This morning was like the morning after the night before. A bit of an anti climax really. After the excitement of seeing an extraordinary showing of the Aurora Borealis it was always going to be I suppose. Looking back I can’t believe how excited I was. I literally was beside myself with excitement. I can’t forget the fact that I only looked out the door at the last-minute before going to bed and if I hadn’t, then the whole thing might have happened without us even knowing. We’d seen the lights a few nights previously and complained that we were a little disappointed that there was no movement and they weren’t very vivid. Last night more than made amends! It was truly amazing how quickly they changed shapes and disappeared and then came back again. Looking at my photographs I almost expected people to accuse me of photoshopping them. As if I were that clever anyway! But no, I didn’t need to do anything to enhance these pictures, they are exactly as they came out of the camera. That was a night I’ll remember as long as I live and I’m sure so will Lynne!

So, when we woke this morning it was raining steadily and we changed our minds about backtracking and decided to carry on North before turning south and technically heading for home even though it will take us some weeks to get there! This was one last look at where we stayed last night for that magical show from the heavens.

As we drove, the rain was persistent and heavy at times and made it easier to leave the Lofotens but as we travelled we spoke of coming back again with a more educated approach to seeing more of the islands. It wasn’t long before lo and behold, sat nav girl said, “in a quarter of a mile, board the ferry”! Actually, I saw it coming as otherwise we would have been making a left turn straight into the fjord! We weren’t sure we wanted to use the ferry but when we studied the map and realised it would cut out something like 200 kilometres of driving it was suddenly a bit of a no brainer. This photo was taken along the way and might give an idea of the kind of weather we were experiencing. Very dramatic skies!

The ferry took an hour from Lodingen to Bognes. I slept most of the way with a few interruptions from an old Norwegian guy behind us who had the loudest cough I’ve ever heard. We carried on after the ferry and around about 1.00 pm we started to think about a campsite. After so much wild camping we needed to charge batteries for computer, camera, vacuum, all that stuff, also needed to do some washing. Lynne always insists on clean bedding every 2 or 3 weeks. Seems strange to me, I’d be happy to wait 2 or 3 months till the sheets start to crack up! We passed 2 campsites which would have been ok but both were closed. Lots of them apparently close at the end of August. It seems that winter could arrive any time after that but as it stands we’ve had some unseasonably nice weather although its bloody cold in the evenings. It’s very easy to forget that we’re still quite deep inside the Arctic Circle! As we found the second site closed I decided to look on the sat nav which has camp sites included in its destinations. We found one on our route and I gave them a call and found they were open. It was about an hour and a half away and we got there at 2.30 pm. The management seemed a bit half soaked as there was no one in attendance but an old guy on the roof shouted down to find a place and they’d come over later. We went over to the reception a couple of times in the next hour or so but no one was there. We were getting impatient as we needed to use the laundry facility. Finally after we’d been on the site for a couple of hours we saw the man in reception and paid for our nights stay. The charge to use the washing machine and dryer was 40 NOK each. That’s nearly 8 quid to do some washing. In all, the night cost us 300 NOK. Pretty extortionate I think for a site that’s clearly a little tired after a busy summer season. Reception guy wasn’t particularly friendly either.

We’ve found most of the people we’ve dealt with to be pretty friendly and of course they all speak good English. While we waited in reception there was a lady waiting before us who I’m quite sure was German and when she spoke to the proprietor they both spoke English. I’d never thought about that before, so it seems English is that one common language that all the different European people can fall back on when they don’t speak each others language. Does that make any sense? Anyhow, back to the subject in hand. People you see out and about in Norway that you’re not dealing with seem a dour bunch. Maybe at this time of year it’s the prospect of impending perpetual darkness through a long and arduous winter! Well, that’s my take on Norwegians, probably totally wrong. It wouldn’t be the first time.

