Spain to Norway on a Bike Called Reggie

by Andrew P. Sykes

  —

  The winding route along the coast had managed to turn a direct 35 km into a cycle of 86 km. I couldn't remember if, when working out my estimated distance of 7,500 km for the entire trip, I had taken the twisting nature of the journey in northern Norway into account. Arriving in Bodø, my cumulative kilometre count stood at 6,734. Were there only another 750 km left to cycle to Europe's most northerly point?

  Cycling as far as Bodø felt much more significant than crossing the Arctic Circle. Until a few days before arriving at 66°34', I would have been hard-pressed to pinpoint the Circle accurately on a map. Bodø was different. Both Bodø and the southern point of the string of Lofoten islands were easily identifiable on a map. They had been on my mind for months, arguably more than Nordkapp itself which, in my consciousness, remained a distant outpost at the point where Norway stopped and the sea started.

  So, it was with a modest sense of satisfaction that I rolled down the long finger of land at the end of which Bodø and a ferry to the islands were located. As with many other towns through which I had passed along the coast, Bodø was a functional kind of place. It was clean and tidy but ultimately a little drab, with no easily located spot where a casual traveller like me could sit, glance around and imagine what life might have been like prior to about 1950. The architecture of the second half of the twentieth century dominated.

  Despite earlier inclinations towards finding a hotel, the lure of the tent was too great and Bodøsjøen Camping, on the other side of the 3 km wide peninsula of land, turned out to be a good place to spend the night. By the time the light had stopped making an effort to get any dimmer – I hadn't experienced real darkness for some time – the free camping area was packed with perhaps two dozen campers, most of them travelling by bike. I chatted to a Danish architect about the buildings I had seen in Oslo and then, unsurprisingly, Hans and Veronika arrived, and I spent a little time with them. They were becoming welcome familiar faces whenever I chose to stop.

  'I can charge you more if you want,' explained the man selling tickets for the ferry the following morning.

  I had just expressed surprise that, for the 100 km crossing to the Lofoten islands, I would only have to pay 186NOK, or around £17. The ferry itself – the Landegode – had something of a French highspeed TGV train about it, with a pointed bow and a somewhat less effective long blue go-faster stripe along its edge. I lashed Reggie to the unnamed bikes of Hans and Veronika, who were also on board, and settled back in a comfortable armchair for a leisurely, if a little bumpy, cruise across the Norwegian Sea.

  Upon arrival on the Lofoten islands, I was keen not to cycle with Hans and Veronika. I liked them a lot; they were good, interesting and fun company but my preference, as is almost always the case, was to cycle alone and interact with others when we happened to meet up at the end of the day or at pit stops along the way. As I cycled down the ramp and off the ferry, Hans and Veronika had already set off and when I saw them turning left in the direction of the curiously named Å, I was happy to turn right and start the long journey back towards the mainland via the fragmented string of islands. We would meet up again, no doubt, at some point in the future. That said, I did wonder why they were cycling to Å. With such a brief and alphabetically challenged name, it could surely only be home to scores of taxi firms and skip hire companies.

  The Lofoten islands were immediately distinctive. The mountains remained a dominant feature of the landscape but whereas on the mainland settlements had grown to cover broad lowland coastal strips, here on the islands there were no broad lowland strips to expand into. The small settlements were limited to narrow pieces of land by the coast or had been built upon small offshore islands, linked to the larger islands by bridges and causeways. The mountains rose steeply to heights approaching 1,000 m within a piece of lake-dotted land that was, at times, barely 5 km wide.

  Just as they had been for much of the previous day or so, the peaks were shrouded in mist. Smart buildings, predominantly reddishbrown but sometimes yellow, orange or green, were strewn along the shore in a chaotic yet pleasing fashion. Numerous wooden jetties linked small windowless sheds to the sea where fishing boats, small and large, bobbed silently on the water. Many of the sheds had been built upon stilts – half on rock, half in the ocean – and next to most of them were unpainted wooden platforms. These were the frames for the drying of cod and they would become a familiar feature of the landscape over the next few days.

