - nice view of the harbour and town from here.   Typical, as soon as we parked up and put the van on blocks and had a beer, the place started to get windy and started to rock.  Looking at the weather forecast, it should calm down over the night.  Let’s hope so!  Number of miles driven today: 131.

Portrait of a local

Oh - I have to talk a moment about somethings we saw.  As we pulled into our parking place there was a cyclist sat down eating.  Didn’t think much of it (we have seen loads of cyclists heading to and fro Nordkapp - guess it must be a famous cycle route)  However, we then watched him get his gear on his bike…he had a couple of bags on his bike (once again not surprising) but then he put a huge backpack on his back!!!!!!  Wowzers - and it was mega windy!  Matt felt sorry for him and took him some biscuits.  He was Chinese and didn’t have a word of English.  We wonder who he was and what he was doing.  Whatever it is - it has taken him a huge amount of effort.  Can’t believe he was going to attempt to ride a bicycle in the mega wind with a huge backpack on him.  Hope his journey works out.

Oh and as the evening wore on, the car park got fuller.  Matt parked in the middle of the car park, hoping that others would park either side of us and therefore take the worst of the wind.  His plan worked.  We have two Norwegian motor homes on one side and a camper van on the other side.  One of the men in the camper van was swigging from a bottle of gin, so Matt showed him his whisky…he immediately came over.  They were Ukrainian.  We weren’t expecting that.  He didn’t speak any English but one of his party did…the story - he had driven 2,500km here from Finland where he works so he could go diving in the sea here for King Crab.  It is freezing cold, he had a wetsuit - but really?!  He asked if we could boil some water for him so we did and then we saw him go into the sea - he was swimming in it for quite a while didn’t see him get anything though.  Fancy driving all that way to go swimming in the freezing sea.  He showed us photos of previous successful dives.  He has 2 days here before heading back to his job in Finland.  We were chatting about long distance driving (the fact you can’t do it in England, but then the roads in England are full - so it wouldn’t be possible or pleasurable) he said that he wasn’t allowed to visit England because he needs a visa and a visa is hard to get.  He can visit all of continental Europe but not the UK.  It is embarrassing to be English when you are in Europe these days!

Tomorrow’s plan…to head to Nordkapp and then drive back down to where it is less windy!  Oh, the expected high for tomorrow - 8 degrees!!!!