Nordkapp: The Road Definitely Does Not Go Ever On From Here

We drove further on, through a beautiful valley, a huge long fishing creek/river (many summer homes, fishing/hunting cabins), Sami (Lappland) shopping centers (tents with hand-made goods), and then out onto the Cape itself, mostly along the east coast, the land becoming more and more desolate. An 8km tunnel is a main feature, other than pancake rocks, sea-scenes and fishing villages. The tunnel goes beneath the sea for a couple kms. And the charge for vehicles over 6m (we're just short of 7) was a whopping 507NOK. $75.

Then the road climbed into ever more desolate, tree-less land, with patches of snow in gullies. North Cape itself is a 1,000 foot cliff over looking the Arctic Ocean. We arrived about 9PM, paid the 320NOK admission charge for the two of us and our vehicle, and proceeded on to the huge cliff-top parking lot, to join several dozen other RVs. The weather atthis height was a cloudy, rainy, gale, daylight, but no sun visible. We walked out on the Cape, did the obligatory pix, visited the gift shoppe—one of the largest ever—viewed the tryptych panorama movie about Nordkapp, actually good, museum, chapel, Thai shrine (really thais things together for us (see blog circa November, 2008), the King's view. 12AM, curtains rise to strains of the morning piece from Peer Gynt...like Xmas vacation, the drum roll (please), and then....clouds. At least at this point you could see the horizon and a definite shimmering. Many pix. Waited another hour, till 1 AM. Broad daylight outside, enough to read by easily, but no visible sun. Retired at 1:30AM.

There were sixty or so tour buses, easy. Equivalent number of RVs. The place was crawling with German retirees. On the other hand, it was not crawling with Americans. We saw license plates from all the major western Euro and Scando countries, plus Estonia, Lithuania, Poland. Ours the only one from Montana. People continue to do double-takes when they see our license plates. I am sure we will be featured, well, mentioned, in hundreds of family slide and video shows. When we talk to people, whatever nationality, they're always curious about the camper, about what we're doing, always very friendly and welcoming. I guess it goes with any curiosity, and we definitely are a curiosity.

Meteorologist Vicki notes that the polar winds and the Gulf Stream are a bad combination, producing rain, clouds, turbulent weather.

Along the North Cape of Norway

End of the road, North Cape end in the distance

The parking lot/campground at the end

Me downing a Mack's Arctic Brew before heading out into the frosty gale

The globe--very famous--on the promontory

Globe again

Vicki at the globe

The Thai shrine in the Nordkapp museum; the king visited in 1907

The King's View, a special lounge auditorium, with windows opening to the sun...

No sun this midnight, just clouds

But there was a shining on the sea

Part of the gift shoppe, huge by any standard

Alta

Our drive, July 19, to the North Cape was long but varied in scenery, mostly fiords, an unusual light blue color, and attendant mountains and forests. Another 3 star destination en route was Alta and the Alta rock carvings there, where we stopped for a few hours, walking the extensive array and museum. These are definitely paleolithic, ranging to 6,200 years in age. Occasionally, one can spot an original, unpainted, carving, as I did, but mostly they have been painted red, a Scandinavian custom, to make them easier to see. There are a couple thousand such carvings in the Alta area, but they have become known and studied only since 1973. Alta itself was completely destroyed by the Germans in their scorched earth policy of late 1944. Only the church was left standing. The entire city was rebuilt after the war. There was a very touching monograph in the gift shop, recounting all this, hoping to explain to visitors why there were no old buildings in Alta. Bodo suffered a similar fate, and the Germans bombed old Narvik thoroughly in 1940, after their troops were (briefly) driven out. It was in Alta fiord, later, that both the pocket battleships Tirpitz and Scharnshorst were anchored between raids on the Murmansk convoys. British mini-submarines torpedoed the Tirpitz here in 1943.

The Alta Museum and Heritage site

Alta Fiord, from the museum

The Alta boat, the site's emblem

Elk (moose); every now and then, you'll spot one that has not been painted

Deep sea fishing; as a bear looks on

Oldest known depiction of a fence

Pregnant reindeer

Another skier?

Our favorite: the boat party (note dancers and drummers in middle)

             

Lofotens II

July 18 we continued our drive on the E10 up the Lofoten chain and its scenery, incredible even in windy, rainy, cloudy weather, stopping briefly in Svolvaer for email and shopping. Here we received the welcome news that our $14,000 “deposit” with the Germans had been refunded, as we requested upon leaving the EU, and wired to our US bank account. What a relief!

At another mini-maelstraum down the road I went fishing again with a new new lure (15NOK at Svolvaer Maritime Supply). I made a fine cast into the maelstraum, from bridge pilings between the two islandss...with high hopes. But, alas, the line was not attached to the reel (factory defect?) and my line and brand new lure disappeared into the turbulent depths. Fish 3, Mark 0. Perhaps I'll buy new line and lures in Scotland next month. We paid $15 for my rod and reel and set-up at the Kathmandu store in Auckland last December. The lures and line will exceed that. Is this what is meant by sunk costs?

