Nordkapp Adventure (2 Viewers)

[Sundowners]

Nordkapp Adventure – 25.5.13
Had a good trip through north Europe to catch the ferry at Travemunde for Malmo, Sweden. Traffic too fast on the motorways in Germany for us though. Ferry almost empty, spent the nine hour crossing in a first class lounge and really had the ship all to ourselves. Spent the last two nights camping by the sea and were given a couple of garfish by local fishermen which soon went on the BBQ. Weather was glorious yesterday and have just been told the weather for the next week should be between 20 & 25 degrees, can’t be bad.
Writing this in McD’s at Halmstad on the coast and now heading inland on E26 heading for Jonkopping on our way north.
Hopefully more later.
Nigel, Pamala, Garry & Chris.

 

[Rob and Val]

Very envious. Sun is shining in Lincolnshire today, for a change, but it's not very warm.

Hope you have a wonderful time. Looking forward to hearing more of your adventures.

 

[Mel]

Please send some of your wether here {Urgent}


Have a good trip.

Mel & Lieve

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[bobandjanie]

Sounds lovely. Wish we were there! Thetford is sunny with a coolbreeze. Had three layers and gloves on when I ventured out, so much better than yesterday though! Do not hurry home! Jane, bob and Izzy

 

[Forestboy]

Hi Guys sounds great that's our next big trip. We're heading off to Alaska in 2 days

 

[Landy lover]

Really jealous - as you know we had hoped to do Norway this year - however we have just got the ideal vehicle which we have been looking for for a while now- hope all goes well and have a great time

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[Gooney]

Nordkapp Adventure – 25.5.13
Had a good trip through north Europe to catch the ferry at Travemunde for Malmo, Sweden. Traffic too fast on the motorways in Germany for us though. Ferry almost empty, spent the nine hour crossing in a first class lounge and really had the ship all to ourselves. Spent the last two nights camping by the sea and were given a couple of garfish by local fishermen which soon went on the BBQ. Weather was glorious yesterday and have just been told the weather for the next week should be between 20 & 25 degrees, can’t be bad.
Writing this in McD’s at Halmstad on the coast and now heading inland on E26 heading for Jonkopping on our way north.
Hopefully more later.
Nigel, Pamala, Garry & Chris.

I've caught a few Garfish when working in the Gulf, they didn't taste too bad but the bright green bones put me off

 

[Pat4Neil]

Hi Guys
Glad all is going well, free dinner too, lol the fish on the bbq.

Keep in touch as its great to hear about new places.

Pat and Neil

 

[JockandRita]

Hi Pamala & Nigel, Chris & Garry,

Good to hear that all four of you are enjoying yourselves.

Keep the updates coming, and have a great time everyone. :thumb:

Safe travels,

Jock & Rita.

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[Onderweg]

Hi Nigel, Pamala, Garry & Chris.

Today we arrived in Sweden and at the moment, sunday evening May 26th we are in Ullared which is about 70 km away from Halmstad
Tomorrow we will visit the cheapest warehouse in Scandinavia: Gekas in Ullared and after that continue up north.

We dont know yet which road we will take but we will pass Mora which is on the E45 as well

We might use a dutch campingsite at Johannesholm which is about 35 km south of Mora.

Have a great trip
Paul and Ineke

 

[SteveandSue]

Travels to Nordcapp

Hi- pleased to hear everything is going well, we are in Finland at the moment,travelling round the National parks.
The weather here is hot and sunny, we have only had one days rain since we left the Uk 5 weeks ago.
:Cool:
Hope you enjoy Nordcapp

Steve and Sue

 

[Sundowners]