  Once the immediate rush of traffic from the ferry had disappeared into the distance, the tranquil charm of the Lofoten islands returned and for the next couple of hours I was able to indulge in a thoroughly enjoyable ride along the coastal road north. The distinct look and feel of the islands had injected a shot of excitement into my veins. This was Norway but not quite Norway as I knew it.

  THE THIRTY-THIRD DEGREE

  68°–69° NORTH

  17–20 July

  The cluster of islands along which I was cycling was split into two groups: the Lofoten to the south and west, and the Vesterålen to the north and east. I would cross from one to the other by taking a short ferry from Fiskebøl to Melbu, with all of the other constituent islands being accessible via bridges and tunnels. The plan was an easy one: continue to follow cycle route 1 as far as Andenes before catching another ferry back to the mainland.

  The Lofoten islands were not lacking in campsites so as I continued my journey north from the ferry, I wasn't concerned about finding one when the time came for me to pull on the brakes and pause for the night. That moment arrived at around 4 p.m., after having cycled just 30 km. It was now rare to come across a campsite that didn't cater for people who wanted more watertight accommodation, and the Ramberg Gjestegård was no exception, having rooms in the main building as well as small cabins facing out to sea. There were, however, a good number of campers and I squeezed my own tent into one of the few remaining patches of green grass within spitting distance of the beach. And what a beach it was.

  Sitting on sand dunes with my eyes closed, listening to the gentle lapping of waves on the sand was rarely anything other than a joy. It had been a favoured leisure activity during the previous three and a half months of travelling. Yet the dunes at Ramberg were no place to sit with your eyes closed. Concentrating solely on the auditory pleasures would have been time misspent, as the visual ones were equally soothing.

  Had I been immune to the temperature, I could have been easily fooled into thinking that I was beside the Caribbean rather than the Norwegian Sea on a cloudy day. The long white beach curved away to the north with parabolic precision. A band of fine, offwhite sand was sandwiched between the greenery of the shore and a transparent turquoise sea. The waves were rolling gently over the beach and, in the distance, on the far side of the semicircle of sand, was a small line of white, pale green and light orange houses. The mountains beyond completed the almost perfect tropical vista. The day's cycle had already answered any questions I might have had as to why the Lofoten islands were so popular with tourists; the beach and its surroundings made me wonder why there weren't even more of them around.

  I then heard screams and turned to see a tanned couple in their sixties running across the sand in the direction of the sea. Both were dressed for a beach holiday in Barbados rather than one nearly 200 km north of the Arctic Circle. They were being followed, rather more sedately, by a group of fully clothed friends who were cheering them on. As they arrived at the water's edge, both the man and the woman dived into the ocean and more screams ensued.

  I had become accustomed to getting cold and wet on the bike, but couldn't imagine how utterly chilling such a swim might be. I wondered what was being celebrated. Retirement? Marriage? A significant birthday? Or even the end of a great journey? Whatever the reason, the leap into the Norwegian Sea must have been a memorable one. Assuming I made it to Nordkapp, I had my own celebration approaching. What would I do? Diving from the high cliffs that I had seen in photographs probably wasn't an option. Yet it w
ould be nice to mark the event with a reward to myself in some way, shape or form.

  The next morning, I was inside the campsite restaurant tucking into a pastry, drinking coffee and staring out of the window, trying to predict the weather for the day. It remained cloudy but of greater concern was the wind and my eyes were focussed upon a thin Norwegian flag hoisted high on a post at the entrance. It was far too horizontal for my liking, its end whipped around by the gusts. What's more, it was pointing south-west. By unhappy coincidence, I had a day of cycling north-east ahead of me.

