71 10 21 and back

[Posh Pete]

This trip should really have started 3 years ago. I had planned to go with ArtyHexhead (riding pal Neil) using the commercial ferry from Immingham but had to pull out due to family commitments. Neil went on his own and loved it. Last year he went again but I had arranged to visit a biker meet in north Italy so AGAIN he went on his own and enjoyed it even more. So this year I faced a three line whip. No escape. Norway or bust!

Three weeks before we left: “Houston, we have a problem.” My lockup was broken into and my RT which I had been working on over the winter was nicked! Arrrgghhhhhh! However, UKGSER came to the rescue in the form of a 2008 Transalp owned by the sister of Dr Farkoff of this parish. I had been thinking of buying a Trannie anyway and this one fitted the bill perfectly with just a blown headlamp bulb plus a loose gearbox sprocket which was quickly fixed via a new locking ring at the Honda dealer in Upsalla. Here it is at Nordkaap ...

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Even Neil’s RT behaved itself this year and his final drive (replaced by BMW warranty in Bodo two years ago) remained intact.

However, it wasn’t the lack of bike gremlins that made the holiday, it was the weather. After viewing Boatman's experience of arctic weather in June, we took winter woollies, heated vests, sleeping bag liners etc. None of it was needed. Temperatures hovered around the high 20s for the whole three weeks and we had only two cold / wet days. The first when we crossed the Geiranger vidda, a high plateau in central Norway. The second, when we arrived at Nordkaap! B+gger me, the temp the day before had been 29 degrees C!

This won’t be a detailed day by day account. I’ll describe our itinerary and point out things which might be helpful to those who are planning a similar trip.

So here we are at Nordkaap.



And here we are with a new friend inside the visitor centre. Spot the Troll!

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(See below re the nationality of the guy in the background with the teflon coated twat suit!)

This semi subterranean building could easily be the set for the HQ of some sinister James Bond villain. I asked if it had been built by the military during the cold war. No. Hmmm …

It was good to make it to Nordkaap. It’s one of those bucket list destinations and there were certainly plenty of other bikers there when we visited. A bunch of Spanish GSers in particular drew our attention. They had the cleanest twat suits I have ever seen outside of a motorrad dealer’s shop! There were lots of cyclists also and hikers and on the way back through Sweden, we passed an Indian tuk tuk, piloted by a young woman, heading north in front of a blue haze of 2T. She must have been heading for Nordkaap.

If I was returning to Norway though, I’d give Nordkaap a miss and stick to the spectacular scenery of the fjordal region in the south / mid west coast and possibly the Lofotens. The scenery there is pretty impressive....

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More to come ...

 

[Posh Pete]

Can you afford a trip to Norway?

Norway has a rep for being expensive. It can be. Very. If you cannot resist the urge to drink alcohol while you are there then fatten your wallet. If you want to stay in hotels all the time. Ditto. If you insist on eating out for every meal. Likewise.

However, if you camp and bring a deal of (dried) food with you and avoid the bevvy then Norway need not be prohibitively expensive. Here's some of the stuff we took, also tea bags and coffee grounds for a small coffee maker, muesli bars, oatcakes etc. the pound sterling is now stronger against the Scandic currencies and that helped too.

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In our case, the ferry from Harwich to Esbjerg was around £150 each way. That option will not be available next year but, with the additional fuel to get from cheaper routes to Ijmuiden or Rotterdam to northern Denmark, the overall cost will probably be similar. Then you need to get from Hirtshalls in N Denmark to Kristiansand in Norway. The fare is cheaper, the earlier you book. Ours cost around £40 each for a comfy seat. (you can squat if you want but it’s a lengthy journey.) Then you need cash: I took around £450 in Norwegian, Swedish and Danish Kroner and came back with enough for a couple of beers on the ferry home. A fair chunk of this went on ferry crossings within Norway and on tolls on the way back such as over the Oresund Bridge.

Credit cards can be used for almost anything in the Scandic nations, including most campsites. I used a Saga Platinum card which, most importantly, charges no fee for non sterling transactions. I’ve just got the second bill in and the total debt I ran up was around £700. The card is interest free for over a year by the way.