Nordkapp Adventure 2
Enjoying a great trip up the middle of Sweden on the Inlandswag Road. We are at Ostersund on our way to Stromsund on the E45, where we join The Wilderness Road, a 300 mile detour. We hope to find a nice spot in the forest by a lake where we hope to camp up for about a week, try our fishing skills and cooking our catch on the campfire, where we will also experiment cooking bread in a makeshift camp oven. The weather is glorious and is said to be like this for the next week or so, when the temp. will drop to 15 degrees.
Took a scenic route today driving through mountainous areas with beautiful scenery and snowcapped mountains.
Having trouble finding lpg places to fill our bottles, not needed yet, but would have liked to top up before heading bush. Will have to boil all our water on the campfire for washing dishes and clothes and showers, and also cook on it, so will save some gas. Diesel equivalent to £1.45 per litre, very happy with that. Went to a grocery store yesterday and the prices again were not as high as we expected. Haven’t got to Norway yet, supposed to be high prices there, will update you on that when we get there.
Plenty of places to camp for the night, used a few aires, getting water and dumping no problems.
Roads have been excellent, started to get some frost heaves (where the road is effected by frost and leaves ‘sleeping policemen’ type bumps, but you can see them in plenty of time as the trucks leave tyres marks for you see.
Haven’t seen any wildlife yet, keep looking out for moose, but they probably become more active around dawn and dusk, might not see them until further north. It got dark around midnight last night and it was light at 2.30 am – soon be light all night long.
We lit a campfire last night and sat round it till about 11 p.m. it was a lovely evening.
That’s it for now – after camping in the forest we will be heading North to Kiruna, then on to Senja, Norway to hopefully meet up with Dave & Pat (Snowbird) and Steve (Norway an RVOC member). Can’t remember if I mentioned this in previous post, so excuse us if we repeat ourselves.
Thank goodness for McD’s.
Till next time.
N,P,G & C

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[Onderweg]

Hi Nigel, Pamala, Garry & Chris.

We are at Johanesholm near Mora at the moment and you will lose us as your shadow soon. We will continue a bit further north and than go to the south west coast of Norway just below Trondheim.

We have not been there for ages so w'd better refresh our memory :thumb:

Its a pity you have not seen much wildlife sofar, but we are sure you will see many many reindeer soon.
We have seen two moose many many deer and one fox

Have fun

Paul and Ineke

 

[Sundowners]

Nordkapp Adventure 3
Yesterday we left our idyllic camping spot which we were hoping to find on our trip. We stayed 5 nights. After leaving Stromsund we travelled on a dirt road, parallel with The Wilderness Road and was hoping to find a spot alongside a lake to do some fishing, but, unusually couldn’t find a pull-in big enough for the two of us to camp up for a few days, we went down some tracks while Garry & Chris waited just in case there wasn’t enough space for them to turn around beings they are towing a trailer, but couldn’t find a thing, eventually deciding to head for an aire that we had marked on the map before leaving the UK. On the way we had to cross a dam and saw a small track on the left and us being the scout truck went to have a look, and there it was, our ideal spot we had been looking and hoping for. We were fully loaded with fuel, water and food, enough to last quite a few days, especially if we cooked on the campfire and used the water from the lakes for washing clothes and dishes.
The weather has been glorious, we mustn’t complain, we know, but the temp. reached 96 degrees for two days, now that is just too hot for comfort, thankfully it cooled down in the evening and was good to sleep. Overcast today, but gives us a bit of relief, but supposed to be turning warm again.
It’s such a shame we don’t know how to post pictures, as we would love you all to share what we are seeing.
We would have no hesitation in coming back, the people here are so friendly and accommodating, the roads are good, well signposted, we love the countryside and we have even seen some wildlife, one moose yesterday and another today. We are sure our camping spot had been frequented by bears, we believe we saw evidence that had left behind, have to have that confirmed as yet. Nigel saw a wolf leaving the waters edge at our camping spot.
The campfire has been a success, even cooked a loaf of bread in our makeshift oven, heated all the water from the lake we needed for showers, washing etc. Plenty of wood to collect in the undergrowth for the fire.
Yesterday we camped by a waterfall, fantastic/spectactular, today after hooking up to the tourist information offices wifi at Gaddede, we are heading north on The Wilderness Road to a mountain pass that has just been opened (opened early due to the heatwave that we have just had).
Fuel here today is £1.44 per litre. Food in shops only slightly dearer than the UK, in actual fact, we think some things are a little cheaper, all depends what you buy. Only seems to be one chain of supermarket around here – ICA, have everything in there for what we need. Must remember to stock up before going into Norway in a few days time.
That’s all for today folks, until we find internet again.
N,P,G & C

 

[alfandM]

its nice to read that your enjoying Sweden, as i have said on many occasion there so much on offer up here,its just to come an see, if your traveling our way on your return your very welcome to drop in, we are 1hr 20mins east of ostersund on high way 87, and if any other Funsters are around just pm us ,t pot always on,alf and m

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[Sundowners]

its nice to read that your enjoying Sweden, as i have said on many occasion there so much on offer up here,its just to come an see, if your traveling our way on your return your very welcome to drop in, we are 1hr 20mins east of ostersund on high way 87, and if any other Funsters are around just pm us ,t pot always on,alf and m

Many thanks for the invite - on this trip we are returning through Finland - it's more than likely we will be back as we love it so much, so please keep invite open.

