Second week
Monday:
Route: Fredvang - Storfjord
Weather: Heavy rain - cloudy - foggy - cloudy
Distance: 497km (4111km)
At 3AM I woke up due to the rain. My long underwear was outside "drying" (actually now getting wet). I felt too comfortable in my sleeping bag, so I decided to continue sleeping and deal the situation at the morning.
At the morning it just kept raining. Needless to say, but my underwear did not dry during the night :) Luckily camping ground had dryer, so got my clothes dry while enjoying breakfast.
I kept waiting if rain would stop, but finally around 11 I got bored and decided to pack my gear and continue my journey.
Lofot peninsula does not look so long if checked from the map, but with Norwegian speedlimits and pouring rain it felt really long. This would be nice place to see in good weather, but now only thing in my head was to get out of there before I would feel cold stream of water running in my back.
After I turned to E6 towards north, rain stopped. Roads were still wet, but now riding started to taste good again. I even got a change to take few photos during the ride.
I checked from my friend if he feels better now and is able to ride to north, unfortunately he was still suffering from fever and cannot come.
Couple of hours before planned camping, I stopped to get some groceries. When I stepped out from the store, I saw norwegian car parked next to my bike. There was young german couple in the car who commented that I am far away from Ulm. This young couple was helping their norwegian friends in a farm and told me that there is possibility to take shower and spend a night. I thanked them from their hospitality but told them that I still need to keep on going for couple of hours. Wow, really nice to offer traveller a place to sleep!
Called to another friend (who was planning to start tomorrow) and agreed to meet him in Alta on Tuesday. With this information, I started looking place to spend a night. Around 350km from Alta, I found nice camping area. This time I took a hutte (cabin), so that I could dry my tent.
Tuesday:
Route: Storfjord - Alta
Weather: Sunny - partly cloudy
Distance: 299km (4410km)
This morning, sky was blue without any clouds! Purpose for today was to get to Alta. Day started around 11:15. Road to Alta was partly deadly boring and partly nice curvy small road.
Today was dry the whole day, temperature was around 20 degrees. I spotted also first raindeers today.
I was well in time close to Alta so I stopped in Tirpiz museum. Tirpiz was huge 2nd WW german battleship.
Joona arrived 10 minuted after me to Alta. Quick stop to grocery store and then to the camping area.
Wednesday:
Route: Alta - Lakselv
Weather: Sunny - partly cloudy - rain
Distance: 426km (4836km)
Target for today was to get to Nordkapp to visit northernmost point of continental europe. Sun was shining from the clear sky, so seemed like a perfect dayride was coming.
Road to Nordkapp was normal 2-lane road, partly a bit twistier, partly straight. Nothing special. Today we had to be quite carefull, because there was lot of raindeers next to the road. Couple of times we had to brake quite hard to avoid them.
After arriving to Nordkapp, normal tourist stuff, photos, coffee and sms greetings. Place was on a quite high cliff, no trees, so quite rough surroundings. This is one of the "must visit once in a lifetime"-places.
Total distance from Ulm to Nordkapp was 4636km (route which I have taken).
From Nordkapp we decided to continue towards east. After reaching Laksel, it started to rain, so we searched cabin and stopped here for a night.
Right turnsignal does not work at the moment. Due to constant rain, contacts in the signal switch have corroded a bit, so most propably tonight I will fix this problem. Othervice, no issues.
Thursday:
Route: Lakselv - Sevettijärvi
Weather: Partly cloudy
Distance: 374km (5210km)
Today was riding day. No bigger plan, just to ride towards Kirknes. Road construction after Dan Brun. Roads were quite ok. Joona knew that Neiden is famous of recreational salmon fishing area.
Today we also crossed Finnish border. No border control, so just crossed imaginary line in the ground and arrived to Finland. First available camping was in Sevettijärvi. I guess sign "sauna" caught my eye :)
Camping was 10€ and sauna another 10€, expensive. Got a feeling immediately that we are getting screwed with the pricing, but agreed with Joona that tourist season is so short that price is ok.
Friday:
Route: Sevettijärvi - Kaamanen
Weather: Partly cloudy
Distance: 362km (5572km)
Road from Sevettijärvi was nice, small, ok surface and nice sceneary. Road followed lake Inari. We stopped to the intersection of E75-road and discussed if we should go towards south or north. We decided to go to nearest village, Kaamanen, have coffee and plan a bit more. We decided to rent a cabin, leave all gear to the cabin and go for a small day ride towards north with empty bikes. Main target was to ride along famous salmon river, Tenojoki.
E75-road towards north was boring, but not as boring as road from Karigasniemi to Kaamanen. This road had really long straights and basically nothing to see. While riding and trying to keep my focus in riding, I thought that it is no surprise that people have accidents here... I could easily fall asleep on top of the bike, road was that boring.
Saturday:
Route: Kaamanen - Ylivieska
Weather: Partly cloudy - few rain showers
Distance: 711km (6283km)
Target for today was heading to south, Joona to Oulu and I to Ylivieska. My brother was getting ready to head to Norway with his bike on Sunday morning, so I wanted to see him before his trip.
One fellow rider from Spain rode with us from Kaamanen to Rovaniemi.
Nothing special today, few raindeers and couple rain showers.
Couple of times during the day I got totally bored... Roads were absolutely, totally, completely boring, boring, boring! Long straights, boring curves, flat landscape, low speedlimits and nothing to see.
On the other hand, if a person rides only on these boring roads, then Norwegian roads must feel like real paradise... So, even I did not find Norwegian roads as nice as I had heard, they are curvy, close and really nice compared to finnish paved roads.
Today my bike passed 170 000km :)
During the coming week I will mainly visit friends and relatives, so no updates coming to a homepage.