So, for a three week holiday (two weeks in Norway), the total bill was around £1500. That includes ferry there and back, incidental ferries and tolls, petrol costs, camping, food etc.

So, is Norway expensive? Judge for yourself. But how much would you pay to wake up to a view like this …

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[Posh Pete]

Camping in Norway

Hotels in Norway can be seriously expensive. Fortunately, campers are well catered for. Maybe a bit too well as the roads in the tourist areas are crammed with German and other European wobblyboxes.

Prices will vary according to the number of tents, people, bikes etc. However, according to my cc bill this one http://www.mjelvacamping.no/e_index.html cost £16.98 and this one http://www.kystferie.no/?lng=en £18.03. That was for a single shared tent but I think the prices are pretty much comparable with the UK. Where you score in Norway, is what you get for your cash. The quality of showers, toilets etc is never less than good. In some cases, the quality is exceptional. This place for example http://booking.lofoten.info/en/accommodation/a499484/kabelvag-feriehus-camping/photos is owned by a HD riding plumber. You can imagine that plumbers are at a premium in Norway and this guy had invested much of this in his camp site. The showers, kitchen etc were better than anything I’ve ever seen in the UK or abroad and if I had been able to take them home, the notoriously picky (where ablutions are concerned anyway) Mrs Scotboxer would have been delirious!

In addition to the normal showers, toilets etc, Norwegian (and Swedish) campsites have additional facilities which are especially handy for us bikers. Nearly all have kitchens where you can cook your meals using THEIR gas and leccy rather than your own fuel. (If that seems overly parsimonious remember that gas canisters etc take up space which can be used for other things.) More important, if the weather is poor, then you can take shelter in these communal facilities rather than lie staring at the inside of your tent. They are good places to blether with other campers and get info about places you intend to visit in the coming days.

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Pal Neil relaxing in heat of around 30c in Bodo. The campsite buildings behind him contain the usual kitchen, laundry and communal rooms you find in every Scandic campsite[/COLOR]e.


If you are unlucky and the weather is so bad as to make camping unthinkable, then you have the option of hiring a “hytte”. Given the heat wave we experienced, we only did this twice: once after reaching Nordkaap because of the cold and damp and our own tiredness. And once in northern Sweden when the prospect of putting up a tent among clouds of ferocious mosquitoes was simply unthinkable. The first was a wee two bunk room, the second a holiday home which would have accommodated a family of 5 or 6. Price in each case was based on the two of us so in each case, it was around £30.

It’s well known that wild camping is permitted in Norway. It’s known as “Allemannsretten” (everyone’s right). You are supposed to keep away from private houses though. I think the distance may be 50 meters. (Even Norwegians we spoke to were unsure about the exact distance!) Given the number of commercial sites and their excellent quality overall, wild camping does not make much sense unless you have to. I noticed that lay bys which contained chemical toilet disposal facilities were usually arranged so as to inhibit camping. Still, it is possible to find toilets in Norway which would put a UK motorway service area to shame. Many if not all of these are in scenic places and no one would object if you wild camped and used the facilities, provided of course that you left things as you found them. We stopped at this place on the scenic Telemarksvegen towards Rjukan from Kristiansand. There was an immaculate wc in stainless steel and not a piece of litter. The ideal spot for wild camping if it had been 100 miles or so further on our route.

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Neil and I wild camped only once and that at the recommendation of Ulf, a Norwegian biker we chatted to on a ferry.

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Ulf took us to a location next to a fjord where there was a stone hut containing stainless steel WC, hand basin AND shower with plenty of hot water. It was a public facility for bathers using the swim raft and diving platform by the fjord nearby. Just perfect.

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[Posh Pete]

Which route to take?

Which route to take? The answer to that question depends on a number of factors of course. If you have only a limited time available and want to tick off the Nordkaap then you may have no choice but to hammer up the E6. Being a major route though, it is heavily policed and full of trucks. If at all possible, go for the coastal route which is how we did it. You can't cover ground quickly but then again, that's true of all of Norway. What you can do is relax, enjoy the scenery and use the numerous ferry stops to chat to the locals, get information about the route ahead etc.

This restored Citroen got my attention at one ferry stop. The driver had paid for the restoration rather than doing it himself. A lovely, lovely car.

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You need one essential item of equipment for all those stops. See if you can spot it on Neil's bike here.

