North Cape Adventure
North Cape Adventure
Ask yourself, why travel thousands miles to stand on top of the world.
Norway, derived from the word ‘Nordvegr’ or ‘The Way to the North, which describes Norway’s location at the northern most edge of Europe. The route leads you through a variety of different landscape and climate zones, far beyond the Arctic Circle, up past 71st parallel where the cliffs of the North Cape mark the end of Europe. The myth of the north has attracted countless travellers for centuries, so we joined a group organised through the Camping and Caravanning Club to tour Scandinavia. The route taking us through Northern Germany, Sweden, Finland, Norway and back to finish in Denmark.
We drove from home in Worcestershire via Calais to Rosenfelde on the Baltic coast some 30km north of Lubeck, where we met up with our travelling companions for the next 46 days. Our party consisted of our Dutch guides in a caravan, one trailer tent, and 13 motorhomes - one of which had come all the way from Gibraltar.
Our first major stop was the delightful city of Stockholm, with the Town Hall, Noble Prize centre, the Vassa historic ship, and old rural buildings museums being the highlights of our guided city tour, the Abba museum not being for us!
Then, travelling north past Sweden’s Golden Gate bridge via Stenovagen, Solleftea and Arvidsjaur, with their nearby ancient rock carvings, the spectacular rapids at Storforslen on our way to camp in Lulea to cross the Arctic Circle, the start of the area of the midnight sun and on to Rovaniemi in Finland, stopping at the nearby Kukkolankuski rapids by Torio. Here we watched the local fishermen building flimsy fishing platforms to fish for salmon using very long handled nets, an ancient method of fishing passed down through the generations.
Travelling on, with a ceremony when we crossed the Arctic Circle and a visit to Santa - searching the countryside for elk and reindeer and the heavens for eagles. Finland-Lapland is one of Europe’s jewels. It’s a land of lakes and splendid magical scenery and treasures. There’s a certain kind of mysticism in the air and is worthy of much longer stay.
Here the native people - the Sami - have many museums - (it was easy to get ‘museumed out)- and souvenir shops to support their income from the many tourists, most of whom are in motorhomes. Then there were those on motor bikes or bicycles loaded with full panniers front and back- how the latter managed to ride the hills was, and is still a mystery to us – very few pushed them!
Our next port of call being Inari and over border to Russenes in Norway, where we visited a Sami museum and churchyard - the graves were covered in reindeer moss- a very moving experience.
This was followed by a walk to see the very different rock formations at Kolvik before travelling to our campsite at Honningsvag, the most northern town on the European mainland.
It’s from here that the following evening we reached one of the pinnacles of our trip, North Cape and midnight found us eating cake and drinking champagne kindly provided by one of our party. The huge cliffs boast thousands of puffins, auks, kittiwakes, gannets, cormorants and white-tailed sea eagles. But life underwater is even more vibrant than in the air, the ice-free borders of the Arctic Ocean are so full of plankton that they attract some of the largest shoals of fish in the world.
The experience bought back memories of James Cagney in the film White Heat shouting, ‘’Made it, Ma! Top of the world,’’ and there were so many motorhomes parked up at North Cape that as you approached it reminded you of the scene in Independence Day when the vast armada of motorhomes crossed the desert to Area 51.
On our way back down south we visited Ovre-Altra to see more prehistoric rock drawings and then on to Tromso, visiting the Polar Museum and a spectacular view of the town from high on the mountain road. It was here that we visited the most Northern brewery in Norway sampling a few of their 400+ ales. The weather up to this time had been the hottest on record with 30+ degrees being common for the day. But travelling to our next tour highlight the weather broke. The day’s drive to Stave on the Lofoten Islands was through one of the most torrential storms we’ve ever driven through, the storm actually being the main item on their TV evening news. Thankfully this was the last rain we encountered until we were back in England.
The Lofoten Island Archipelago, known for its dramatic, breathtaking, unforgettable scenery, with impressive alpine mountain pinnacles jutting up to the sky, arctic fjords, waterfalls and tiny fishing villages are a joy. Other interesting sites included the fishing villages at Ao and Henningsvaer.
It’s also the place to watch whales. Sperm whales frequent the great deep gorges of the Arctic Ocean to feed off the abundance of fish. Having not seen such creatures before it was a great experience going whale watching and seeing them dive, showing their powerful tail flukes off with pride close to the boat.