  I concluded that I needed to wrap up and so, with three layers beneath my windproof jacket, a beanie on my head, a Buff around my neck and long trousers covering what remained, I set off into the wind. However, this proved to be a rather rash decision, as within the hour, with the sun beginning to shine through the rapidly disappearing clouds and the temperature rising, I stopped to de-layer. After four days of on-off rain and cloud, I was hopeful that the weekend ahead would be climatically blessed. Dealing with the wind as I cycled was a price worth paying for the good job that it was doing, blowing the unseasonal weather south.

  The beach beside the campsite at Ramberg had been exceptional but by no means an exception. Even when the necessity to keep moving along the chain of islands took me a little inland for most of what remained of the morning, the sights around me were still more than sufficient to keep a souvenir shop well stocked in postcards. By the time I arrived in the small town of Napp, I was visually exhausted. What followed was something of an antidote.

  I had already cycled through numerous tunnels but up until this point they had all been through mountains. I had yet to cycle through an undersea tunnel. I knew that in order to access the island of Nordkapp at the very end of my journey, I would need to travel through a 7 km undersea tunnel. The prospect of doing so was somewhat of a daunting one, not so much for its length (although it would, I imagined, be the longest of the cycle through Norway) as for its depth. It was over 200 m below sea level. Whereas tunnels through mountains were, in general, built on the flat or with only a gentle gradient, I had a 9 per cent gradient to look forward to at either end of the Nordkapp tunnel. It was something that I had been trying to blank from my mind.

  At least the undersea tunnel at Napp would give me an insight into cycling in such a hostile environment. At 1,780 m, it was much shorter than its counterpart near Nordkapp and also much less deep, at only 60 m. But with a maximum gradient of 8 per cent on each side, it was barely less steep. Before entering the tunnel, I double-checked that I had the right to be there (yes, no signs telling me that cyclists were banned, I was still on the cycle route and there were no alternative bridges or ferries), turned on my lights and plunged into the semi-darkness.

  The good news was that the tunnel, especially the road surface, was much drier than those I had previously encountered. Slipping and the consequences of doing so didn't bear thinking about. There was, however, a fair amount of traffic in both directions and the noise was beyond unpleasant. The gradient kicked in immediately, although initially my issue was with keeping my speed down rather than up. All seemed to be going well.

  As expected, at the halfway point, the gradient started to reverse and more effort was required. I slowed to a gradual plod but maintained my position to the right of the roadway. I sensed that a large vehicle behind me had also slowed and after a few moments I dared to take a glance to my left. It was a coach full of people from a cruise ship. I couldn't understand why the driver wasn't passing me, as the gaps between oncoming cars were large. Then, just as the lorry driver had done in the previous tunnel, he gave a long, deafening blast of his horn. This in itself could have knocked me off poor Reggie but I remained vertical, albeit with my heart racing for all the wrong reasons. Eventually, the driver passed me. I saw him glance in my direction and raise his eyebrows. What had I done wrong?

  Worse was to come. Behind the coach, a short queue of cars had developed. They had no hesitation in passing, and zoomed off at speed and at close quarters. Idiots. Except, that is, for the final driver in the five-car queue. He slowed to my speed, pulled up beside me, lowered the passenger window and shouted at me in Norwegian. He was looking straight at me – one hand on the wheel, one hand remonstrating in my direction. I had no idea what he was saying but he was clearly not a happy man; he appeared more focussed on giving me a piece of his mind than on looking at where he was driving. A few more seconds passed and then he too sped off up the gradient of the tunnel. The encounter had been as bewildering as it was frightening.

  I had done nothing wrong. I had the right to be in the tunnel, was clearly visible and kept to the right. Some of the tunnels I was to make use of in the coming days had buttons at their entrances for cyclists to press and illuminate a warning sign. This one hadn't. The mystery as to why the drivers were so irked with my presence and my actions remains a mystery to this day. Answers, as they say, on a postcard.