Long boring story short, washing got done, batteries got charged, Lynne and I tried to do a video blog but had to give up because the noise of the fast flowing river right behind us drowned out any sound we could make! Also, late last night the Aurora put in another appearance but nothing like the show from the previous night. The camp site we were at had far too much light pollution from the small surrounding community.

 

Where to tomorrow? Not a clue! Wait and see.👍

It’s about 45 minutes since I clicked publish on todays blog. Since then there have been developments! We were about to go to bed when for no particular reason I took one last look out the door. I’m so glad I did. We thought we saw the Northern Lights the other night, well after tonights show I now know we saw nothing that night. This show tonight was beyond words. I ended up jumping up and down like the Villa had just scored. Honestly the most exciting, awesome, mind blowing sight, phenomenon whatever you want to call it, that I’ve ever seen! I’m so buzzing right now I can hardly sit still. Without further ado here are some of the photos. None of these pictures has been edited in any way.

Straight from the camera.

As you can see, they put on quite a show. I have to stress there has been absolutely no editing on these pictures, just me with what I know to be the right settings pointing the camera at the sky and firing away!

After a restless night where we were buffeted by strong winds most of the night, I went down to the beach at 8.00 this morning. The tide had obviously been in overnight and the sand was pristine and without footprints everywhere. I took one photo from amongst the sand dunes at the back of the beach. I’m including that photo here alongside one I almost forgot from yesterday. I couldn’t resist this small cluster of perfect orange buildings half on stilts in the water. We’ve missed the season for drying fish on the many racks you see all over Lofoten but as I took this photo there was an almost overpowering smell of fish in the air! I dread to think what it would smell like at the height of the drying process.

We were pretty chilled out this morning and didn’t leave Haukland Beach until after 11.00 am. I was hoping to find another beach and having looked on Google earth, decided to head for Straumann which looked from the air as if it would have white sandy beaches much like Haukland. The reality turned out to be somewhat different. We soon realised that we hadn’t seen another motorhome the whole time we were on the road to Straumann. With good reason, theres absolutely naff all there! We drove approximately 15 miles out of our way and promptly did a u turn and came back. We did see some wildlife on our little detour though, as I was driving I could see off in the distance something sitting on a large rock on the distant shoreline. Looking through binoculars it was easy to see it was an eagle of some sort. I took the following picture with a 500 mm lens and the image is very heavily cropped. I’m including it here in spite of it’s poor resolution as I was quite excited at seeing what looks to me to be a Golden Eagle. Of course I have been known to be wrong but thats what it looks like to me.

After we got back on the main road (E10) we decided to drive North and see what we came across, The trouble was I was starting to get the feeling we were on our way out of Lofoten and it felt like we hadn’t done it justice. Part of the problem is that there is so much to see and so much spectacular scenery everywhere you turn that it’s all a bit overwhelming! I seriously don’t know where to go next, and if we go here, won’t we miss that. And so on and so on.

We came to a large town on E10 called Solvaer where Lynne spotted a supermarket so we took the chance to stock up on (expensive) food. We spent the equivalent of £50 on little more than a basket of groceries. I don’t know how their economy works or how much money the average family has to live on but it must be good to be able to pay the prices for food. Having said that, it’s hard to imagine what they all do for a living. Maybe they’re all carpenters because every house or building of any sort really, is built with wood. Then there’s painters, all those houses are painted too. So that’s my answer for the Norwegian economy, Carpeneters and Painters! Job done!! After grocery shopping we went over the road to another shop called Biltema, which translates as Car team, only they don’t just sell stuff for cars, they sell just about anything you could want. You want a lifejacket? they got it. Want copper break lines for your car? they got it. Want little plastic farm animals for your kids? they got em. Brilliant place, I only wish we had something like it in the UK.

