Well, today we set off for Nordkapp knowing it would take a minimum of 6 hours driving to get there. In the end it took 7. The drive was routine and quite pleasant mostly. As every other day we passed by lots of awesome scenery. I tried not to stop too many times so we could get some miles behind us, as I didn’t want it to take another day longer to get to Nordkapp. The noticeable thing the further we went north was how the autumn colours are beginning to show already. Autumn obviously comes much earlier in the Arctic Circle. There appear to be whole forests of trees turning yellow. They look like silver birch to me but I can’t be sure. It certainly makes for a beautiful spectacle though. Anyway we plodded on. We were on the E6 again a lot of the way but eventually turned onto the E69. Almost as soon as we left the E6 the wind began to get a bit more lively. At that stage I didn’t worry too much about it. You might get the odd gust that tries to catch you out but nothing I was unduly concerned about. We carried on on the E69 until we reached Honningsvag at which point Sat nav lady sent us the wrong way again. We didn’t realize it at the time and turned into a petrol station to try to fill up with drinking water. I asked if that was possible and a young lady said yes, it costs 20 NOK and it’s just round the corner. When we went round the corner we could see a manky old length of yellow hose pipe hanging from a tap on the wall. However, there was no visible way to pay the 20 NOK. In the end we gave up and carried on our way. The wrong way as it turned out! Having realized our mistake we returned to the junction where we had gone wrong and could immediately see Nordkapp sign posted as being another 31 kilometers!
Previous to this we had noticed the wind getting stronger and stronger as time went on and now as we carried on towards Nordkapp it reached ferocious proportions. I had what I thought at the time was the most scary drive I’d ever experienced. There was one bend in particular where the wind seemed to want me to go straight and for one sphincter clenching moment I thought we weren’t going to make it round. In the end though, we made it to the booth and paid 550 NOK to enter the car park. As we pulled in next to a Motorhome with Dutch reg plates we could see the guy inside laughing somewhat nervously I thought. The wind was hitting them side on and we parked the other side so we were at least slightly protected from the winds furious onslaught! It was then that I decided to move to the other side of the car park and park facing into the wind. As soon as I had done this two other motorhomes came and did the same thing.
We then entered the visitor center and went straight out the front to the Arctic Circle Monument. By this time the wind was doing its best to knock us off our feet and it was raining too. Lynne stood as well as she could in front of the monument whilst I managed to shoot a couple of photos. Afterwards we fought our way back to the warmth of the gift shop giggling all the way at how insane this howling gale was.
We wandered around the gift shop and bought a few things including the obligatory Nordkapp sticker just to say we’d been there. By this time I’d already made my mind up that there was no way on this earth I could spend the night up there! My plan was to get back to the van and drive for a couple of hours till we escaped the wind. If only it had been that simple! We set off on what is technically our journey home.
Pretty soon it became obvious that weather conditions had taken a turn for the worse. I was fighting against the wind all the way. I haven’t spent a lifetime driving high sided vehicles and have nothing to compare but this wind was like nothing I’ve ever experienced in all my long years of driving! I was seriously worried that at some point it was going to turn us over! Just by way of confirmation the sat nav lady then announced that there were hazardous driving conditions for the next 25 miles. I don’t know how they pinpoint it so accurately but not long after the 25 miles it did actually seem to start petering out much to my relief. That was not before we’d been bashed and buffeted about more than I would have thought possible. My hands were hurting because I can honestly say I’ve never gripped a steering wheel so tight for so long in all my life! However, we survived.
I’d really looked forward to Nordkapp but in the end we spent about an hour there and took 2 or 3 photos. A bit of a let down really as we’d spent the best part of 3 days getting there! Shortly after the wind died down we found a little sheltered cove on the coast and settled down for the night. I’d like to say that was the end of the days tribulations but I decided to get the generator running so we could charge stuff like my computer and the tooth-brush. The generator had other ideas though and after running for about a minute it died. I cleaned the spark plug and got it going again but this time it ran but didn’t produce any power. I’m not a mechanical genius so at that point I was stumped! Lynne came up with the answer though, having looked online she found a solution which would have required a degree in physics to understand. By now we were the closest to killing each other that we’ve been the whole trip so we decided it was time for bed. The whole day dedicated to the trials and tribulations of a trip to the very end of Europe!
Wandering Wildman 