Nordkapp and the midnight sun

21/7/12

   When I road into town unloaded I got the front wheel stuck in one track the back went into another and the wet grass wasn't good enough for my bald boots to hold onto, so down I went second fall well moving, bugger. This time I actually broke a mirror of the bike but luckily it was the right hand mirror and I'm driving on the right so don't need it too much. Will look at changing it when I get to Poland, may not be too expensive there.

   Went to the camp ground in town to get a shower but their reception was closed until 18:00 and you had to pay at the reception to have a shower so decided to catch the ferry instead. Once in Senja island I headed to the first camp ground sign I saw, this took me over a hill to a village called Torsken. Meet some mad locals and ended up back at one guys place on home brew vodka mmmm.

The camp ground in Torsken

22/7/12

   Recovery from home brew vodka, I stayed in bed as long as possible then got up and had a pizza for breakfast/lunch/dinner.....

23/7/12

   Ran away before the locals could get any more vodka in me lol, even though it was raining and rained almost all day. I headed out for Finland and followed the Finland/Sweden border until there is a town either side of the river. Found a nice mosquito ridden place to camp for the night. Woke at about 3-4am freezing so got the other sleeping bag out and put my jacket over me, then woke up about 08:00 sweating like a pig. The sun has shown itself, I even took a video as I haven't seen it in such a long time.

Finland, 19th country so far

24/7/12

   After being cooked in my tent in the morning I headed out to do my master plan and the reason I was back in Sweden. This involved going to a post box near where I camped and posting a card, then riding the 1.4miles over the river to Finland and posting another card there, then heading straight (ish) north to Norway again and posting a card there, so the race is on. Who has the fastest postal service? Which will arrive first? Haahhhaa small things amuse me lol.

Dry roads but clouds where building

   The ride up through to Alta was actually really nice especially as the road was dry, first time in ages, and there where some nice sweeping corners going along a lake/river for a good while. I actually started to think I may see the midnight sun when I got to Nordkapp, that was silly wasn't it, but actually it started raining well before the tunnel to the island, bugger. The sun did just shine on the tent about 30minutes ago so you never know.

Lots of stones

25/7/12

   Packed up late, about 17:00, and started heading up to Nordkapp. I decided to go down every side road on the way to waste some time but still got here in the clouds at about 19:30. Then I waited, and waited and waited, finally midnight came and still raining,winding, cloud, mmm bugger. Just as I was about to leave at 01:30 I noticed that some crazy Japanese had put their tent up in the car park, mmmm, then the cloud lifted and I could see the whole car park and an Italian biker had set his tent up at the bottom of the car park, mmmmm. So yes I set up my tent too and decided to stay another day.

The camp ground near Nordkapp

The midnight sun, can you see it, just there between the rain drops

I'm really good with photo shop now i managed to put together this shot from all the beautiful photos i had taken, oh bugger i forgot to take the desk out...

What it was actually like

Inside there are some things to do, but after almost 3 days, well 3 hours really not much

26/7/12

Those crazy japanese, but what a good idea...

   When I finally got up after a very windy night in the tent, yes it got cold in fact so cold that I had to go the extreme and use every trick in the bag. Two sleeping bags, thermals top and bottom, head scarf over the eyes, the lovely socks an English man gave me in Torsken, laying on my mat and riding pants and jacket, and yes it worked I was warm enough. Waited all day sitting inside playing around on the laptop and at 23:30 it looked like we may get to see the sun, but, but not quite lol. The sun shone through onto the ocean near the cliff but never made it all the way to the top, it did make for some lovely colours and until the rain come in at midnight it was really nice.

 Monument to children, i could see it on the second night

Some lovely clouds, but no sun

27/7/12 and 28/7/12

   Another night in the tent in the car park and woke to a nice morning, sun shining enough to get the sun glasses out, shit I haven't worn them in ages. Unfortunately I was busy chatting to the Italian who was packing to leave and didn't get the tent up before the rain came in. So I'm sitting here on my laptop doing this and waiting for the wet to dry on the tent before I pack it.

   Spent the day playing games and watching BBC Documentaries (thank you Dreadlocks). By 22:00 it looked like I might get lucky but there was still a cloud bank on the horizon which I didn't think would be nice to me. At 23:00 I took a photo thinking there goes the sun behind the clouds, so chatted to some people for a bit as the sun more than half disappeared, but looked around after 15min and it was fully back again mmm nice.

About 17:30

23:06 thinking it is the last i would see of it for the night

00:00 yes i got it finally

   Finally at 00:00 got the all important shot of the midnight sun hheeehee was very happy to finally see it. Headed back to the bike after awhile to leave but decided I should get a photo of the bike with the sun, so moved it in a bit closer. Ended up chatting to a couple of other bikers for a while and they said they where going to get there bikes, so decided bugger it others had done it and took the bike up to the globe thing for some photos, this was about 01:15 so the place was closed, people still there and some even still arriving.