After having a good mooch round and buying toilet chemicals and a tub of plastic wild animals (no, not for me!) we were on our way again. We finally found a wild camping place not far from where we camped at Gullesfjordbotn a few nights ago. Then we got talking about whether or not we might be leaving the Lofotens a little too soon, the upshot being that tomorrow the plan is to backtrack a little and go to a place called Eggum. Thats about 2 hours back the way we came. It all depends on the weather really which I’m kind of expecting to take a turn for the worse soon. Time will tell!

I was up before 6.00 this morning watching the sunrise. I took some pretty mediocre photographs which I don’t think I’m going to be sharing. Anyway, I went back to bed and slept through to 8.30. We were watching the Northern Lights until after midnight last night and then up again at 2.00 am by which time the lights were covering almost the entire sky. We were really pleased to have seen them but also slightly let down too. From pictures I’d seen I expected them to be far more vivid and for there to be far more movement in them. As I said, the photos I took then were a bit disappointing, maybe because I was half asleep and doing everything on auto pilot. Sounds like a good enough excuse to me so I’ll stick with it! You know what? I’m going to put one in any way, it’s probably the only time in my life I’ll get to see the Northern Lights so what the hell if it isn’t the best photo in the world!

We set off this morning in the wrong direction, deliberately! Yesterday I’d seen a location I wanted to photograph and it was 3 or 4 miles back. I didn’t know what the light would be like later in the day so l decided to do it straight away. It didn’t take long to get there and get the shot.

Then we continued on to A. A is actually the name of the small village at the end of the E10. It’s more of a living museum dedicated to the fishing industry in Lofoten really and as such it didn’t take long to walk round. We were soon on our way again heading north up through Lofoten. Next we went to a location  called Ytresand where there is a white sandy beach and mountains all around. I had planned on hiking up 300 meters in height to try to photograph the views but it didn’t quite work out that way. Like an idiot I hadn’t realised there were two trails and the one I chose to follow didn’t go up at all. By the time I realised I was going in the wrong direction and gotten back I couldn’t be bothered starting off on the other one which looked a bit of a grueller to be honest. So the only worthwhile image I got was of these two buildings with grass roofs and the white sandy beach behind. Oh and did I mention there were mountains? Yeah, it’s a bit mountain overkill out here. Whichever way you look, mountains! So apologies for the constant use of the M word.

After my aborted hike we had a bite to eat and a cuppa then headed off to our next destination, Haukland Beach. I’d read on another blog (Our Tour.com) see their blog if you want to see how it should be done. Brilliant! Sorry I digress, I’d read that there is free camping at Haukland Beach and wanted to get there reasonably early (4.00 ish) so as not to find the place full later on. We’ve noticed wild camping places tend to fill up in the early evening as people look for places to settle for the night. We got there at about 3.30 pm and found a space directly facing the beach. The best view you could get. There were lots of people enjoying the apparently unusually nice weather and beach. There was a young guy in a car parked next to us who had just come from swimming in the sea. I said to him I thought he must be mad. I only dipped a finger (literally) in and I could tell it was brutally cold!

One quick photo of the view from where we camped for the night.

Lynne cooked dinner and later at about 7.30 we walked down to the beach to try to photograph the sunset which promised to be spectacular as it was going to be directly over the sea between the mountains. We got halfway along the beach and there were a number of people in the best spot already set up with tripods. One guy in particular was dancing all over the place really owning the scene. He was making a real production number out of taking a photograph. I have to say it got on my tits slightly as it was a nice scene with a small stream running through the sand into the sea and the sun setting just in line with it. However, Mr Spielberg was dominating the whole place running round setting his tripod up in a different spot every 30 seconds or so. He didn’t seem to be with any of the other people there and I wondered if he annoyed them as much as he did me? Probably not. I don’t have too much of a tolerance for dickheads! Eventually he moved off to one side and I managed to nip in and take one shot which I haven’t looked at yet but if it’s any good I’ll include it here. – No, just looked and it’s crap. Mostly because there are footprints everywhere. I wonder who’s they could be. Also the sunset never really transpired as a bank of cloud drifted its way across and snuffed out the sunset. So all in all a nice day marred only by my completely mediocre photography. The inspiration just wasn’t there today. Lets see what tomorrow brings.

