Roundup

Ok, so the lack of decent coverage up north in Finland/Norway prevented my clever little plan of uploading bon mots and pics while roaming around.

Anyway, my adventure was splendid, thanks. I picked up a motor, and when the GPS thing told me I could be in Nordkapp in as little as 4 and a half hours, I was sold. The drive up there was blissful, lovely straight roads on the Finland side, which undulate up and down, while remaining straight as a die. Good fun, and you're inevitably surrounded with woodland and lakes...it being Finland.

Really glad I went up through Norway - the trees thin out a lot...no appreciable tree coverage, so the landscape gets much starker and more austere. And this means you can see things, which a lesser wag may distil down to "you can't see the countryside for the trees". Accurate, but a little weak.

Going through Norway you see these townlets with a quasi-existence as former (current?) fishing and military places, with added portacabin style hotels to cater for the coachloads of morons heading to Nordkapp etc. Most of my driving in Norway was 1-3am...consistent sunshine throughout. Really eerie. I have pics and video I'll stick up when I can. The guy at Nordkapp said the previous night had been stormy, so it was a huge plus that it was quite clement, and you could cheerfully stroll around looking at the sunsetrise at 2am.

Oh, loads of reindeer as well - I can well see how they have loads of accidents here. My world-renowned road sense and pangolin-like reactions saw some action where a reindeer just ambled into the road to see what his mates on the other side were doing, or more commonly you'd just encounter half a dozen stood/lying in the road who'd look at you with rather the same kind of disdain one is used to from camels and dowagers.

The last stretch, say 25km, to Nordkapp is different again - you climb up and across Peak District like terrain - very severe, and with numerous broad patches of snow in the clefts and grooves. The ground must really stay cold, as the air's only 7 degrees or so. Seriously, you get to the tourist magnet at Nordkapp, and there are people huddling around like it's twenty below. It isn't, it's seven degrees, with a bit of arctic breeze. I was wearing linen trousers and no gloves or hat, and I was fine. The linen trousers were a bit of a sartorial mis-step, I'll grant you that.

The video will show just how many people are at Nordkapp. Ridiculous. Armies of coaches and motorhomes, from all over the place. I did notice a couple of big BMW bikes with GB plates and said hello - 3 northerners (1 couple*) who'd ferried over to Stavanger and were doing a 7000 mile loop through Nordics and a bit of Russia. Very cool.

Few details - it's not cheap to get to Nordkapp. Hired a car which turned out to be a 1.9N TLD Passat estate - perfectly nice motor, with one of those funky new keys that's just a lump. Are they new? New to me. That with the GPS (frankly unnecessary as there aren't many options roadwise, but worth it for the "Continue on this road for 160 kilometeres) came to E140...for a day! My rapid driving up and steady driving back came to 3-4 tank of fuel, E75 (fuel is pricey in Finland...I'm still not sure if it's cheaper in Norway...hang on, I've checked and it isn't. Good. It was 13 kronor odd (E1.62), and Shell had it for E1.45 in Ivalo. Score one to Sleath.). Then there was the toll tunnel to get to the business end of Northern Norway - 145 kronor EACH WAY. It's a bit steep charging both ways, but on the other hand the tunnel is incredible. 7km long, and you go down and down and down, then come up and up and up. 200 metres odd displacement vertically. It goes under the edge of a fjord. And it's massive! If there were a nuclear strike, if they covered half of its length up to the roof with prefab housing, they'd get a good chunk of their key people** in just this one tunnel. This thought occurred to me during the drive. I did get a bit bizarre on the journey...confined space, own company, Norwegian radio, sleep deprivation...it's to be expected.

Hang on - to be continued

*Ok, there were 3 people, 2 of which were a couple. The couple was on one bike, and there was another guy on the other. I am NOT trying to suggest that 3 people constitutes a perfectly normal "Northern Couple". We are not that different, except in areas such as inclement temperature resistance, frugality and pragmatism.

**Stunt drivers, mime artists, glamour models, op-ed writers, comic impersonators, project managers and sudoku composers. Actually some of those would be useful.