As we drove further north in Lofotons, toward Narvik, the question arose of where we would go next. Our relatives in Brussels will be out of town when we pass through, so we have “gained” a day or two from there. At length, the northering instinct prevailed, and we decided to drive on to the North Cape, the Nordkapp, as Europeans call it, the northernmost point of Europe. It is a major destination, and we wanted our RV to display the same Nordkapp sticker we have seen on others. We had dinner at a rest area and drove and on, into the “night,” stopping about 10PM at yet another rest area.

View across the channel from our campsite, first night in Lofotens

Lunch first day

Fish racks and peaks, typical scenery

Ditto

Another village and mountain face

Arctic white sand beach; yes, there were people on the beach...

Another sand beach on the Atlantic side

Reconstruction of Viking chieftain's long house, built on original foundations

Arctic ferns

So many of the houses and other buildings have grass growing on  the roofs,
I have wondered how they mow it

Question answered!

Lofotens I

We arrived in Bodo late in the evening, ascertained that we would not be getting on the 10PM ferry, and so spent the night in the noisy ferry car park. Early the morning of the 17th we just missed the 4:30AM ferry but did make the 6AM ferry; perhaps not two dozen people and a dozen vehicles aboard. There were light swells once at sea (a long time, given the size of the harbor and number of skerries), and even the Norwegian sea was nearly glassy, like the fiords we have seen. It was an uneventful 4 hour cruise. We arrived at Moskenes, in the Lofoten islands, about 10 AM, visited the TI, and proceeded to drive the E10, the length of the islands, stopping frequently, sometimes every couple hundred meters, to look at and photgraph the incredible scenery here.

Norway's Atlantic coast consists of the fiords and of thousands upon thousands of islands. But, unlike what we saw in Sweden and Finland, the islands are not skerries, rising only enough to support a small forest or some summer homes. In Norway, they are mountains rising from the sea, and nowhere is this more dramatic than in the Lofoten chain of islands that spread west of northern Norway. The mountains are not high by any standard, but at this latitude—67 degrees and more—they have all the features of their larger alpine cousins: glaciers, peaks chiseled by glaciers, tarns, waterfalls, snow, and everywhere the sea, more fiords, more maelstraums, and so on. Add to this the fishing culture that has been going on here for aeons, since paleolithic times, the more recent cod and minke whale industries...it is a pretty fascinating place. With every bend in the road and sight, we commented that one could spend months here, hiking, climbing, walking beaches and fiords, and only scratch the surface. Well, summer months; although the mean winter temperature here is only -2 Celsius, probably very comparable to dear Missoula. That good old Gulf Stream at work again. But one suspects it never really warms up very much, and that the other 10 months are not so wonderful. We camped on a fiord again, in light rain, and 47 Fahrenheit outside. Still it's an incredibly neat place, well worth the 3 stars, and we have seen only half of it so far. Oh, we looked at our worn world map, and, to our surprise, discovered that we are relatively far to the north of even Iceland now.

Earlier in the day I bought a lure and went fisking again. Last time was a wash, but this time the fish won: I lost my 29 kroner souvenir lure to the rocks and weeds.

Our ferry, in the Moskenes harbor

Our first view, from a few miles out

The more southerly islands...no bridge to them

We decided to do the villages in alphabetical order; fortunately, A was at the
southern tip of Moskenes (OK, if you know your Norwegian alphabet, you know
that the superscripted letters come at the end)

Boats on a fiordlet

Skerries and peaks

Fish drying racks and peaks

More peaks

Fishing village on Moskenes

Village and peaks

Maelstraum

Just short of Bodo is the Saltstraumen Maelstraum. The fiord narrows to just 150 meters, and the tide rushes in and out 4 times daily, reaching 28 knots, 87 gazillion gallons or so. The current, whirlpools, etc., are impressive, as are the fisher-persons and sea gulls that gather for the fish feast. The whole area is dominated by a another huge, sleek, high Norwegian bridge.

A whirlpool at the Maelstraum; incredible current, depth, etc.

The seagulls feasted by the hundreds

It's evidently a great fishing hole

This guy was catching them two at a time, no kidding

Another sleek Norwegian bridge over it all

66 Degrees, 33 Minutes, Norway

Our drive north July 16 continued on to the Arctic Circle, 66°33', a major European destination. The terrain there is a higher, tree-less plain, about what one would expect for the Arctic Circle. There is a large visitor center and many commemorative monuments. After pix and shopping at the gift store, we drove on.

Our northering instinct was only encouraged by getting this far. We proceeded on to Bodo. Rather than turning back--we had originally not intended to go as far north as Trondheim--we had decided to do the Lofoton islands, another 3 star destination. I knew of them from my WWII reading--Lord Louis Mountbatten's Commandos conducted raids there in 1941--and the Michelin rated them very highly. Stunning, breath-taking, etc. Michelin was right.

Welcome to the Arctic Circle, farthest north we have been

Us at the official monument, in front of the visitor center

The monument text

Terrain

Our satnav was unimpressed