Rant over!😠

 

The day started with a thick mist which quickly burnt off to reveal another beautiful sunny day. We topped up the water before leaving Gullesfjordbotn and were back on the road by 10.00 am. Once again we were passing through stunning mountainous scenery. The Lofotens weren’t going to let us down I could tell. The sun was blazing down and it was very hot through the windscreen. It wasn’t long before we went through the second longest tunnel we’ve come across at something like 6.4 kilometers. The weird thing about all the tunnels in Norway, and there’s lots of them is that you’re surrounded by all this spectacular scenery which is kind of like a sensory overload, then you enter a tunnel which by comparison is more like sensory deprivation!

We hadn’t been travelling long when we saw a dead otter at the side of the road. I thought that was really sad. We see roadkill all the time and never really give it a second thought, but when you see something as unusual as an otter that’s properly sad! It was only a couple of weeks ago that I saw my first ever wild otter coming out of the fjord at Geiranger.

I stopped for one photo along the way when I saw a mountain perfectly reflected in the fjord or lake, in this instance I’m not sure which. It turned out to be a beautiful picture though without using any filters, just the histogram to set up the exposure!

We stopped off at a place called Leknes where there was a very modern shopping mall. We had a quick mooch round and then went into the nearest supermarket to get some food supplies. It didn’t take long to decide not to bother when we saw the prices. The equivalent of almost £5 for a loaf of bread seemed ridiculous to me. Suffice it to say, I’d rather go hungry! So I didn’t see the point in hanging around and apparently, I was guilty of looking at my watch! So in my thoughtlessness I missed the obvious fact that Lynne wanted to have a mooch around the shop. Needless to say, words were had and I came out of school with a “could do better” mark. Well I’ll definately try next time! Sorry miss!!

Eventually we carried on in stony silence (for a while) and finally arrived in Reine which is almost as far south as you can go on the E10. By luck we found a perfect place to camp overlooking the town and mountains. We were a bit unsure about whether or not we could camp there until we got back from a walk, to find a German family settling down for the night right behind us. There were no signs saying no camping so there we stayed.

I went out to shoot the town from up the hill at blue hour with varying degrees of success. The following photos are essentially the same view with different light and techniques. Although come to think of it, the first one wasn’t blue hour at all but was taken just after we got there.

As I was about to hit publish we got side tracked by a faint sign of the northern lights over the town of Reine. At first just a faint hint of shapes in the sky but as time went on more and more vivid. Lynne and I watched and waited for more than an hour during which time I managed to get some shots with a 6 second exposure. The longer time obviously intensifies the light and this was the result.

 

I peaked a little early last night. Had I not been in such a hurry to publish yesterdays blog I would have been able to include these two photos. The first is of the clouds turning red as the sun went down the other side of the hill and the second is the mountains in the opposite direction turning red too as the descending sun hit them. The disappointing thing was that when we left this morning we passed a camping place within 500 meters where there would have been all round views of snow-capped mountains lit up by that red sun. Still, we didn’t know at the time so it’s too bad.

Anyway, onto todays blog. We’re back on the road in Norway and loving it. The contrast between Norway and Sweden is quite extraordinary. Almost the minute we were back in Norway we were surrounded by mountains again and the driving was far more entertaining. Like I said, I was slightly annoyed to find that if we had driven 500 meters more last night we would have been surrounded by stunning views. However, enough said about that.