The bike with the globe

01:20 coming back up

   After a bit more talking and photos I road down to the town with the two other bikers, who where staying in a hotel there. Sorry guys you missed out after I left you. I was planning on riding down off the island and find a place to sleep down near the road out east, but the further south I got the more I though bugger this I want more, the roads where dry, the corners where lovely, and there was almost no traffic at all, this is at 02:00 ish. So I decided I would go for as long as possible, but the petrol was getting low so was hoping to find a 24hr petrol station, silly me I had completely forgotten that most where card only and so almost all petrol stations are 24 hr lol lots more, more, more. Man some one loves me full tank of gas 03:20 empty roads sun shining everything nice and dry mmmm I'm in love.

   I headed out east and up to Ifjord which ended up being a terrible bit of road for about 50km, and gave me a bit of a scare. Before the road got bad I was coming into a corner at about 40mph and spotted some lose stones on the road, this had been happening a bit so didn't mean much, I went wide of it in case anyone was coming the other way. Unfortunately there was a depression in the road which pushed me off the tar and onto the loss stones, now this bike isn't the best at stones, so ended up on the wet grass slope trying not to do anything silly like break and hoping there where no major holes or drain pipes in the gutter. Fortunately there wasn't anything like that until I was close to stopping when I noticed some big stones in the ditch, managed to stop just after the first lot and didn't even ripe the exhaust off the bike. It was a bit of a pain getting out but made it out to get a lovely shot of a lake just around the corner. That was a real sphincter shrinker.

Just off to the left where you cannot see is where i had the off road trip

Another big fishing area

See the flat peices added to the back of the boats, to help keep stable in small rapids

   I did get a bit worried about petrol when the Ifjord stations card reader was broken, but made it through to Tana Bru for more. Was in need of food when I got to Neiden which is where the road through to Finland turns off. The GPS had a petrol station marked but it wasn't, there was a shop but it was closed down, so I went to the camp ground and it was closed down. At an information sign I found another camp ground on the road towards Finland so headed out there, when there I said to the lady “all town closed, why is everything closed” and once she got someone who spoke a little English and I had said it again, all with an ice cream in my hand which I was going to buy, I was told everything closed because the border is only 5km more and there are shops and petrol there. So I put the ice cream back and headed over the border and yes everything is cheap enough that the 15km run from the village to Finland would mean nobody would shop there.

Closed down town, but still fish.

In closed down town.

Petrol sniffing reindeer in Finland???

I decided not to head back in to Norway to Kirkenes, about 60km towards Russia, and carried on into Finland. Of course it was now about 10:30 and I had been up for over 24hour so stopped at the first camp ground I found with the plan of riding out that night to enjoy the lack of traffic. Unfortunately when I woke up at 21:00 it was raining so I watch videos till about 01:00 on the 29^th then went back to sleep as it was still raining

 

29/7/12

   Actually slept in a bit which after yesterday is a bit of a surprise. But packed up and headed south, always south now for some reason lol. Finland has lots of trees, with lakes breaking the view quite often, and rivers connecting the lakes, all surrounded by trees lots and lots of trees. After Norway it all seems very flat but can have lovely undulations with some twists to avoid the lakes and rivers.

Sami Museum in Inari

And of course Santa is in Lapp land

   They seem to have the outback runways here like in Australia but wider, probably because it's trees either side instead of the Nullabor. Kept riding till about 21:00 when I found a bush camp near a river, finally it got dark for maybe 2 hours, I was asleep for some of it so not sure how long but it was nice to not have to put the neck warmer over my eyes to help sleep.

Finland outback runway

30/07/12

   Had to do a very quick pack in the morning as the mosquito's where really bad, but had left some gear on the bike, first time since Spain in 1998 when the bike fell over because I left gear on it. Luckily the bike was up right in the morning the weather was lovely and had a good ride down to Oulu, I decided to head down the west coast as I have not really seen much of the Baltic yet.

Oulu police always stay near a donnut shop lol

   From Oulu headed down the coast till I was about 350km from Tampere to camp. I stopped at one place towards the end of the day and the info sign said it was 21 degree C when I rode past it. Got a photo of a nice little island almost covered by a house, wander if they has heard of global warming lol.

Watch the water rise, up close and personal

   When I got back to the main road I stopped at a supermarket and the temperature had gone up to 26, this was in 20min. When I got to the camp ground I stayed at about a hour later it was 29, shit it seems so hot after Nordkapp which was around 10-11 at it's highest, not including wind chill. 

31/07/12

  Left the camp ground a bit late as only had 350km to get to Tampere, took a nice ride down the coast with a few diversions down dead end roads for fun, and to piss off the GPS lol, well it amused me and that is what matters.

Rest area about 100km out from Tampere, before it rained.

   Had a great ride weather wise, most of the way, got to one town and could see the rain right in front of me so was thinking shit I should stop, the I had to turn east and headed along the top of the rain so thought maybe lucky, then turned south again just as it started spitting but clear weather ahead so went for it and got... no rain hahhaa loved it. About 100km out from Tampere it started raining and then really pissed down almost had to stop as I could not see, but was at the bottom edge of the storm so stopped soon after.

  Was great to arrive in Tampere at Harri's, sleeping in a house again mmm nice.

01/08/12

   Well it was very nice sleeping in a bed again, have not done that since Oslo. Today is blog day, tomorrow shopping for new boots day.