 

[SteveandSue]

Hi - we are spending some time around Rovaniemi area - spending about another week in Finland before travelling back through Sweden. We are pleased temperatures have dropped - mozzies are now really active - !!!!
If you need any tips travelling down through Finland we would be happy to help
We have seen lots of wildlife including reindeer and moose - avoided hitting any of them to date LPG - we filled up half way upthe East cost - Sundsvall - bloody expensive though. We have checked out a garage in Pitea and they had LPG - abuot a euro litre from memory - and we passed one other place further south
Steve & Sue

 

[alfandM]

Many thanks for the invite - on this trip we are returning through Finland - it's more than likely we will be back as we love it so much, so please keep invite open.

that goes with out saying,T pots always warm,enjoy Finland, We Did,all the best alf and m:thumb:

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[middle east driver]

sounds like your all having a good trip hope it all goes well for the rest of your time keep us iposted on it all brings back some memorriesin my trucking days take care all mervyn

 

[JockandRita]

It’s such a shame we don’t know how to post pictures, as we would love you all to share what we are seeing.

Just as we'd all love to share what you are seeing too.

It all sounds very idyllic, but exciting too. :thumb:

Stay safe everyone.

Cheers for now,

Jock & Rita.

 

[Addie]

Nordkapp is a bit of a tourist trap, so consider a walk to Knivskjellodden the 'real' most northern point and look over and pity the poor people who paid 50 euros or whatever to enter Nordkapp!

Some more info on our blog here (the tunnel to Nordkapp has since paid for itself so its now free): http://www.europebycamper.com/2011/06/nordkapp-knivskjelodden.html

Paul and Sheila went more recently than us, this is their account:
http://www.langdale-associates.com/finland_2012/part_7/index.htm

See the route below we logged from our walk - set off at 6pm and arrived back at 1am in perfect sunlight! Yellow is our walk to the most northern point, you can just make out the road on the right hand side which isn't quite as far north. We stayed overnight in the

and here is what you find at the top (Nordkapp in the background!)

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[Pat4Neil]

Hi

Glad its going great, the fishing spot sounds great, and glad that its not proving too expensive at the moment.

Its really great to hear about your travels and what a good time youre having.

Pat

 

[Onderweg]

Hi Nigel, Pamala, Garry & Chris,

This is the shadow you lost speaking

We have been at a lovely wild spot at the Norwegian coast near Osen for about 5 days, caught a lot of fish (we have to watch out to avoid growing gills oh

Today we are back in the civilized world, we are at a little camping in Afjord with free Wifi.

We are heading for Kyrksæterøra to do some boat fishing after that we will leave Norway via Røros and Femundsend. (Euro 5.30 for twenty eggs is shocking )

At least that is what we are thinking now :thumb:

Hope you have noted the coordinates of that lovely spot and are able to share it.

Have fun

Paul and Ineke

 

[Sundowners]

Have finally found out how to put some pictures in the gallery - not worked out how to add to post yet.

Have a look at 'members gallery' and you will find some of our pictures and we have even added a description.

Hope you enjoy.

Update on our travels will follow tomorrow.

Nigel and Pamala - PS It's 5 past midnight here in Norway and sun is still shining.

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[flatpackchicken]

Bump, so members can now see the photo's of our trip, Regards Garry Flatpackchicken

 

[bobandjanie]

Thanks for sharing those photographs, all are interesting and some are stunners! What a beautiful place and what a great adventure, love the outdoor cooking! How did Garry get on making one of his 'Apple Pies' ? Do not rush back you lot...you will only be disappointed if you do. Our best wishes, Jane, Bob and Izzy

 

[JockandRita]

>>Nordkapp Adventure Album<<

Totally agree with Bob & Jane re the images in the album. Absolutely stunning and superb. :thumb:

Nice to see you taking your turn at doing the dhobi Nigel.

Stay safe all,

Jock & Rita.

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[Destination Unknown]

Hi Guys

Just caught up with this thread. Spectacular photos and thoroughly enjoying the updates. Whats the roads like for RVs cos gettin a taste to do more.