So we set off this morning heading for Narvik, which was a little out of our way but I had been online and found a place where we could get LPG, the reason being, we weren’t sure how many nights we might end up wild camping in the Lofotens. We were in Narvik in a little less than an hour and it was noticeable how different it looked with the sun shining. Previously we’d driven through on a grey and rainy day and we’d both commented on how grim it looked. We easily found the LPG station where the attendant was very helpful and spoke good English like most of the Norwegians we’ve met. Soon we were on our way again happy in the knowledge that we were unlikely to run out of gas while we travelled through the Lofotens. We had to drive back the way we had come for 20 minutes or so but were soon on our way on the E10 which runs almost the full length of the Islands. We soon came to what I had thought might be our next stop. I’d found this place on an app and it said there were free services, ie, camp the night with free electric. Yes, you guessed it, too good to be true! It looked like a boat yard and there were no other motorhomes there. Well with free electricity you would have thought it would be packed. So, another wild goose chase. To be fair we did empty the toilet cassette and top up on drinking water so it wasn’t a total waste of time and didn’t take us far out of our way anyway. While we were sat in the van about to drive away I saw movement from the corner of my eye and immediately thought it was a rat but when I looked again I soon realised it was a weasel. He jumped out of the grass right in front of us and skipped off till he reached a tractor parked to the right of us. Then he disappeared. How nice though to see some wildlife that wasn’t splattered at the side of the road!

It was a beautiful sunny blue sky day and we soon arrived at a campsite which I’d found online. The Gullesfjordbotn Caravan Park was on the edge of a fjord. I only realised it was a fjord when the tide went out shortly after we arrived. We chilled out for an hour and then decided to go out for a walk. It turned into a hike and not a particularly easy one at that but the reward was this next photo. We had walked and climbed for probably an hour over alternating rocky and boggy ground to get to this point. I used a 6 stop ND filter to achieve a 2 second exposure to slow the water down and a 3 stop ND Grad filter to stop the sky burning out.

The hike back was slightly quicker and we settled down for the night. We had a beautiful view of the fjord until about 7.30 pm which was when some cretinous fat Norwegian turned up and dumped a caravan right next to us. He obviously had every right to be there but he parked the caravan in such a way that it blocked out a good 60% of the view we’d had previously! I spent the next 20 minutes quietly seething and then thought, ah what the hell, it’ll be dark in an hour anyway! Still, it never ceases to amaze me how thoughtless people can be.

Later I gave myself a haircut and trimmed my beard. I was afraid I’d started to look like Uncle Albert from Only Fools and Horses.

Now, as I write I’m reminded of that classic British trait where we moan incessantly and then roll over the minute you’re confronted with the object of your grievance. I’ve just been outside and the people with the caravan both said a very pleasant hello, and my response? As cheerful a hello as I could muster! How spineless is that?

 

After yesterday’s more restful day we planned on heading back south to start a short tour of the Lofoten Islands. I knew it would take a couple of days to get there so we decided to take a slight detour through Finland and Sweden. After getting everything ready we topped up the drinking water and emptied the grey waste water. I got told off for emptying it in the wrong place but when we looked at the correct place it didn’t look any different to the one I had used. Oh well, never mind!

I had a preconceived idea that the route we were going to take would be a bit flat and not nearly as scenic as we had become accustomed to. Initially I was dead wrong because soon after leaving the campsite we were driving up through a steep canyon with waterfalls all the way down. It was beautiful but with nowhere to stop and park for photos. Eventually though it did flatten out and soon we were passing through forest for as far as the eye could see. This went on for more than two hours and although very beautiful soon became a bit boring. I kept an eye out for something worth photographing but drew a complete blank the entire time we were in Finland. We did have a drive up and down the main road through Hetta but without wanting to be unkind I’d have to say it’s not the most happening place I’ve ever been. We did manage to see more Reindeer and I made a point of having a big lens on and got one shot that I was quite pleased with. He didn’t seem too pleased to see us though!

There’s not much else to say about Finland except to say we weren’t unhappy to leave and enter Sweden. Sweden seemed nice at first but then lapsed into unending forests just like Finland before it. We were hoping to see a supermarket so we could stock up on food and nibbles but in this particular region there doesn’t appear to be much in the way of civilization!