Our next stop south was the Namsos Fjord to visit Trondheim with its spectacular modern cathedral. After a splendid lunch we spent a very interesting couple of hours in the National Museum dedicated to the deaf, housed in the former boarding school for deaf children in northern Norway. It was a fascinating place showing the culture and language of the deaf with a focus on communication and understanding their disability, with videos in sign language with captions and sounds, as well as objects to provide an insight into the history and advances made to improve the life of people with profound hearing loss.
Our last museum of the day was the Resistance Museum depicting the events of the sinking of the German battle cruiser Tirpitz eventually sunk by a Barnes Wallis ‘Tallboy’ 12,000lb bomb in November of 1944 in the nearby Skjomen Fjord.
Travelling on two ferries to Bud on the coast via the Atlantic Way we arrived at Andelsnes after a very long day. Here we stayed a couple of days, walking through the Romdalhorn valley, famous for its high cliff mountaineering exploits and the town, which, in Victorian times, the British aristocracy put on the map as a centre of Salmon fishing. The quaint hotel they stayed at for months at a time is still unchanged though now catering for tourists with different interests. Another day we travelled back to the coast to Alesund. This very pretty town is built on a row of islands, rebuilt with houses in the Art Nouveau style after a disastrous fire in 1904 and should not be missed. Within its quirky museum, you can visit ‘Uroed’ –‘ Fearless’- which Ole Brude plus his three man crew in 1904 sailed to New York in this self righting boat, and so were able to prove that their design was the solution to saving lives at sea – influencing the design of the modern lifeboat. Plus there is also a picture postcard panoramic view to enjoy high above the town.
On leaving Andelsnes we travelled via Lom for the night before driving up the Trollstigen mountain pass and onto the Geiranger Fjord, seeing Norway at its best.
The pass twists through 11 hairpins as it climbs up to Stigrora (at 858m above sea level). In some places it’s cut into the mountain and in others the road is built out on stone walls, with an impressive bridge which carries it across the Stigfossen waterfall. At the top there is ample parking at the impressive viewpoints to admire the scenery of this, one of the 10 ‘must drives’ in Europe, if not the world. The road then meanders over the mountains to another spectacular descent pass to Geiranger.
This is very touristy town where many of the large cruise ships moor in the fjord. The road then trails up through some very twisty tunnels cut up through the mountains - not recommended for faint hearted drivers. Then continuing, stopping at many viewpoints and waterfalls on our way through the Sognefjorden Pass, a very pretty drive and on to the campsite overlooking the fjord.
Now nearing our tour end travelling to our last campsite in Norway at Gvarv in Telemark country via the, ‘Hero’s of Telemark’ museum in the power station at Rjukan. It’s here where the sabotage, action and filming took place telling of the attempt to destroy the plant providing heavy water for the German nuclear bomb programme during the latter stages of the Second World War.
Here we watched tourists bungee jumping from the bridge over the river canyon. The following day we travelled via the ferry to our last campsite and goodbyes to fellow travellers.
It was sad in many ways to finish such a memorable trip. The whole group got on very well with everyone joining in the discussion of the day’s journey in the evening, all imparting their different memories. None of us will forget the evening Pétanque tournaments and the skittles matches.
Although some of the campsites were more like building sites due to bad weather not enabling essential repairs and improvement to be completed in the spring, all had hook up and clean facilities.
Fishing in Scandinavia is wonderful whether in the rivers, lakes, fjords or at sea, I enjoyed them all – as a keen fisherman I was in paradise. 
Whichever route you took, you encountered many – ‘manuell dirigerings’ - which translates to road works. Waits of twenty minutes between traffic light changes were not uncommon on mountain roads or during tunnel maintenance.
From door to door we travelled almost 8000 miles, many on ‘off piste’- gravel roads - which were often far more scenic than the suggested route, with diesel costs of £1321, averaging 35.5mpg, a chip repair on windscreen and a fractured radius bone, these thing happen!
Would we do it again? No, but only because we’ve been there, done that. Plus we are well travelled, from Poland in the east to Morocco in the south, and being retired have plenty of time to plan and look forward to another adventure next year.
Charles and Jen Deverill.