Enjoy and keep on with the updates

Regards Brian and Chris

 

[flatpackchicken]

Hi Guys

Just caught up with this thread. Spectacular photos and thoroughly enjoying the updates. Whats the roads like for RVs cos gettin a taste to do more.

Enjoy and keep on with the updates

Regards Brian and Chris

Hi Brian and Chris, All the roads are suitable for RVs here, some very narrow with passing places but 44t 15.5m artics come down here, also the whole of Sweden and Norway can take RVs no problem, but can be very expensive if you come up through Norway, so we came up through the center of Sweden and entered Norway right at the top of Sweden into Narvik. Fantastic journey , fantastic scenery, great company what more could you want. Only one problem for RVs here is the black tank dump, there are none on the roads and layby's and rest area's only the cassette type in toilets and proper dump toilets, so you MUST have a macerator and hose then all ok. Only other problem we have encountered is the lack of LPG in the northern part of central Sweden, otherwise all perfect for RV holiday and all the rest area's have room enough for the biggest or RVs even with a trailer on. Regards Garry Flatpackchicken

 

[Sundowners]

Nordkapp Adventure 4


After sending No.3, we left to continue our journey on The Wilderness Road. We were heading for the mountain pass that had recently been opened. Spectacular views and quite a bit of snow still on the sides of the roads, even had a snowball fight, well the boys did (boys will be boys). This is a well known tourist route, however, the holiday season had not started so some things were not open, we were hoping to visit Hilda and Herbert, the mooses, but their little baby had just been born and it was too early for us to visit. We are amazed at the many night stopping places to camp at, most have their own fire pit and some even have their own supply of logs, donated by the locals of that area. It’s so nice to stop early enough to light the fire and cook our evening meal on it, then just chill and chat around it in the evening. We took pans for the campfire with us from the UK, but unfortunately, didn’t have a frying pan without a plastic handle, so we came across a secondhand shop (quite a few here and there – Loppis is what it is known as), the owner was just off to a food competition, he had with him a deer heart treat and a drink made of the local berries, so we rushed in to see what he had and we found just the thing, a brass and copper frying pan and he only wanted the equivalent of £2 plus we bought an wrought iron stand which we thought might come in handy on the fire - £1. We have used the frying pan but not the stand yet. The pan worked a treat.


Water is not a problem in Sweden, every garage has a tap and they are more than willing to let you fill up – the tap is hidden in a heated cupboard for keeping the frost off in the winter. There is so much water in Sweden, they would never have a hosepipe ban. We have had no problem dumping the black tank or cassette, but a word of warning this is only at toilets on the side of the road, in laybys and some parking places. If you have a black tank, you will certainly need a macerator, if you intend wildcamping and not going on sites, a lot of these toilets are longdrops and chemicals are a definite no no.


We reached Vilhelmina, the end of The Wilderness Road for us and headed north after stocking up with fuel, food and water. We saw very little wildlife on the route, we saw two mooses and a herd of deer, but we were especially disappointed that we did not see a bear as this was supposed to be a heavily populated area for them. We heard that a Sami (Lapplander) had recently been attacked by a bear, it had got into the compound where they were herding deer and was frightened and couldn’t get away, then attacked him quite severely, thankfully he survived, but with massive head, leg and arm injuries and he was still in hospital.
We had taken our time travelling over the last few days, sometimes only doing 50 miles in a day, but now back on the main route north E45 will got over the miles a lot quicker, as we were now on our way north to the Arctic Circle at Jokkmokk. We drove into a heavy storm, thought we had seen the last of it the night before, but no. It was really heavy rain, almost to the point where we were thinking of pulling over and letting it pass, but we kept ploughing on, but it turned into hail, quite concerned that the hail, if got any bigger, might have damaged something on the motorhomes. It was so heavy, it seemed as though snow was laying on the ground, you can see a picture in our gallery. We were hoping the rain would ease off before we got to the Arctic Circle so that we could all get out and have our pictures taken in the sun, haha! When we reached it, it was still pouring down, so we decided to stay and have lunch until it eased off a bit, it took a good couple of hours, we almost decided to stay there the night, but thankfully it eased off enough so some piccies could be taken, and we had to follow suit of other travellers by putting a Motorhome Fun sticker on the sign along with the many others. See if you can find it on the photo of the Arctic Circle sign in our gallery pictures.