We eventually gave up on finding a supermarket of any kind and started looking for a place to camp. Sweden doesn’t seem to cater quite as much for motorhomes the way Norway does but we finally found a quiet spot near a small lake well away from the road and settled for the night. The sky was clear and we set the alarm for 1.30 am so that we could get up to see if the northern lights were on display. Needless to say they weren’t. I got out in all my glory and all I could see were millions of stars! Also it was a bit brass monkeys and I didn’t want to risk the Crown Jewels withering away so straight back to the warmth of bed!

The following morning (Thursday) I woke early without knowing exactly what time it was and had a peek out of the small kitchen window. I could see there was a mist over the small lake we were parked next to. I decided it was too good a chance to pass up so I got dressed as quietly as possible so as not to disturb Lynne and grabbed my camera gear and went out. The sun hadn’t quite risen yet and there was just about some color left in the sky with a beautiful mist drifting across the lake. It was also perishing cold! There was quite a heavy frost which in spite of us being in the Arctic Circle still took me by surprise and it didn’t take long before I was struggling to do anything as my fingers were rapidly turning numb! I set the camera up on the tripod and composed my first shot. Having dialled in the best possible exposure using the histogram in live view I then slipped in a 2 stop hard edge nd grad filter to keep the sky from burning out. Also because the lake was reflecting the sky I put in a 1 stop hard nd grad upside down to tone down too. This was the result.

The other side of the van was a large sandbank and I went up there for this second photo of the morning. It includes a view of Nellie with that lovely mist around the mountain in the background. This was probably the highlight of our short visit to Sweden as all we saw the rest of the time was miles and miles of forests!

It was 5.45 am when I went back inside and I was bordering on hypothermic! I slipped back into bed and warmed myself up on toasty Lynne! I had another hour in bed before getting up and putting the heater on to take the chill off the place. We didn’t leave till about 10.30 am. A little bit late really as we had a long distance to drive again. Within an hour we arrived in Vittangi (still Sweden) and found the supermarket where we stocked up on supplies. I was down to about 40 miles range so the next stop was the gas station round the corner. Once again I couldn’t work out how to pump gas so I went into the shop to ask. I had to stand in line while the attendant, a black guy, was tending two counters and cooking hot dogs at the same time. So he was taking money at two counters one for petrol, one for people buying groceries, and also cooking and selling hot dogs at the same time. Unbelievable! (My best Victor Meldrew). Meanwhile the place was quite crowded with the motliest crew of people I’ve ever seen. A bit of a freak show really. Plus they all seemed to be freaking giants! I know I’m not the biggest bloke in the world but I don’t think there was anyone in there under 6 foot 6”. After all that you have to pay outside, these places all seem to have one pay point outside which covers all the pumps on the forecourt! So that’s another £80 or so gone on diesel just so we could spend the best part of two days looking at millions of trees along the way!

Whilst not wanting to offend anyone from Sweden I’m guessing that this area we’ve driven through in the last two days isn’t typical of the rest of the country. I sincerely hope so anyway because we have every intention of visiting again in the future, probably somewhere like Gothenburg which we bypassed this time by going up through Denmark! Anyway, back on the road again and we started seeing wildlife again. We saw one Reindeer dead at the side of the road and a squashed fox in the middle of the road. I’m not sure if the Reindeer didn’t die of boredom because as beautiful as the forests are, I had begun to lose the will to live whilst driving through them! However as we approached the border we started seeing mountains and the landscape was suddenly looking more interesting. We looked at a couple of potential places to wild camp but carried on till the border with Norway and then found a place about 500 meters on the Norwegian side and settled for the night!