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Did I mention the scenery?

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And chatting to the locals ...

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In addition to the ferries, the Norwegians have invested huge sums in bridges on the coastal highway. When we crossed this one, the wind speed indicator was at 40mph. One of the caravans ahead of us lost its skylight/ventilator. I don't mind admitting to being a bit, ok, more than a bit apprehensive on the approach. When we got onto the bridge however, by some miracle of engineering, the wind speed or rather its effect, had dropped considerably.

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Albeit a little further south is that bridge you may have seen on the BM advert and the a Hairy a Bikers' prog ...

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[boatman]

Glad you guys got lucky with the weather !!!

 

[Posh Pete]

Glad you guys got lucky with the weather !!!

Yep. Have to admit your experience was commented upon more than once between us Symon. In the nicest possible way of course.

9 times out of 10 we'd have had a similar experience to yours but happy to have the once in 42 year heat wave!

 

[Ash]

Enjoyed the report and pictures.....

 

[Posh Pete]

Just remembered that I had not finished this report. How did we get to Norway?

We did not want to do Scotland to Harwich in one blast, so headed for the Caravan and Camping Club site in Cambridge. Well kept but expensive. More so than most of the Norwegian sites we were to visit. When we arrived, we got a good night's kip and then headed into the city next morning. Arty wanted to visit the Scott Polar Research Institute / Museum. We chose the one day it was closed ...

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In the afternoon, we headed for Harwich and the ferry. An evening meal / pig out on the all you can eat buffet and then a sound night's sleep. Next day, a blast up the motorway took us to Hirtshalls. Out came the all important accessory while we awaited the ferry ...

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We had booked seats on a ferry via this outfit. Other ferries are available. As mentioned above, it is possible to squat (literally perhaps) but it was too long a trip for that in our opinion. The aircraft style seats are comfy and we spent a good deal of the trip chatting to a Norwegian guy whose English was close to perfect.

We arrived late and this is the southern tip of Norway, so it was pretty dark. However, AHH had the campsite marked on the sat nav and had been there before, so it was a matter of only 5 minutes to get there. On the way, we passed a road crew (many of whom were female) laying new tarmac on a night shift. Not the last aspect of Norway's public service provision to impress on this trip!

If you are in Kristiansand then a good few hours can be spent at the Cannon Museum. This is a monster naval gun (same size as those on the Bismarck, Tirpitz etc) which the Germans set up to command the entrance to the Kattegat.

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Our route then took us inland, headed for the Heavy Water plant at Rjukan, target for various allied sabotage, bombing raids during WW2.


The campsite in Rjukan was the only site in Norway which failed to impress us. Facilities were poorly thought out and the camp site itself was a good distance downhill from the kitchen, showers etc. it was owned by a couple from the Netherlands ...

From Rjukan, we headed north west via the Hardanger Vidda, the high massif in the middle of Southern Norway. This was the only time save for the approach to the Nordkaap itself that we had to get the waterproofs out.

The fjordal region in the south west of Norway is spectacular and worth the trip on its own. It includes, the world's longest tunnel ...



The Geiranger fjord

and the Geiranger Trollsteigen. It's a pass on a par with any in the Alps or the Dolomites ...

For my money, the fjordal region is the best part of Norway. If you want to scratch the Nordkapp itch then by all means do so. We did. But if you want to experience some of Europe's finest biking roads and impressive scenery then ... "go south west young man"!

 

[tyclyd]

Cracking report - I agree as per my trip in 2013 - I am going again in 2015 and looks like a ferry might be the options - any one else looking at Reginalines... http://www.reginaline.dk/timetable-uk.html

 

[Khulu]

It was back in 2006 when I spent two great weeks touring all three Scandinavian countries myself. I enjoyed the longest tunnel but some of the corkscrew ones were a bit dodgyer! The bridges and scenery (including glaciers)were fantastic and I also went to Nordkapp and would have missed some great roads if I hadn't! That also included going along a road with a herd of reindeer so I had to buy a skin from the local Sami people. A great time and I camped every night and cooked my own food in great facilities - mostly campsites but also a couple of rough camping nights. Food was horrendously expensive and don't even think about buying alcohol! Bring back the ferry!