We were getting excited about reaching Kiruna, a town just before the Norwegian border, it has a very big Iron Ore Mine which sends 15 million tonnes every year by train to Narvik, Norway for shipping out. We were hoping to see into the opencast mine, which is supposed to have been obsolete since the 60’s, it’s tunnelled nowadays, but couldn’t get anywhere near it. We were told to make sure we top up our supplies before heading into Norway, which we did. We were also told not to take potatoes into Norway, you could be fined heavily for this, probably due to potato blight. Chris was also carrying a little fir tree she found in Sweden and had been nurturing, we were concerned that this might also be an issue at customs, so this was offloaded to the bush somewhere. On quite a hot day in Kiruna we did our shopping at the largest supermarkets we had seen in all of Sweden, fully loaded we headed west towards Norway. Once we started climbing into the mountains, the weather changed quite dramatically and soon we were driving in heavy rain again, and unfortunately the clouds were covering the mountain tops, but the scenery was gorgeous, nevertheless . We came to the Norwegian border, had our passports ready for customs, only to find no one around. We were concerned about a stock of firewood we had with us, so we went into their offices to ask if it was OK to take it in, the response was ‘a couldn’t care less really look’ which surprised us, they were not concerned about anything and there were no checks. It was around 5 p.m. when we found a nice camping spot on the side of a mountain about 20 miles from Narvik. We knew there to be an LPG place here, so we decided to top up before we went any further, LPG is not so readily available in northern Sweden on the inland road, but we knew of some in Norway. Not many in the northern parts, so we have decided to top up whenever we get the chance, especially as they aren’t supposed to be any in Finland, however, we have been keeping touch with Vera(a Motorhome Fun member who is travelling there at this moment and she has told us of a couple of places).


We have been keeping to the local Swedish speed limits for us being over 3.5 tonnes and and for Garry towing a trailer – 48 miles an hour tops on the open roads, but then coming into Norway, we find we can only travel at 42 miles an hour, that’s difficult to get used to.


We left the mountainside in the morning only to find that the LPG place is shut on Sundays, we thought it would be at a garage. So we spent the night on the harbourside. Early start for us, arriving at gas place at 7.30 a.m. Bought it at Kr7.50/lt – works out at around 86p/litre, didn’t think price was too bad for Norway. Stocked up with a nice fresh loaf at the co-op Kr20 (we got Kr8.64/£)., filled up with diesel Kr.13.63/ltr (we have been told that you get more miles to the gallon as the fuel here is more pure and it certainly seems the case as we got more mpg and that is with driving on the mountainess roads, we then headed for the local cemetery as we wanted to have a look at war soldiers graves – it’s incredible how badly hit Narvik was in the 2nd World War (34 ships sunk in the harbour during the war).


Our next destination was Flakstadvag on the island of Senja, where we were hoping to meet Dave & Pat (Snowbird) and Julie and Steve (Norway) at some point, didn’t know if our times would co-incide, but hoped they would. After about 100 miles travelling through beautiful scenery we left the main north/south road and took a left turn towards Senja, the road took us on very narrow winding bends, quite a few hairpin bends as well and through two very basic tunnels (one you can only describe as a tin tube, literally). The last 20-30 miles was very exciting, saw what looked like black ice on the inland lakes when we finally reached our last tunnel and went through it only to find the most wonderful vista, this was to be our stopping place for the next few days. We headed down to the sea shore and found the campsite. We were the only ones to book in and had the place all to ourselves. Unfortunately, Dave and Pat’s circumstances means that we will not be meeting them here and when we finally got in touch with Julie and Steve, we found that they were leaving the area the next day as they wanted to find some warmer weather before returning to their home in southern Norway and going back to work. This helped us to decide whether to stay here or not. It is such a nice place that we had no hesitation in deciding to stay for a week.

We are parked overlooking the fjord watching the fishing boats go out daily and there is also a salmon farm in the harbour and just out in the bay. Tried our hands at a bit of fishing off the harbour, but caught nothing yet to write home about, but there is still time. And wouldn’t you know the weather has turned out to be just fine, the sun is shining day and all night, but we have at times a chill in the wind, but we know that keeps the mozzies at bay. Got all the washing done and dried and now just enjoying our time here. We have also been joined by a couple of motorhomes from Germany, one of whom treated us to some cooked flounder they had been lucky enough to catch today.


We will carry on enjoying this while we can. If anything exciting happens we will give you an update as we have wifi included in our campsite fees of Kr200 per night (16 amp leccy also included).


Until next time .........


Nigel, Pamala, Garry and Chris.

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