Today we took it easy. After yesterday’s exertions battling the elements, exhaustion set in this morning so we decided to get to Alta (about 2 hours drive) and get some chores done. We checked in at a site  about 10 kilometers outside the town. We paid 290 NOK for the night which included electricity. The only problem was when we got to the pitch the electrical connection was for a two pin plug not a three pin. We’ve had this problem at two other places but they’ve always had an adaptor to lend us. This time they didn’t have one we could borrow. The young lady at reception gave us our money back as the only reason we were there was to get power for charging  laptops and tooth brushes in the absence of the now useless generator! She also gave us directions to the town and a place where we could get an adaptor and off we went. I was convinced it would be a wild goose chase but when we got there it was an enormous shop selling all manner of car related stuff. With a little help from one of the girls in the shop it didn’t take long to find what I was looking for.

So, we returned to the campsite and handed over the money for a second time and went off to set up. The excitement doesn’t finish there though. Lynne did some washing (mostly my t-shirts) and I cleaned the van which involved about 6 trips across the site to get fresh water. All in all a quite chilled out day compared to some of the big driving days we’ve had in the past week or so. Tomorrow we will head off in the direction of the Lofoten Islands for what I hope will be a highlight of our trip. Stay tuned!

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!

Leaving our wild camp just outside Bjerkvik this morning we set off again heading north. We had a lot of rain in the night and the passing traffic was quite noisy but we both slept well anyway. The weather today was overcast with threatening clouds all the way but it stayed dry the whole day. There always seemed to be the promise of brighter weather up ahead, but it was only ever up ahead. Almost as if our progress was constantly pushing it away! The plan is to make it to Nordkapp in the next couple of days. I don’t think there’s much there. It’s more for the sake of being able to say we’ve done it than anything else and if we see nice things along the way, then that’s a bonus! We haven’t seen any Reindeer since the other day at the arctic circle visitors center.

As I write we are held up in road works for what a surly young man assured us will be 15 minutes. Miserable bugger probably pissed off about working on Sunday. Still, could be worse. We’re sitting with views down the length of the fjord with mountains either side for as far as the eye can see. Beats sitting in traffic on the Stratford Road in Birmingham! Anyway sure enough almost bang on 15 minutes later we were on the move again. The lead car led us through a tunnel where nothing appeared to be being done and soon after pulled off the road to allow us to continue with our journey.

We stopped off this morning at a Sami shop which was like a small group of teepee type tents with a wood burning fire inside that smelled wonderful as we walked in. The goods on sale ranged from Reindeer skins to expensive wood carvings and strange-looking tribal Indian dolls. They also had fur hats with a furry tail on sale.  I don’t know what animal they would have come from but it reminded me that as a small child I had always wanted a Davy Crocket hat! Weird the things you remember from your childhood. I even remember the song, Davy, Davy Crocket, king of the wild frontier! Amazing really, because my childhood was a really really long time ago!

The Sami people are an ancient indigenous people who inhabit an area known as Sapmi which encompasses large parts of Norway and Sweden, northern parts of Finland and the Murmansk Oblast of Russia whatever that is. It seems they’re best known for domesticating Reindeer if that’s the right way to put it. They’re known as nomadic herdsmen. When I started writing this paragraph I thought it would be interesting to give a little background on who the Sami were, not so sure now! Hey ho.

So, a fairly uneventful day of driving through more amazing scenery and we found somewhere to camp for the night at 4.00 pm. We actually had a conversation about whether it’s possible to become blasé about our surroundings as I feel we’ve got used to being awe inspired. Does that even make any sense? Well I’m sure you get my drift! As usual there are other motorhomes parked in the same area so we have neighbours. The strange thing is that as you’re driving most of the motorhomes coming the opposite way give you a wave as they go past. I was reluctant to do it at first because it felt a bit naff! After a while though it felt mean-spirited not to so I do it all the time now. However, when you wild camp none of them ever speak! Oh yes we’ll wave at you as you go by in the opposite direction but if we ever meet don’t even think about speaking to us! Nowt as strange as folk, as they say.

No really good photos today. I’d set myself a challenge to try to photograph something that wasn’t an epic vista but on the first day I failed miserably. Tomorrow we hope to reach Nordkapp. Really looking forward to that!  Watch this space!!