  The goings-on in the tunnel had dented my mood somewhat but as I progressed north and east, the width of the Lofotens increased and much of the traffic chose alternative routes. Shortly after Leknes, I bumped into a cyclist called Brad. We had exchanged emails earlier in the summer about cycling through Norway. His plan was to cycle from Nordkapp to Bergen with his girlfriend Anna and earlier in the week, in our most recent exchange of messages, it became apparent that our paths would cross somewhere on the Lofotens.

  'Andrew?' I heard someone shout from the other side of the road.

  We got chatting.

  'It's been sunny but cold further north,' he explained, 'and Nordkapp is very different from the fjords, green valleys and snowcapped mountains down here.'

  It was inevitable that I would ask about the Nordkapp Tunnel.

  'It was hard, especially as it was our first tunnel. The steepness, the darkness, the noise; I had the feeling we'd be squashed every time a vehicle approached.'

  He added that to get to Nordkapp they had taken a flight to Oslo, another to Trondheim and a final one to Honningsvåg. Three flights with bikes? The inconveniences of flying with a bicycle – the dismantling, the wrapping, the idiosyncratic rules of the airlines – are not to be underestimated. I was having palpitations at the thought of just one flight, never mind three.

  After our chat we continued in our respective directions; his and Anna's wind-assisted, mine most definitely not. Much of what remained of the day was spent imagining what the final ten days of the cycle would be like: Nordkapp, the tunnel, the weather, the landscape and that looming journey back to the UK.

  I camped near Kabelvåg on the southern side of the Lofotens. The site wasn't anywhere near as stunningly located as the previous one by the beach but served its purpose. In the morning I felt tired and my back was aching. The few kilometres into the centre of the town were a real struggle but coffee and a couple of pastries had a vaguely therapeutic effect. I really couldn't see cycling day 88 turning into one of epic proportions but I eventually set off again on what was rapidly developing into a drizzle-infused, gloomy day. So much for the previous day's wind blowing everything south.

  My final 40 km on the Lofoten islands were quiet and subdued, although the now much less touristy hamlets and villages were still worthy of slowing down for and admiring. The buildings were becoming less pristine but that did at least suggest the isolation and remoteness you'd expect of northern Norway.

  Upon arriving by ferry in the port of Melbu, it was immediately obvious why the Lofoten islands pulled in the punters to a much greater extent than the Vesterålen. The most striking difference was the height of the mountains, which no longer dominated every view. Large, flat areas by the coast had been given over to farming, although it seemed a harsh place in which to earn your living from the land.

  Taking a short detour into the centre of Stokmarknes to find food, I was surprised to find a large boat sitting not beside but on top of the quay. It was small by cruise ship standards but a curious sight nevertheless. On its bow was its n
ame, the Finnmarken. It was initially a little difficult to work out what it was doing there but I then noticed a sign: Hurtigrutemuseet.

  Way back in April near Burgos, in northern Spain, you may remember I met a chap called Peter who used to work at the BBC World Service. He was one of the first people to tell me that he had been to Nordkapp. 'How did you get there?' was the obvious question. 'On one of the Hurtigruten ships,' he replied. Such was his enthusiasm for travelling on the Hurtigruten that he had done so three times. Locking Reggie outside to a lamppost, I went inside to investigate the museum.

  The Hurtigruten shipping line had been founded in Stokmarknes in 1893 and it operated a dozen or so ships between Bergen in the south and Kirkenes close to the border with Russia. Each ship had exactly the same route and timetable, and they operated all-year round, ferrying people, goods and even the mail from port to port along the coast. The service stopped at 34 ports and a voyage from Bergen to Kirkenes took about six days.

  As I wandered around the scale models, decommissioned bells, posters, costumes and all other kinds of nautical curiosities, I could feel myself being sucked into the romance of life on board one of the 'coastal steamers'. 'The World's most wonderful voyage' extolled one of the old adverts. I imagined it still was. Could I have found my perfect post-Nordkapp way south? It was very tempting.