North Cape road trip

We made it. Well, not strictly. I made it. The Toad, sadly, could not get all the way. Having arranged - or so I thought - to drive right up to the globe monument that is meant to mark 71 degrees north, permission was denied by the Visitor Centre. So Toad had to wait outside.  Was it worth it? To be honest, not really. Many feel Nordkapp is a bit of an anticlimax. It is a 1000 ft high cliff, and that's about it.  But it is symbolic - the northernmost point of mainland Europe. Except that it is not. It is not on the mainland but on an island connected to the rest of Norway by a five mile tunnel that runs almost 700 ft under the sea. And it is not the most northerly point anyway: that accolade belongs to a headland just to the west that is only accessible by hikers but is around a kilometre further north. And the true mainland northernmost point is 80km east. Somewhere a long way over on the other side lies Russia. That's an exciting photo. B...

I am rather chuffed. Today I finally got in to the R&A. But more of that later. Two fjord crossings would take us to Alta, a nodal point in the far north, and we would then turn north to Hammerfest. I saw these outside the next door room this morning. I would be somewhat surprised if the SmartHotel Tromso offers a boot cleaning service (I thought that leaving one's shoes outside for cleaning was a thing of the distant past) but perhaps the owners of these trainers felt they needed a good going over with Cherry Blossom and a fine buff. I hate to think of the depravities that went on in that room. The day was sunny but cool, turning decidedly chilly when we got into the tundra. Shortly after leaving Tromso, we took the two linked crossings from Breivikeidet and then Lyngseidet, a shorter and more attractive route than following the main road. There are worse places to wait for a ferry to arrive. And here are some shots on board. Then it was s...

Lofoten was bodywarmer and coat-cold when we left this morning, driving the length of the islands, turning east just above Narvik and making for Tromso.  Around half of the Lofoten road is a designated Scenic Route, and there was some lovely stuff to lap up. At one point, we came across (thankfully in the other direction), a close convoy of 23 motorhomes and a coach. The Toad has a good many of these painted on its side but overtaking that lot in one go on Norwegian roads might require a Stage 3 upgrade. It is difficult to imagine a better setting than Tromso's. One arrives from the south over a magnificent bridge and the views on either side are wonderful. Will this do? After looking round the city (pop. 72,000, Norway's eighth largest. For comparison, the 89th largest town in England is a third more populous) we walked back over the bridge to look at the Arctic Cathedral, which dominates the skyline. An entire w...

It is not often that one feels good to be alive, but this morning was one of them. I had to leave early to catch the ferry from Agskardet if I was to reach Bodo in time for my 11.00 crossing to Lofoten. If the latter half of yesterday was superlative, the drives from Jektvik and then from the other side of the ferry to Bodo exceeded it for eye-turning scenery. I could have stopped for photos every mile. It is the final and best stretch of what is often considered the finest of the Scenic Routes. We passed  snowbound mountains of the Svartisen ice sheet (this  view of the glacier tongues dropping down off the icefields towards the water was taken just after the ferry from the road alongside Holandsfjorden) the same, plus Toad to islands, islets and skerries too numerous to count. It was not all beauty. A rose between two thorns Anyway, we got to the Agskardet ferry in good time. Not a bad view while we were waiting.  The...